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As last year, I want to use this space to highlight some terrific films that came down the pike in the first six months of the year -- and merrily continued down the pike without anyone giving much of a damn. This happens to a host of deserving movies every year; given how much of a miracle it is when an indie actually takes off, there's no avoiding it. But these seven are eminently worth your time; at the very least, I promise they're interesting. Give them a shot.

1. Two Lovers (James Gray) -- Actually my favorite film of the year, this melancholy character study is carried out with such painstaking attention to detail that it becomes akin to one of Henry Selick's stop-motion miracles -- watching it inspires a sort of awe. This is James Gray's follow-up to We Own the Night, and Gray has announced himself as one of our most important newcomers, a master at creating living, breathing, populated, real universes for his characters to inhabit. [Now on DVD.]

2. Julia (Erick Zonca) - This movie barely saw theaters at all -- I saw it in a one-week run courtesy of our local Film Society -- but it might have been a decent investment for an actual distributor. Though it has someone profoundly unpleasant at its center -- the perpetually drunk and nasty title character, played by the incredible Tilda Swinton -- it eventually turns into a remarkably tense little thriller, complete with a classic kidnapping scenario and a chance for the rotten protagonist's redemption. [On DVD August 18th.]

Dictionary.com defines "addiction" as "the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice," and I offer the definition of such a basic word to illustrate a point: I am addicted to Flickchart.com. Tickled, fascinated, enamored, and addicted. It's a remarkably simple idea: You log in and you're offered two films. You pick which one you like more. (There's also a "haven't seen it" option, so be honest!) Then you repeat that process over and over for three hours until you realize it's 4am but you want to vote on just a few ... more ... pairs...

Flickchart is still in its beta mode, but it looks like the plan is to open the doors wide in mid-July. But what's coolest about the site is not the fun of picking your favorite movies ... it actually collates all your choices into one massive and mathematically unimpeachable list of YOUR favorite films. My advice is to pick the flick you like more, not the one you think is more reputable. Gone with the Wind is great, obviously, but Die Hard gets my vote. Also fun: You can post comments on specific matchups, as I did last night when greeted by a choice between Catwoman and Double Team. (Halle got the vote for being pretty.)

After the jump I've included a nifty little trailer that illustrates how Flickchart works (and a few cool notes), but of course you should visit the website and nose around a bit. Membership is currently accessible by invitation only, but it seems like they'll be opening the doors soon. Aw, what the heck? The Flickchart fellas say "Any friend of Cinematical is a friend of ours, so click right here to bypass the invitation process and log right in! Enjoy! (Add me as a Flickchart friend if you like: scottEweinberg. Just like on the Twitter.)

This just in: Cinematical loves movies. So I thought it would be smart to poll the Cine staff, get a bunch of Top 10s, send all the data over to Goss for the math, and then publish the list here for everyone to see. Yes, that's right: We have a Top 10 Movies of 2008 article. We expect to start a big trend with this piece.

01) The Dark Knight -- The highest-grossing film of the year (and second-highest of all time) also happened to be one of the best films of the year -- how often does that happen? Christopher Nolan's dark morality play had something for fanboys, film critics, and regular moviegoers alike, making it the rare entertainment spectacle that actually deserved the attention it received. The bar keeps getting raised on "superhero" movies, but can the genre get much better than this? -- Eric D. Snider

02) Let the Right One In -- One of the strangest, sweetest, and most unexpectedly powerful films of the year. This tale of a vampiric young girl and her human new friend is one of those horror movies that reminds you how excellent the genre CAN be. -- Scott Weinberg

03) Slumdog Millionaire -- I hate to be the fuddy-duddy who goes for the conventional, predictable pick, but this year I can't help it. The best film of Danny Boyle's career is a fairytale, wrenching and funny and impossibly rousing; it transported me to another world, made me cry and want to leap out of my seat. By the time the closing Bollywood dance number wrapped up, I had given Slumdog my heart. -- Eugene Novikov

The ability to sustain a sense of Seuss in a CGI scenario (I can't rhyme like the good doctor, but I can alliterate with the best of them) worked in the favor of Horton Hears a Who, last week's number one flick by a country mile, giving it the biggest opening weekend of 2008 so far. Like many of the folks taking part in our weekly box office competition (see the bottom of this post for details) I underestimated the tale of teen angst and kickboxing that is Never Back Down while overestimating the drawing power of the apocalypse with Doomsday, which finished seventh for the week with a mere $4.9 million. 10,000 B.C. dropped only as far as second place for its second week, though its total so far of $61.5 million has a ways to go before exceeding the film's $105 million budget. Here are the numbers for last weekend:

1. Horton Hears a Who: $45 million
2. 10,000 B.C.: $16.7 million
3. Never Back Down: $8.6 million
4. College Road Trip: $7.8 million
5. Vantage Point: $5.5 million

If you're determined to see something new this week, you have your choice of laughs, screams, and family drama. Here are this week's newbies:

Drillbit Taylor
What's It All About: A comedy in which a group of high school nerds search the ads in Soldier of Fortune magazine for a body guard to protect them from the school bully. They hire a homeless guy named Drillbit Taylor (it never pays to go with the lowest bidder) played by Owen Wilson.
Why It Might Do Well: Wilson, of course, has many comedic credits to his name, including Wedding Crashers which pulled in $209 million domestically. Also, Seth Rogen seems to have the midas touch and he co-wrote the screenplay.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Based on the TV spots I keep seeing, people who aren't comfortable with nerd on nerd violence may stay away.
Number of Theaters: 2,700
Prediction: $12 million

It was a damn fine year for movies, 2007. It's hard enough picking 10 top flicks from the crop after a just-decent year, so the task was especially tricky this time around. (At least at Moviefone we're able to pick the 50 best.) That's why I'm thankful for the unwritten critics' rule that Top 10 lists can start with a tie, so long as there's common thematic bond between them. Here are my 11 10 favorite movies of the 007.

10. Tie: Dan in Real Life / Grace is Gone (Widower Special)
What can I say, I'm a sucker for widowers. Some critics found the loving family in Steve Carell's poignant dramedy Dan unrealistic. I feel sorry for some critics. Plot contrivances aside, it succeeds both in capturing the dynamics of a large clan and telling a helluva love story. In a career-best performance in Grace, John Cusack is a flag-waving father of two whose wife is killed in Iraq. This tear-jerking drama might be misconstrued as a political statement, but finally it's a heartrending tale of human loss.

9. Hot Fuzz
Yes, this hilarious send-up of (tribute to?) Bruckheimer schlock tops Shaun of the Dead, the brilliant debut from Brits Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright. Whereas Shaun's first hour is pure bliss, it loses some steam in the third act. Fuzz gets better as it speeds along, offering up surprises and side-splitters in equal measure. Really, who would've thought anyone would ever pay homage to Bad Boys II?

8. No End in Sight
As you can surmise from the title, this ain't exactly a sunshiney look at the Iraq War. But it's the most thorough, eye-opening detailing of the mega-blunders made the Bush Administration in planning and executing the war to date (so THAT'S where the insurgency came from!), with nary a Michael Moore stunt in sight. Prepared to be educated, maddened.

7. Ratatouille
Like I've been saying it for a while now: The machines at Pixar appear to be challenging themselves more and more with each release: "What DON'T audiences think they'll fall in love with? How about a rat who cooks? Better yet, a French rat!" And of course, after 111 minutes of Pixar magic, most of us left with a newfound respect for rodents. (Reminds me of '91 when I saw Beauty and the Beast; haven't been afraid of beasts since.)

6. Superbad
Forget Knocked Up. Forget Walk Hard. This deliciously raunchy buddy comedy/love story will stand the test of time and prevail as the most influential Apatow movie of '07, defining a generation like Dazed and Confused and Fast Times at Ridgemont High did before it. Here's hoping Christopher Mintz-Passe (a.k.a. McLovin) will ever be able to convincingly play another character, though I wouldn't mind more McLovin.

Did you know that the Kansas City Film Critics Circle is the second oldest critics group in the country? Yep, they've been voting for their favorites since 1966, which is when they gave Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? their highest accolade. Members of the KCFCC include Loey Lockerby, Russ Simmons and my good pal Dan Lybarger ... but even if you're not familiar with their work, it sure looks like the whole crew has some pretty excellent taste in movies.

So here's what the KCFCC threw some love towards as part of their 42nd(!) annual awards presentation...

Best Film
There Will Be Blood

The Robert Altman Award for Directing
(TIE!)
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Best Actress
Marion Cotilliard, La Vie en Rose

Best Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actress
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Best Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody, Juno

Best Adapted Screenplay
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men

Best Animated Film
Ratatouille

Best Foreign Language Film
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Documentary
In the Shadow of the Moon

The Vince Koehler Award for Outstanding Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror Film
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

So there you have it. Kansas City has spoken!

Want to know a dirty little secret?

Contrary to what you've heard recently, critics hate writing bad reviews.

No, they're not fun to write; they're exhausting. No, they're not less work than a good review; they're more difficult. And when you love movies -- which you better, as a critic -- you don't sit down in the dark before a film and think, "Boy, I hope the next two hours of my life will be wasted." But every movie is not, in fact, good -- and these were the high marks among the low points in 2007, from one critic's highly subjective perspective.

1. The Heartbreak Kid

Racist, sexist, misogynist -- and, even worse, not funny. The Farrelly Brothers proved their "King Midas in reverse" touch by turning a classic piece of comedy gold into a lump of trash. The only possible bright side comes in the fact that the Farrelly's status as box-office kings has now been tarnished, hopefully hastening their slide to straight-to-video film making.

The best movie year since 1999, 2007 offered a staggering bounty of cinematic delights. I keep track of all the movies I see in a given year and give each a letter grade, "A" through "F". Usually my Top Ten list consists of all of the "A's" and a few "B's." This year, "A" pictures made up my top twenty. With so many great films, I won't wallow through a "Worst of the Year" list, I'll simply present you with a few that didn't fully satisfy:

The Biggest Disappointment: The Darjeeling Limited -- A Louis Vuitton commercial stretched to feature length. The Darjeeling Limited is a perfect title for the film because it makes plain what a limited filmmaker the once great Wes Anderson has become. Hey Wes, people running in slow-motion while a Kinks song plays is always going to look pretty neat. But if there's absolutely nothing else going on in the scene, then that's all it is -- people running in slow-motion while a Kinks song plays. We all think it's really cool that you like The Kinks. Hell, I love those guys! The Rolling Stones are awesome, too! But I wouldn't ask them to do my job for me.

and...

The Biggest Question Mark: There Will Be Blood

Undoubtedly one of the year's most impressive technical achievements, There Will Be Blood is frequently stunning. It's so stunning, in fact, that it's easy to overlook how infuriatingly empty it all is. The film focuses on two main characters, and neither one changes a lick in thirty years and 158 minutes. How did Paul Thomas Anderson, creator of such deeply emotional rides as Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch Drunk Love come up with a movie completely devoid of human emotion? (I'm not counting greed.) Beautiful, brilliant, and boring in equal doses, I've seen Blood twice, and I still don't know if it's a masterpiece or a mess. I just know I felt...nothing watching it. It's as hollow, as frustrating, as difficult to know as its "hero," Daniel Plainview.

On to my list. First, ten that didn't quite make the cut. Here's #20 through #11: (#20) Breach, (#19) Once, (#18) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, (#17) Sicko, (#16) Sweeney Todd, (#15) The Lives of Others, (#14) Eastern Promises, (#13) Zodiac, (#12) Atonement, (#11) Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

And my Top Ten is after the jump...

I've already done an "official" top ten list and all that year-end movie-critic jazz, but since today's my birthday I figured I'd spend an hour or two on a piece I'll simply enjoy writing. Most of the solid horror sites have done their own top / bottom lists, so I thought it would make sense to try a different approach. So let's start waaaay back in January and just tiptoe through the year in horror together. And then at the end we'll figure out how the horror geeks were treated in 2007. (All links lead to my review of that particular film, be it from FEARnet, eFilmCritic, DVDTalk, DVD Clinic, or right here at good ol' Cinematical.)

January!

01/02 -- Snakes on a Plane arrives on DVD. "The internet" still refuses to make it a hit. (0)
01/12 -- Giant croc flick Primeval advertised as a serial killer film. Doesn't help the box office. (-1)
01/16 -- Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning arrives on DVD. Thousands give it a second shot and realize it still sucks. (-1)
01/19 -- A predictably horrible remake of The Hitcher arrives in theaters. Nobody cares. (-1)
01/23 -- Saw 3 hits DVD and sells a whole bunch of copies, despite the fact that all the horror fans know a double-dip is arriving in 11 months. Weird. (0)
01/26 -- Blood and Chocolate. Ew, no thanks. (-1)
01/30 -- Forgotten Ricci flick The Gathering (finally) arrives on DVD. Turns out it was shelved for good reason. (-1)

January Total: -5 horror points!

February!

02/02 -- J-horror knock-off latecomer The Messengers hits theaters. With a PG-13. (-1)
02/06 -- The Grudge 2 hits DVD. Thousands realize oh yeah, there was a sequel. (-1)
02/09 -- A well-shot but horribly unnecessary prequel arrives in the form of Hannibal Rising. Collective yawn. (-1)
02/13 -- The "so good it's gotta be remade because it's foreign" 13 (Tzameti) arrives on DVD. (+1)
02/16 -- The comics nerds get a little (very little) horror infusion with the very silly Ghost Rider. (-1)
02/20 -- Lionsgate slaps the words "Open Water 2" onto a movie called "Adrift." (-1)
02/23 -- After Dark (brilliantly) chooses their dullest flick (The Abandoned) for a solo theatrical release. (-1)
02/23 -- Jim Carrey tries to get grim (and ends up goofy) in The Number 23. (-1)
02/27 -- The Return arrives on DVD. Hundreds remember that the movie exists. (-1)

February Total: -7 horror points!!

What are the movies that got away in 2007? What's the point of all these Top Ten lists, anyhow? When is hype welcome, and when is hype hype? And what movies are making us smile in anticipation for 2008? Tackling these questions -- and many more -- alongside James this week is Cinematical's Editor-in-Chief Erik Davis, rounding up 2007 and looking ahead to 2008. And speaking of looking forward, Cinematical's Podcast content is now in iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.