I said in yesterday's post, in which I announced a year-long celebration of the 25th anniversary of deciding to rank my films each year, that I wanted to post my rankings from before this blog came online, as an additional means of keeping them safe from the caprices of fate.
I've got 12 to post, so might as well get going.
Ha! I just noticed I can do one per month.
I decided to go chronologically backwards rather than chronologically forwards, for no good reason. I was sort of inspired by Filmspotting, the podcast I have listened to the longest, who made it a recurring feature to go back and consider their top five films from the years before they started the podcast, since they discussed all their new favorites of each year on the podcast (as I do here on my blog). They decided to start with the first year before they started and go backwards, so I'm doing the same.
(Technically speaking, these are my 2007 film rankings in early 2008, not 2007, but I thought that made it too confusing for anyone who looked at the title of this post at a glance.)
As a reminder, the idea behind this post will be to post the rankings as they were that year, for posterity and for your consideration, then show the films in the order they are currently ranked on my Flickchart, which is implicitly an accurate representation of what I think of them today. Following that will be a little analysis.
There's no direct correlation between which lists I'm posting each month and which couple #1 movies I'm watching that month. As I said in yesterday's post, I intend to rewatch those #1s in random order, based on my moods, leading up to the year-end ranking of all 26. These lists will appear in reverse chronological order. Some month, the two will probably accidentally overlap.
And yes, I realize this is a pretty deep trip up my own asshole. Hey, your reading time is yours to do with as you see fit. Who am I to argue if you choose to spend it here?
Here are my 2007 film rankings as determined on the date these rankings were closed: January 22, 2008.
1. There Will Be Blood
2. Once
3. Juno
4. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
5. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
6. Sicko
7. Away From Her
8. Into the Wild
9. Alpha Dog
10. I Am Legend
11. Atonement
12. Noise
13. Margot at the Wedding
14. La Vie en Rose
15. Bee Movie
16. Beowulf
17. Knocked Up
18. Surf's Up
19. The Living Wake
20. Charlie Wilson's War
21. The Golden Compass
22. Bug
23. The Host
24. Paprika
25. Ratatouille
26. I'm Not There
27. The Savages
28. Persepolis
29. Zodiac
30. Grace is Gone
31. Stardust
32. Grindhouse
33. Music and Lyrics
34. The Ex
35. Next
36. The Simpsons Movie
37. Balls of Fury
38. Michael Clayton
39. 3:10 to Yuma
40. Hot Fuzz
41. Black Snake Moan
42. Transformers
43. A Mighty Heart
44. Superbad
45. The Jane Austen Book Club
46. 28 Weeks Later
47. Waitress
48. Awake
49. No Country for Old Men
50. Sunshine
51. 300
52. The Namesake
53. The Invisible
54. Lars and the Real Girl
55. Live Free or Die Hard
56. Resident Evil: Extinction
57. Breach
58. Disturbia
59. Arthur and the Invisibles
60. Arctic Tale
61. Premonition
62. Miss Navajo
63. Ghost Rider
64. The Number 23
65. Meet the Robinsons
66. Happily N’Ever After
67. Smokin’ Aces
68. Day Watch
70. Eagle vs. Shark
71. The Nanny Diaries
72. Southland Tales
73. American Gangster
74. Fracture
75. The Darjeeling Limited
76. 30 Days of Night
77. The Heartbreak Kid
78. Death Sentence
79. Shooter
80. Civic Duty
81. Epic Movie
82. Captivity
Only 82 movies! What a rookie I was back then. It's more than double that now.
And here's the order those movies respectively chart today on my Flickchart, with their overall ranking and percentage in parenthesis, as well as how they have moved up or down within the 82. Numerical ranking is out of 5763 movies on my chart.
1. There Will Be Blood (57, 99%) 0
2. Once (76, 99%) 0
3. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (102, 98%) +1
4. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (168, 97%) +1
5. Away From Her (343, 94%) +2
6. Juno (351, 94%) -3
7. Into the Wild (370, 94%) +1
8. Atonement (371, 94%) +3
9. Beowulf (514, 91%) +7
10. Alpha Dog (646, 89%) -1
11. Sicko (732, 87%) -5
12. The Living Wake (741, 87%) +7
13. I Am Legend (751, 87%) - 3
14. La Vie en Rose (869, 85%) 0
15. Bug (877, 85%) +7
16. Margot at the Wedding (886, 85%) -3
17. The Golden Compass (902, 84%) +4
18. Charlie Wilson's War (972, 83%) +2
19. Surf's Up (1007, 83%) -1
20. Bee Movie (1079, 81%) -5
21. Zodiac (1120, 81%) +8
22. I'm Not There (1132, 80%) +4
23. Ratatouille (1149, 80%) +2
24. Noise (1196, 79%) -12
25. The Simpsons Movie (1310, 77%) +11
26. Grindhouse (1330, 77%) +6
27. Knocked Up (1476, 74%) -10
28. The Host (1675, 71%) -5
29. Black Snake Moan (1703, 70%) +12
30. Balls of Fury (1735, 70%) +7
31. Music and Lyrics (1817, 68%) +2
32. The Savages (2029, 65%) -5
33. Paprika (2031, 65%) -9
34. The Ex (2188, 62%) 0
35. The Jane Austin Book Club (2228, 61%) +10
36. Stardust (2258, 61%) -5
37. Hot Fuzz (2475, 57%) +3
38. Persepolis (2556, 56%) -10
39. Grace is Gone (2705, 53%) -9
40. No Country for Old Men (2776, 52%) +9
41. Michael Clayton (2783, 52%) -3
42. American Gangster (2849, 51%) +31
43. The Invisible (2857, 50%) +10
44. Transformers (2912, 49%) -2
45. A Mighty Heart (3009, 48%) -2
46. Next (3129, 46%) -11
47. Superbad (3329, 42%) -3
48. 300 (3406, 41%) +3
49. Resident Evil: Extinction (3437, 40%) +7
50. 3:10 to Yuma (3464, 40%) -11
51. Sunshine (3808, 34%) -1
52. Waitress (3909, 32%) -5
53. Premonition (3926, 32%) +8
54. Miss Navajo (4023, 30%) +8
55. Awake (4033, 30%) -7
56. Arthur and the Invisibles (4098, 29%) +3
57. 28 Weeks Later (4111, 29%) -11
58. Ghost Rider (4156, 28%) +5
59. Lars and the Real Girl (4222, 27%) -5
60. Meet the Robinsons (4274, 26%) +5
61. Disturbia (4306, 25%) -3
62. Arctic Tale (4419, 23%) -2
63. The Namesake (4494, 22%) -11
64. Day Watch (4623, 20%) +4
65. Paris Je T'aime (4639, 20%) +4
66. Breach (4644, 19%) -9
67. Happily N'Ever After (4650, 19%) -1
68. Smokin' Aces (4696, 19%) -1
69. Live Free or Die Hard (4745, 18%) -14
70. The Number 23 (4772, 17%) -6
71. Eagle vs. Shark (4922, 15%) -1
72. Southland Tales (4964, 14%) 0
73. The Darjeeling Limited (5031, 13%) +2
74. Fracture (5168, 10%) 0
75. Death Sentence (5207, 10%) +3
76. The Heartbreak Kid (5495, 5%) +1
77. The Nanny Diaries (5580, 3%) -6
78. Shooter (5609, 3%) +1
79. 30 Days of Night (5613, 3%) -3
80. Civic Duty (5640, 2%) 0
81. Captivity (5699, 1%) +1
82. Epic Movie (5721, 1%) -1
Now that I've typed all that out, it seems like a lot of work, and I may have to reconsider the utility of it going forward. Then again, the earlier the years get, the fewer titles I'll have -- I believe there were fewer than 40 in that first year. So I guess I'll kick the can down the road on that particular decision.
Five best 2007 movies I've seen since closing the list (alphabetical): The Lookout, My Kid Could Paint That, Shotgun Stories, Timecrimes, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Five worst 2007 movies I've seen since closing the list (alphabetical): Dan in Real Life, Rocket Science, Run Fat Boy Run, Smiley Face, Stephen King's The Mist
Biggest risers: American Gangster (+31), Black Snake Moan (+12), The Simpsons Movie (+11)
Biggest fallers: Live Free or Die Hard (-14), Noise (-12), The Namesake/Next/3:10 to Yuma/28 Weeks Later (-11)
Average percentage on Flickchart: 51.09% (1 of 1 so far)
I actually have this blog to thank for the big rise in American Ganster's position. It was a 2010 rewatch of the movie for my series Second Chance Vance (discussed at length here) that allowed me to reevaluate the film and go from thumbs down to thumbs up. (Incidentally, it's as funny to look back on those early days of the blog as it is to look at these early movie lists.)
Among fallers, I believe I would still love Matthew Saville's Noise. However, I do know him -- saw his film at Sundance on a trip planned specifically to see it -- so it may just be that my initial ranking was a little inflated because I was too close to it, and it has settled from #13 to a more realistic #24 over the years.
I am curious to figure out what I found and apparently continue to find so disagreeable about The Nanny Diairies, not a great film if I remember correctly (obviously), but surely innocuous enough, and an early Scarlett Johannson vehicle. It's not like we didn't know what she was capable of back then, as this was four years after Lost in Translation (another #1 of mine). I don't think I'm curious enough to actually watch it again, though. Maybe it just needs to come up in some more favorable duels on Flickchart.
Okay, one rankings committed to the permanence of the internet, 11 to go.
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