To coincide with the 80^th Annual Academy Awards, I am officially announcing the results of the 1st Annual NOFF Awards. Just as 40 million people will anxiously tune in to the February 24^th Oscar show to see who will walk away with the Oscars, so my faithful readers, all three of them, will breathlessly log on to the equally important February 24^th NOFF Awards Presentation to see who will take home the Noffscars. Sure, the NOFF Awards may not have a famous red carpet, or a spectacular venue like the Kodak Theater, or gold-plated statuettes, or glamorous starlets in gorgeous gowns, or handsome actors in fancy Armani suits, or comedian John Stewart as the Master of Ceremonies, or show-stopping productions numbers, or a pit orchestra conducted by Maestro Bill Conti, but they’ve got something the Academy Awards show doesn’t have. I have no idea just what that possibly could be, but I’m confident my three loyal readers will think of something (okay, so three might be a slight overestimate). And now without further ado I present this year’s Noffscars:        

Top Ten Films of 2007 (with deeply insightful one-sentence commentaries):

1) No Country for Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen) - After a couple of disappointing films, the Coen bros make a stunning return to form with this powerfully directed, often unbearably suspenseful crime thriller, which boasts the most memorable villain of recent memory in the form of Javier Bardem’s coin-flipping, bolt gun-brandishing Anton “Friend-o” Chigurh, whose hideous bowl-cut alone is enough to give you the heebie-jeebies.

2) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik) - Dominik brings a poetic, elegiac tone to his mournful near-masterpiece, which somehow celebrates the Jesse James legend even as it debunks it, as seen through the eyes of Bob Ford, whose childhood idolization of James turns to fear and resentment in adulthood when the reality of the man fails to measure up to the myth living in his head. 

3) Ratatouille (Brad Bird) - The best animation director in the business, Brad Bird, keeps his string of successes going with Ratatouille, a wonderfully funny, visually inventive charmer from start to finish, whose tale of a rat that yearns to become a master chef says as much about discrimination as fellow Oscar nominee Persepolis, but in far more entertaining fashion.

4) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu) - Though Mungiu’s film centers around an illegal abortion, this is not an “issue” movie, but rather a riveting, naturalistically acted and directed human drama/suspense thriller, which is neither pro-choice nor pro-life but rather anti-totalitarian, and whose anger is directed not at a particular person but at a governmental system which creates the conditions that lead to the unfortunate events we see on screen.  

5) The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (Seth Gordon) - The year’s best documentary was not about the Iraq War but about the Donkey Kong War, the monumental struggle between good and evil waged by video arcade geeks Steve Wiebe, the nice guy underdog, and Billy Mitchell, the villainous nerd and undisputed Donkey Kong champ whose rock star status among video gaming geeks has even landed him a silicon-filled trophy wife.

6) There Will be Blood (P.T. Anderson) - I think Anderson was striving for nothing less than an American epic - about the corrupting effects of both capitalism and religion - that could stand alongside Citizen Kane or The Godfather, but if his lofty ambitions may somewhat exceed his reach, even with the benefit of Daniel Day Lewis’ towering, Oscar-winning performance as the treacherous oil baron Daniel Plainview, at least it’s good to know someone’s out there still swinging for the fences. 

7) Once (John Carney) - If you’re sick of the typical overblown Hollywood musical, then check out this disarming Indie musical featuring a charming romance, surprisingly good songs (written and performed by the two stars), and a perfect little bittersweet ending.

8) Zodiac (David Fincher) - Focusing on the obsessive hunt for the elusive serial killer by cops and reporters, Fincher’s engrossing, fascinating investigative procedural has more in common with All the President’s Men than with Seven, though the reenactments of the brutal murders are deeply chilling to be sure.

9) Planet Terror (Robert Rodriguez) - Here’s the recipe Rodriguez used to cook up this deliriously over-the-top zombie gorefest: Take a 1/3 of Escape From New York, a 1/3 of Dawn of the Dead (1978), liberally season with The Return of the Living Dead, sprinkle in a dash of The Thing (1982), add a pinch of From Beyond, and then violently chop, whip and grind it into a pulpy blob, skewer it, overbake the hell out of it, garnish with Evil Dead 2 and Dead-Alive and, finally, serve it up with gusto.

10) La Vie En Rose (Olivier Dahan) - Marion Cotillard’s melodramatic and stylized portrayal of troubled French diva Edith Piaf perfectly complements Dahan’s operatic and grandiose treatment of her hard life in this impressionistic, flashback-heavy, larger-than-life biopic.

Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country For Old Men

Runners-Up: Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Brad Bird (Ratatouille), Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), P.T. Anderson (There Will be Blood), David Fincher (Zodiac)

Best Actor: Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood

Runners-Up: Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men), Michael Shannon (Bug), Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead)      

Best Actress: Amy Adams in Enchanted.

Runners-Up: Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Keri Russell (Waitress), Ashley Judd (Bug), Nicole Kidman (Margot at the Wedding)

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men

Runners-Up: Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Kurt Russell (Death Proof), Tommy Lee Jones (No Country for Old Men), Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma)

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone

Runners-Up: Cate Blanchett (I’m Not There), Kelly Macdonald (No Country for Old Men), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Margot at the Wedding), Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton), Rose McGowan (Grindhouse)     

Best Screenplay: Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men)

Runners-Up: P.T. Anderson (There Will Be Blood), Brad Bird (Ratatouille), Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), James Vanderbilt (Zodiac)

Best Scene: - The unbearably suspenseful hotel sequence in No Country For Old Men in which Llewelyn hears Chigurh stealthily walk up to his door and then slowly walk away from it. Seriously unnerved, Llewelyn then looks underneath his door and sees the hallway lights go off, at which time he sits oh-so-quietly on his bed, nervously clutching his gun, and waits for an agonizingly tense few moments, until - WHAM! - Chigurh blows the lock off the door with his bolt pistol and the exciting shootout ensues.

Runners-Up: Viggo Mortensen’s naked bathhouse brawl in Eastern Promises; Chigurh deciding the old man’s fate with a coin flip in No Country for Old Men; the lakeside murder sequence in Zodiac; the food critic Ego’s Proustian childhood flashback to his mother’s wonderful cooking upon tasting Remy the rat’s delicious ratatouille in Ratatouille.       

Best Documentary: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (Seth Gordon)

Best Foreign Language Film: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu)

Best Comedy: Knocked-Up

Best Use of Diegetic Music: Donovan’s “Hurdy-gurdy Man” playing on a car radio during the lover’s lane murder sequence in Zodiac

Best Use of Sound: No Country For Old Men - There’s no music score in the film but the Coen brothers’ brilliant use of sound makes the need for a composer completely unnecessary.

Best Art Direction: There Will Be Blood

Best Cinematography: No Country for Old Men

Best Costume Design: Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Best Film Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum

Best Score: There Will be Blood

   

    

Posted on February 24th, 2008 by Mat Viola
Filed under: NOFF Awards