LISTS 2007! Let's Do This!

The Academy released their list today so it must be that time...

Time for LISTS!

The Best Films of 2007 (out of what my eyes saw):


1. Into the Wild - The road movie is the greatest genre ever made. Christopher McCandless was polarizing in life and death, so it was fitting that the film would garner the same kind of reviews. However the nerve it touches is testament to the power of this story. Told beautifully and personally, Into the Wild, brings us as close as we probably ever can come to the complexities of someone's heart and soul in a bio-film. Painful and hopeful, realistic and idealistic, seductive and devastating, this film is a gripping masterpiece of contradictions. And Eddie Vedder's gorgeous soundtrack is a close second.

2. There Will Be Blood
3. Margot at the Wedding
4. No Country for Old Men
5. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
6. Once
7. Atonement
8. Juno
9. No End in Sight
10. The Darjeeling Limited
11. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
12. Michael Clayton
13. Sweeney Todd
14. For the Bible Tells Me So
15. Eastern Promises
16. Zodiac
17. 3:10 to Yuma
18. Hot Fuzz
19. The Orphanage
20. Knocked Up
HM: The Devil Came on Horseback,
Superbad & The Host

Worst Movie: Smokin' Aces - The only good thing about this movie is that Ben Affleck dies in the first 20 minutes.

UPDATE: Now having seen Persepolis, a '07 entry that just made it to town, I have to sing its praise and call it a top 5 pick for sure. It's up for the Academy Award for best animated film and it sure as hell better win. Phenomenal.

The Best Albums of 2007 (out of what my ears heard):

1. Radiohead - In Rainbows - In Rainbows is a sort-of "acceptance" record; a letting go if you will; their own sort of gorgeous meditation on an Ecclesiastical view of relationships. The anxious-about-the-apocalypse band is comfortable in their own skin. Easily the most important band making music today.

2. Steven Delopoulos - Straightjacket
3. Bright Eyes - Cassadega
4. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
5. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
6. Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild
7. Derek Webb - The Ringing Bell
8. The National - Boxer
9. Patty Griffin - Children Running Through
10. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
11. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
12. Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
13. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
14. Feist - The Reminder
15. The White Stripes - Icky Thump
16. Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
17. Björk - Volta
18. Iron & Wine - The Shepard's Dog
19. Over the Rhine - The Trumpet Child
20. Menomena - Friend or Foe
HM: Sara Groves - Tell Me What You Know & Andrew Bird - Airmchair Apocrypha

Worst Record: 2007, take your pick. It would be easy to say Nickleback, but I'm gonna go with Daughtry.