At The Movies w/ Ebert & Roeper--2007 Best Films
 

Richard Roeper and his guest A.O. Scott listed the best films of 2007:

A.O. Scott's List:

1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
2. Ratatouille
3. Sweeney Todd
4. I'm Not There
5. Terror's Advocate
6. 12:08 East of Bucharest
7. There Will Be Blood
8. Into the Wild
9. The Savages
10. Knocked Up

Richard Roeper's List:

1. Michael Clayton
2. No Country For Old Men
3. The Lookout
4. Juno
5. American Gangster
6. Gone Baby Gone
7. Zodiac
8. Superbad
9. Once
10. Paris, je t'aime

What struck me as strange and incredible is that both critics had an entirely different group of ten films for their lists. No film crossed over to be on both lists. In years past, (when Ebert and Siskel did the show) they had many of the same films as their favorites, but often in different spots on their lists.

Is the show merely an advertisement trying to entice people to spend the bucks on 20 films instead of the usual ten or so? Or is it possible that two mainstream critics would have two entirely different sets of picks for the year? Seems like quite a stretch that they would not agree on at least ONE film being on both of their Top Ten lists.

I do think it's odd, but it doesn't seem impossible, or that there's some nefarious ulterior motive for the disparity on this lists. For example, these two lists from two AV Club reviewers only have 3 films that appear on both lists:

http://www.avclub.com/content/featur...in_film_2007/5
http://www.avclub.com/content/featur...in_film_2007/6

Also, if you look at the expanded version of A.O. Scott's list, a number of Roeper's picks do appear:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/movies/23scot.html

From the lists, it looks like A.O. Scott's list is focused more on foreign and independent films, his #1 hasn't even been released in the US, while Roeper's picks are largely more mainstream.

Actually, I think it's because this year is so much more varied without a consensus top 5 that show up on everyone's list this year. It's also why it feels like a so-so year, but this year's offerings span a wider variety which makes getting a lot of critical momentum for a few certain films that much harder in this year's upcoming awards season.

A.O. Scott has the much better top 10 list. (Except for that damn Ratatouille)
Very cool he recognized some great stuff...
There Will Be Blood
Sweeney Todd
I'm Not There
Into the Wild
Knocked Up
All of these are great (although sadly I havn't seen There will be Blood yet but it sure sounds great)

I think that Scott's list is the first one that I haven't seen No Country For Old Men on.

go see 'Once'. great flick

Surprised that neither list has Atonement or Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

After seeing Atonement, I now know why it's didn't make either's top 10 list, it's doesn't have a good enough story at its core.

Also, shocked not to see Before the Devil Knows Your Dead on either list. But, I think both critics went into their lists with a set break-down of how many "types" of films they wanted to appear, critical darling films from top tier directors seemed to only get 1 slot on each list...the group includes No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and Before the Devil Knows Your Dead (omitted from the lists). Each list had an obligatory Apatow-comedy so that they will not seem too snobish or out of touch. And each included one "American not-so-indie" Juno and The Savages respectively, leaving out Lars and the Real Girl. Roeper then goes low-brow with American Gangster, Gone Baby Gone, and Michael Clayton.

A.O. Scott's list is clearly "NY Times" while Roper's is very much "NY Daily News"

I was particularly pleased to see Roeper include two early-in-the-year titles (<i>Lookout, Zodiac</i>). Of the moves on the two lists that I have seen, there was not a single one that I felt wasn't worthy of being included, though of course I probably would make some substitutions. I was also pleased to see that neither one was suckered into including <i>Atonement</i>.

Neither of them really loved Atonement (Scott gave it the equal to a thumbs down), and Roeper's review of Before the Devil... mentions how much he disliked the last 15 minutes.

Do you watch the show? You get to see just how much they really do like a movie vs. a sanitized print review. All of Roeper's films were given great reviews on or before opening day and match his list. This isn't contrived to placate the public or a quota.

-ohbfrank-
Ratatouille is as good (if not better) than most of those films.

I was surprised that The Lookout wasn't #1 on Roeper's Top 10. Of the 20 films on the list, I've only seen Ratatouille, Knocked Up, No Country for Old Men, The Lookout, American Gangster, Gone Baby Gone and Superbad.

While I don't completely agree with either list... Scott loses points for having 12:08 East of Bucharest and Knocked Up on there. Granted, I like Knocked Up, but I don't think it was one of the 10 best of the year. As for 12:08... I just didn't like that flick. Boring, slow moving, characters I hated... I could go on...

Glad to see a thread about this show, since it is the one show I consistently keep up with and enjoy since I first got a DVR 3 years ago.

That said, I can't stand what has happened this season.

First, you can't take out the thumbs up and thumbs down. I agree that a review should have to pin a movie to only two ratings. Since they've taken away the thumbs they make a point of saying "recommend" or "don't recommend" anyway, so why ditch the show's trademark?

Also, I noticed that when they recap movies, the guest reviewer's opinion gets nixed. Since A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips do all the guest appearances now, why does Roeper's review trump theirs?

Obvious I wish the best for Roger. It seems to me that either Scott or Phillips should get a permanent spot. I like them both (Scott and Phillips at The Movies has a nice ring to it).

i guess that is supposed to mean something

WHAT?!?!?! No Enchanted?!?!? I call shenanigans!

(No, I'm not kidding...)

Enchanted was a mediocre movie with a fantastic lead.

i like Darjeeling Limited

When A.O. Scott is on the show, Roeper appears to be more comfortable with his delivery and criticism/praise for the movies being reviewed

At any rate, I agree that there hasn't been a clear frontrunner for Best Picture of the year and these lists reflect that. I'll be checking out a a few from Scott's list as I've had the opportunity to view those that interest me from Roeper's list.

I so look forward to these lists....I always like to hit the theatres in January to catch up on missed gems.

I'm not surprised there was no crossover -- I could list another 10 movies not on either of those lists. 2007 was a good time at the movies!

Other contenders (in no particular order):

Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Waitress
Bourne Ultimatum
Eastern Promises
Black Snake Moan
The Orphanage
Lust, Caution
Stardust
Margot at the Wedding
Away From Her
Grindhouse
Southland Tales
The Kite Runner

The trademark was ditched over possible lawsuit concerns. The Ebert thread in Movie Talk goes into detail.

While I am all for people having different opinions, I think you'd be hard pressed to find this on any major top ten list this year -- unless we're doing a top ten worst movies of the year.

However you do have several major reviewers who thought it was a terrific movie (and, BTW it did make NY Times' Mahnola Dargis' Best of Year list). I'm not citing top 10 lists, merely additional movies that "might" make such lists.