Do you know any self-respecting cineaste who likes being called a "film buff"? A relative pulled that one on me over the holidays and I had to hold myself back from going medieval on him with a turkey leg. "Film buff" sounds patronizing and clammy and above all amateur, like those guys in junior high who collected Laurel and Hardy movies on Super-8 and who the rest of us obsessives kept as far away from as possible. Film geek, sure -- wonk, grindhouse junkie, mouth-breathing Godard maniac, call me what you want. But "buff"? Sorry, jack, I'm a professional.
That said, here's a little year end/year beginning reading for the devoted:
The Reeler has had enough of year-end top ten movie lists and has compiled a list of the ten worst ten best lists.
Wesley knocks heads with fellow critics Scott Foundas, Nathan Lee, and Dana Stevens in the annual Movie Club over at Slate -- it's a good, lively round-robin discussion that replicates what most people think movie reviewers sound like when they hang out together. And yay to Wes for defending "Zodiac," one of the two most misunderstood movies of the year (the other is "There Will Be Blood," and most people haven't even seen that one yet.)
Actually, how can "There Will Be Blood" be misunderstood when every critic is raving about it? The combined Village Voice/LA Weekly 2007 film critics' poll is up and the Paul Thomas Anderson film heads the list by a California country mile. Here's the full list, as well as the individual ballots of the critics who participated, yours truly included.
Finally, Movie City News puts it all together for movie-crazed statisticians on their 2007 Top Ten scorecard, a criticial concatenation and masterwork of anal-retentive HTML layout far beyond the capabilities of your average movie buff.
