Culled from more than 300 articles and reviews, the following stories represent, in our estimation, the most timely, engaged, in-depth and entertaining film journalism, in both word and image, from the last year.

Jason Killingsworth. “Christopher Guest: Iconic, Laconic, & Supersonic!!” Paste Magazine. December 2006/January 2007. As if taking a note from the Dave Eggers book of postmodern playfulness, Jason Killingsworth, in the wake of what potentially is the ‘worst’ interview of his career and one for a cover story no less, shirks traditional journalistic objective form for a bitingly mocking, often amusing yet overwhelmingly immature subjective article that reads at its best as a young boy shaking his fist at THE MAN. Warned in advance that Christopher Guest is a notoriously difficult interview, Killingsworth found himself no more fortunate than the others to come before him. It’s a blunder of two parts: Guest’s answers are paltry, and Killingsworth’s questions don’t manage to needle out anything compelling. Hence, Killingsworth does what any good writer ought do—he writes his way out of the disaster. His (pause tape) sidebars, CAPITALS and exclamations! are more than excessive, and yet by the time he hits the end of the article and as the lines of the filmmaker-journalist relationship come into question, we’re on Killingsworth’s side. Ultimately, that’s really what this story is about: He is right, and Guest is wrong. It’s a case of the black and whites, and in this, Killingsworth has written himself into the winning side.

Sonda Andersson Pappan. Art Director. Moving Pictures Magazine.. The Adaptation & Awards Issue. December 2006/January 2007. As a general rule, Moving Pictures Magazine is among the small handful of strikingly well designed industry magazines, and no more so is this true than in Sonda Andersson Pappan’s work for The Adaptation & Awards Issue. Taking a unified minimalist approach, Andersson Pappan keeps a palatable aesthetic consistency with a simple san-serif font highlighted in complementary colors. In the few design flourishes, kearning and text primacy is rarely compromised, making for an issue where the art and design fully supports—and in fact enhances without distraction—the editorial content.

Karina Longworth. “Tragedy and Truimph.” Filmmaker Magazine. Spring 2007. In the wake of Adrienne Shelly’s murder, much media set into factless scandal or weepy memorial, much less set into discovery of her latest directorial effort Waitress. While shirking the sensationalism and sentimentality etched into so much of the previous press, Karina Longworth pens perhaps the most respectful and indeed interesting memorial to Shelly. In talking with Waitress producer Michael Roiff, actress Keri Russell and sales agent Andrew Herwitz, Longworth looks at the whole affair with a detachment and intelligence that renders each sentence not only a definitive judgment about the quality of the film but also about the sadness of the filmmaker’s loss.

David Archibald. “Correcting Historical Lies: An Interview with Ken Loach & Paul Laverty.” Cineaste. Spring 2007. David Archibald’s interview with Ken Loach and Paul Laverty on The Wind That Shakes the Barley starts out slow, Laverty carrying most of the weight of interest. “There’s that revealing phrase by Henry Kissinger—highlighted by the wonderful historian Howard Zinn—that ‘History is the memory of the states.’ It’s a notion I reject. It denies history as the lived experience of ordinary people,” Laverty explains as to the reason he neglected to model his characters after historical hallmarks.

It’s only later that Archibald manages to hit a chord with the director. “Critics might suggest that the film is not politically balanced,” he says.

“…Do you have to be fair to the oppressor?” Loach replies. “To quote Churchill, “Do you have to be fair between the fire brigade and the fire?” The idea of balance is wholly skewed—as it always is, because the British stood for oppression to democracy, for oppression of the people, for the brutal destruction of their homes in many cases and their lives. So I don’t feel the need to be balanced between the oppressor and the oppressed.”

There’s only one word for an exchange of this nature—Brilliant.

Roy Grundmann. “Auteur de Force: Michael Haneke’s ‘Cinema of Glaciation.’” Cineaste. Spring 2007. No two ways around it, Cineaste is dense and academic, to both its credit and to its fault. It’s a magazine run by smart people who don’t even pretend to cater to the average. Each article is a bit of a marathon, Roy Grundmann’s article on Michael Haneke no exception. Breaking down the controversial director’s work one film after the other, Grundmann studies with a keen eye the themes and influences on films including The Seventh Continent, Benny’s Video and Funny Games. A well-written and engaging analysis, it’s a bookmarker article, one to be read in-depth and with pleasure over a longer than average period of time.

Layla Revis. “Marketing Dreams: In a World Overrun with Entertainment Options, the Key Is in the Art.” Moving Pictures Magazine. March 2007. “Poster art is here to stay,” Layla Revis writes in opening. Although the digital age is helping to evolve the shape of film marketing, the industry still heavily depends on the poster image to send the unique message that gets people in theater seats, she finds. As a look at both an old film art form and the emerging film marketing art forms via the Internet, Revis’ tightly written and interviewed enterprise article nails the balance with tremendous modern day relevance and avoids the pitfall of playing merely as a historical piece on film poster art.

Mike Sager. “How Many Two-Time Oscar Winners Look Like This?” Esquire. April 2007. Even from the opening lines of Mike Sager’s portrait of Hilary Swank, it’s evident that he’s transported us into an altered reality, one in which sex is more prominent, power more potent and humor more the ilk of the noir-wit now long forgotten. Simply put, we’re in a reality that exists best in fiction. “She looks as if she’d just as soon fight you as fuck you, and as if she’d be the one to decide which it was going to be,” he writes of Swank. Ahem. Male fantasy (aka delusion) of reality. Yes. Yet, it’s an extraordinarily well-written male fantasy of reality, and that’s exactly why Sager’s article makes this list. There are few journalists who weave the dream of reality into the actuality. Sager does this without a flinch or a note of self-doubt. Fittingly Sager’s novel Deviant Behavior releases in April 2008. If it’s any bit as clear with its imagery and language as this article is, it will be an intriguing and pitch-perfect debut.

Max Vadukul. Photograher. “Liv.” Interview. April 2007. Complementing James Mangold’s interview with Liv Tyler, photographer Max Vadukul offers 36 black-and-white photo booth-esque portraits of Tyler that showcase her quirky, playful, contemplative and rebellious personality. For an actress whose success in the craft of acting rarely moves beyond the expected, it’s a group of photos that gives her more credibility than her own work often does. In an unfortunate turn, the generous spread falls prey to a gutter drop, and hence the four middle shots are somewhat lost. It is, regardless, a beautifully shot photo session and a bold design move by Interview.

Tom Chiarella & Halle Berry. “Halle Berry by Tom Chiarella by Halle Berry.” Esquire. May 2007. Much like Jason Killingsworth piece, Tom Chiarella and Halle Berry’s article questions the lines between interviewee-interviewer, but where Killingsworth was saddled to his rant, Chiarella and Berry compromised into an innovative structure that lent itself to pure communication coated in innocent and good-natured humor. While Berry writes the body of the story, her meeting with a perfect stranger, Chiarella comments in witty asides of the self-examining persuasion, essentially, as one Esquire reader wrote in the next issue, stealing the story away from Berry. It’s an absolute joy of an article to read, both because Berry so easily spins off her commentary on celebrity writing in general and because Chiarella takes the time to playfully check the actress’ opinions along the way. It’s a piece of writing sketching moments that feel truly examined and earned, a piece that feels real within a celebrity culture that stakes its existence on the exact opposite.

Darhil Crooks, Colin Tunstall, Derya Hanife Altan. Design Team. “Halle Berry by Tom Chiarella by Halle Berry.” Esquire. May 2007. Running ostensibly two stories in the same layout is no small feat, though Darhil Crooks, Colin Tunstall and Derya Hanife Altan without a doubt make art of what in many designer’s hands would have seemed disaster. The numeral markers for the asides are not at all distracting, and in fact, it’s possible to read Halle Berry’s story without taking note of Tom Chiarella’s asides at all. To render a design that equally allows for a focus on the main text while also subtly pointing out the importance of the blocked off italic text requires impeccable precision and attention to detail. This is all neglecting to mention the sheer aesthetic loveliness of pages that nod to the artwork of Piet Mondrian. It’s easily the most equally graceful and functional design of the year.

Stacey Kalish. “Encounter Point: Twelve Months Post-Tribeca.” Moving Pictures Magazine. May 2007. In its exploration of the connection between film and socio-political concerns, Moving Pictures, with Stacey Kalish’s article on the Israeli-Palestinian issues film Encounter Point, nails its objective perfectly. Kalish opens her article in a personal space, documentary partcipant Ali Abu Awwad pointing out war scars. The article blooms into an easy flowing study of the film and the politics that make it up, Kalish speaking with the four female co-directors, all who send a message to encourage peace. Says co-director Julia Bacha, “If we started covering non-violence with the same eagerness that we cover violence, we would encourage a lot more people to engage in non-violence.” Tightly written and imparting a pivotal and universal theme, Kalish’s article is a triumph, the type of short article that is easily passed over but for its force of pure intent.

“Vern”. “FOX - Vern has some words for you about the pansy-assing of the 4th DIE FLACCID movie.” Ain’t It Cool News. 2 May 2007. In film journalism, rants are almost requisite, especially for the folks over at Ain’t It Cool News. Here Vern takes on the PG-13 rating issue for the latest of the Die Hard franchise. [We’ll skip over the fact that the article was published in May, but a June Vanity Fair is referenced. We leave that oddity to the righteous cinema gods of anger.] “If you cut the movie for babies, you finally lost me. I don't know if I would even pay to see that shit. If I did, I might not admit it to anybody,” he writes. “Be a man. Don't die soft. You know how you want to die.” So we’re dying R-rated then. Got it.

Nathan Lee. “Oh, the Humanité!” The Village Voice. 15 May 2007. Nathan Lee’s vicious and utterly amusing review sits here because of the force of one word, one from the dictionary of little modern usage. It’s ‘bovine.’ Tut. Even writing it is painful. Lee continues on the course of his cattle imagery with, “[Actor] Samuel Boidin is the latest thick-faced nonprofessional herded through the pigshit and mud of Dumont's beloved provincial wasteland—of the soul!” It’s critique so harsh that it’s hysterical, biting film journalism at its best.

Drew ‘Moriarty’ McWeeny. “Moriarty Boards PINEAPPLE EXPRESS! Set Visit For The New Seth Rogen/James Franco/David Gordon Green Action Comedy!” Ain’t It Cool News. 28 May 2007. Visiting the set of David Gordon Green’s Pineapple Express, Drew ‘Moriarty’ McWeeny draws lightly the cast and crew, sharing anecdotes and small moments from the seemingly fun driven production. As in all his writing, McWeeny stands on the strength of his casual professionalism punctuated by candor and passion. There’s zero affectation in his stories, and the sense of unadorned reality he brings to the dispatch makes for an immediate familiarity. McWeeny here has done more good to promote this film than most mainstream and alternative media will do on its release date.

Scott Macaulay. “Fubar.” Filmmaker Magazine. Summer 2007. As a story hook, the Iraq war is an immediate catch, and as such, it’s often used to exploitative ends to burn interest in a film subject. Although Charles Ferguson’s No End in Sight directly deals with the management, or rather mismanagement of the war, and thereby Scott Macaulay, with justification, could have jumped right off the fact to delve into some uncompromisingly thesis driven line of questioning about politics and its association with art, he instead does what any good film journalist does when talking to a filmmaker. He asks first and foremost about making the film. Refusing to let the politics overshadow the production, Macaulay’s line of questioning walks Ferguson straight through the filming process. As such the article speaks not only to politics but straight to the heart of the barebones of the artform itself—the development of the project, the daily grind of securing and running interviews. Only after finding all this out does Macaulay open his line of questioning into the politics, making for an article that has true significance without a touch of sensationalism.

Related Reading: With his column “Rage at the Machine,” published in the August 31 edition of Entertainment Weekly, film writer Mark Harris would say about Ferguson’s film, “I don’t know anyone who has seen the headlines from Iraq in the last few years and not asked, whether in anger, despair, or simple uncertainty, “What have we done?” Here’s a movie that provides the beginnings of an answer.”

Gary Alan Crowdus. “No End in Sight: An Interview with Charles Ferguson.” Cineaste. Fall 2007.

Pier Nicola D’Amico. Photographer. “Parker Posey Loving the Spin She’s In.” Paste Magazine. June 2007. Perfectly capturing Parker Posey’s eccentric sweetness, Pier Nicola D’Amico utilizes two distinct sets and color palettes to paint his vision of Posey. The first set of shots, in cool tones of whites, silvers, blacks and purples, juxtapose a smiling Posey against an industrial isolation. The contrast is marked, and yet she seems at home in the Armand Basi dress and playful Sonia Rykiel pumps. It’s the second series of photographs that much more organically suits Posey, a palette of browns, blacks and dark pinks, all colors which highlight a palpable sexiness that gets covered over in Posey’s portrayals of women with neurosis and hang-ups. Here D’Amico manages to mine out not only Posey’s innocence and quirkiness but also her femininity and striking elegance. Beautifully laid out as if a page of proofs, this latter series illustrates the power of the still image to hold the beauty and truth of elusive moments.

Daniel Fierman. “Fun with George and Brad.” Entertainment Weekly. 15 June 2007. The following list was created to honor standout film journalism stories and designs, and the very first piece on the list, and in fact the impetus for compiling it, is this particular article by Daniel Fierman. In a double team interview with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, Fierman lets his interview breath, relying on, in absolutely the smartest move he can make, the personalities of the two celebrated actors to just float his story on by. There’s such a great sense of back and forth between the three men, a sense of humor and energy that infuses the dialogue and makes the article completely infectious. It’s a great story to read over more than once, simply because it really is, as the title claims, fun. Reference Clooney: “If I were as famous as some of those kids who are on the magazines right now at 21 years old, I’d be shooting crack under my eyeball.” Reference Clooney, take two: “[Pitt waves to someone who turns out to be Angelina Jolie with their 5-year-old son, Maddox. Pitt smiles. Clooney waves and gets no response.] Niiice. Very nice. What am I? No wave for me?” And, with his good humor Pitt is the perfect foil. It’s as if these two actors are the last of a dying bred, two true stars in a sea of celebrity.

Jesse Jarnow. “Ghost Stories: Haitian Gangs Up Close.” Paste Magazine. July 2007. Jesse Jarnow’s conversation with Ghosts of Cite Soleil director Asger Leth yields an intriguing lesson dually in documentary filmmaking and the politics of Haiti. The film follows two brothers, both aspiring hip-hop icons, living within a culture of gang violence, and through their story, larger social and cultural issues have come into question for Leth. “It’s depressing,” he tells Jarnow. “There’s not much feeling of hope. But there are some places in Haiti where you feel like what Haiti could be, or feel which direction it could go.”

Josh Rottenberg. “Two Wild and Crazy Guys.” Entertainment Weekly. 17 August 2007. With an interview panel of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, Josh Rottenberg could almost do no wrong. Outside asking a series of inane questions, he was going to get a solid story. Fortunately Rottenberg not only has an intrinsic structural measure of success but also drafts a line of questions that open up a discussion about the nature of comedy—who it’s for, what makes it work and why it works at all. Apatow, Rogan, Hill and Cera—the quietest of the bunch—volley concepts in energetic exchanges that are at once comic and thought-provoking. Rottenberg, for his part, not only pens a bulletproof introduction but also knows the exact moments to come in and out of the conversation. He knows he doesn’t have to do that much work, and so he listens, a fact that encourages the perfectly timed ending.

Tom Hall. “Categorical Defiance.” The Back Row Manifesto, [Part of the indieWIRE Blog Network] 20 August 2007. Of all the pieces written about ‘mumblecore,’ only a handful of journalists really understood the whole affair on the filmmakers’ own terms. Sarasota Film Festival Director of Programming Tom Hall was one of these few. “What has been most interesting for me has been the long-term project to name and define this community of filmmakers. What has been most frustrating in watching this process has been the way in which the need to define and, frankly, pigeonhole the movies has limited a critical discussion of the movies as individual works by individual filmmakers, all of whom seem to be responding in unique ways to our cultural moment (although many of them from the same cultural perspective),” he writes.

Hall goes on to speak about the genesis of the DIY generation and then offers his own perspective on the similarities and differences in the films. “If there is one element that all of the films have in common, it is that despite every character’s best intention to outwardly conform to their understanding of their friends and lover’s expectations, their unspeakable inner-desires win out every time. And for me, that makes these films entirely in tune with the American moment and makes each one a unique document unto itself; These are films about the struggle of self-compromise, which is fundamentally political in today's America.”

It’s Hall’s stirring conclusion however that best defines what mumblecore really is, a conclusion best taken in after reading the piece in full here.

Related Reading: Dennis Lim. “A Generation Finds Its Mumble.” The New York Times. 19 August 2007.

S.T. Van Airsdale. “Mumblecore Inc.” The Reeler. 22 August 2007.

Amy Taubin. “ALL TALK?: Supposedly the voice of its generation, the indie film movement known as Mumblecore has had its 15 minutes. Amy Taubin looks past the hype.” Film Comment. November/December 2007.

Anthony Kaufman. “Crowded House: More movies, fewer screens, and a new game in town means cutthroat competition for indie-film distributors.” The Village Voice. 28 August 2007. In a scary but true assessment of dwindling exhibition space in New York City for independent and art-house cinema, Anthony Kaufman examines the competitive culture that too many films in too few venues face. “Blame the usual suspects—luxury condos, corporate-industrial land grabs, and big-chain multiplex buyouts—for many of New York's art-house deaths. But save a little wagging finger for New York's newest venue, the IFC Center, which has also impacted the downtown landscape,” he writes. While it promotes films from its First Take selection, Kaufman posits and Zeitgeist Films’ Emily Russo echoes, the IFC floods the release schedule with films that should not hit theatrical at all. While the story is little more than bleak, Kaufman does end on a optimistic note, looking, as so many New Yorkers now do, to Brooklyn as its savior for esoteric art-house fare.

David Lowery. “Bleak Moments.” Filmmaker Magazine. 29 August 2007. Each industry magazine has a recognizable essential nature, and for Filmmaker Magazine that is composed in equal parts of knowledgeability and easiness. There’s a true sense of comfortable learning in each article printed both on Web and print editions. In line with this, David Lowery’s conversation with Ronald Bronstein about Frownland more or less perfectly embodies that nature. While Bronstein lays out some heady concepts about organic speech patterns, orientation in film and the humor of his dark comedy, Lowery establishes a flow of questions that gives space to each of these answers. It’s an interview that works without one stumble or the usual hesitation between journalist-filmmaker. In part, this has to do with the fact that Lowery is himself a filmmaker, but to cite that as the entirety of the reason is reductive. It’s perhaps best put that Lowery is simply respectful of the work, his notions and questions geared to a gentle command of the material. It’s absolutely a pleasurable read that sheds light on a filmmaker much deserving of the attention.

Jason Boog. “Skinning the Americans.” The Believer. September 2007. With the horror film resurgence prompted by filmmakers from the Eli Roth ilk, Jason Boog takes a look back at the inception of the genre art, citing Arch Oboler’s Lights Out radio programming as a major player in the gruesome beginnings. “Even though Oboler is mostly forgotten today, his stories are the poisonous root of wartime horror movies. Whether or not [Wes] Craven listened to Lights Out, Oboler broke many of the thematic and moral boundaries that once constricted horror, paving the way for Craven’s shocking pictures,” he writes.

Connecting the horror paradigm to that of the increasingly media exposed atrocities of war, Boog doesn’t glamorize the connections, however. In fact, at times, he downright shakes his finger at the artform: “The whole genre critiques wartime depravity, but paradoxically dulls our sensitivity to suffering. Oboler, Craven and Roth incriminated American hostilities for inspiring their sick fantasies, but their work corrodes any moral argument it creates. Those of us who consume this ugly art are diminished by it, like respectable citizens driving slowly past a car wreck.” Impeccably researched and with its appropriate flourishes of editorial comment, Boog’s article exposes the past, enlightening, at least a bit, the future trajectory of the genre.

Paul Moore. “Telluride 2007: Werner Herzog.” Spout Blog. 3 September 2007. With only five minutes to speak with Werner Herzog, Paul Moore, his voice shaking a bit, his questions faltering on minor notes of blunder, does an impeccable job of getting a glimpse of the filmmaker’s essence. The ending of the podcast interview in particular , in which Herzog speaks about the influence of his mother, is, just by sheer luck, the perfect wrap-up. Better done than many long form interviews, Moore manages to make more of his minutes than most others make in the traditionally allotted 45.

Walter Murch. “I Cinema.” Zoetrope: All-Story. Fall 2007. In approaching the editing for Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, Walter Murch goes to a rather unexpected source for inspiration. Using the I Ching, Murch tosses coins and draws out hexagrams for the journey he and his editing team are about to embark on. “An I Ching hexagram is composed of six lines, and each of the lines can be either yang or yin, depending on how the coins fall: a hexagram is essentially a six-letter word made from a two-letter alphabet, which means that there are sixty-four possible hexagrams to the I Ching. Each of the hexagrams is associated with a state of being and a code of conduct particular to the situation in which you find yourself when you throw the coins,” he explains.

Murch then goes on to break down a scene of The Godfather: Part II using the hexagrams, looking for what he calls visual chords, or essentially the rules of the cinema. For the two sets of three I Ching lines he applies these questions and parameters: Is one character looking at the other?; Is the body of one character oriented toward the other?; Is there accommodating space between the two? Because the article heavily depends on understanding the yin and yang line formations, and consequently their power dynamic significance, it’s an article that has to be read carefully and slowly. It’s a tough read no doubt, but it’s also incredibly rewarding, especially as Murch’s conclusions pinpoint the idea that rules of cinema do indeed exist, and that his I Ching parameters help to uncover them.

Ray Pride. “Senior Moments.” Filmmaker Magazine. Fall 2007. From the very first question of Ray Pride’s chat with The Savages writer-director Tamara Jenkins, the interview is going well, a fact marked as Jenkins finishes Pride’s question for him. It’s rare to see this immediate chemistry, one that remains without falter throughout the remainder of the Q&A. “When I got stuck I would pretend the screenplay was a novel, because screenplays are such haikus,” Jenkins says later.

“Poetry and carpentry together,” Pride echoes—which at least to our mind is the perfect description of writing a screenplay.

Pride’s incredible amount of knowledge in general plays a great part in the strength of the interview. He pulls seemingly disparate pieces together to reflect a theme he sees Jenkins might respond to.

“Orson Welles once said that a director doesn’t take advantage of accidents, a director presides over accidents,” he says.

“There is something to that, something about the balance between aggression and passivity,” she answers. “…Finding that balance—it’s like a Zen state. I think it’s an ideal state in life [laughs] and directing.”

Jason Guerrasio. “The Unseen Hand.” Filmmaker Magazine. Fall 2007. As the nonfiction film environment finds its star rising increasingly in the mainstream press, and consequently although not always conclusively in theatrical release, there’s likewise an importance in understanding the filmmaker, particularly the documentarian’s, process. Talking with My Kid Could Paint That director Amir Bar-Lev, Jason Guerrasio helps to open a discussion about the relationship between filmmaker and subject. “…Ultimately what I wanted to make the film about was what happens when you let a documentary director into your life—the issues around representing people on celluloid,” Bar-Lev says.

In following acclaimed child artist Marla Olmstead, Bar-Lev had to question the authenticity of her work, and although he never directly asks if she has help with her paintings, Bar-Lev felt that exploring the confusion he felt was pivotal. At times this served to draw him toward and away from the Olmstead family. This volley back and forth is a critical issue for other documentary filmmakers, and because of that, the article deserves a wide reading particularly among that audience.

“Would you ever get this close to a subject again?” Guerrasio asks later. “Sure. I don’t think there’s any way of getting around these issues,” Bar-Lev answers. “There are going to be these two somewhat incommensurate elements to your relationship with people. One is your striving for journalistic integrity, and the other is your feelings of affection for them. There’s no getting around that.”

David Denby. “Fallen Idols—Have Stars Lost Their Magic?” The New Yorker. 22 October 2007. In a media environment of no holds barred, Hollywood has lost all its mystery and consequently its stars, or at least so proposes David Denby in this thought-provoking if not fully fleshed out trip down memory lane assessment of stardom’s demise. “In movies, stars hold your attention just by being what they are; in their very existence on camera they express an immediately recognizable human possibility, a projection of personal power onto the world,” he writes. Among those Denby counts in his list of stars? Clint Eastwood, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner. As he constructs rules and definitions and lays out detailed examples of true stardom, Denby shows how, and more importantly why, the Hollywood culture of fame has evolved; the fall of the studio system, the cultivation of humility in actors as well as their increased desire for creative freedom are cited among other inciting notes of change. “Of course movie stars still exist,” Denby concedes. “…But there are fewer stars than in the past, and they have come down in the world…There’s little to do but wait like suitors with hat in hand for the movies to produce a fresh round of stars so we can become fools all over again.”

John Wray. “Minister of Fear.” The New York Times Magazine. 23 September 2007. “For most successful directors, whether in Europe or America, the audience exists to be entertained; for [Michael] Haneke it seems to exist to be confronted,” John Wray writes in his superb profile of the controversial director. Following Haneke during the production of the American remake of Funny Games, Wray challenges Haneke to an exploration of his artistic intent. “I’ve been accused of ‘raping’ the audience in my films, and I admit to that freely — all movies assault the viewer in one way or another. What’s different about my films is this: I’m trying to rape the viewer into independence,” Haneke explains. Engaging at every turn, Wray’s piece sketches Haneke in perfect form.

David M. Halbfinger. “Facing Competition, iTunes Revs Up Its Film Section.” The New York Times. 23 October 2007. Although iTunes holds a top spot in the distribution of music via the Internet, the track record of film sales and acquisition has been much less successful. In studying this, David M. Halbfinger casts his eye to Apple’s newest strategies--running distribution for Ed Burns’ Purple Violets--as well as its past failures—the intractability on flexible pricing that lost iTunes the NBC contract and its lack of compromise on piracy countermeasures. Reports Halbfigner, in talking with James L. McQuivey, a media analyst at Forrester Research: “Apple “is in a little bit of a crisis now,” he said, adding, “If they can’t get the content soon, which may be why they’re doing all sorts of attention-getting content deals now — they need to show they have some traction in the video space — they stand to lose whatever momentum they’ve gained.” On the flip side, Halbfinger also speaks with shorts filmmakers, all of whom, although they aren’t banking on the iTunes releases, are now better exposed because of the online distribution outlet than they previously were traveling only the film festival circuit. Halbfinger’s is both a smart and remarkably relevant issue, one that may come into increasingly importance as online viewing sources arrive even more in the mainstream.

S.T. VanAirsdale. “The Real Thing, Totally Unrelated Blog-a-Thon: What we can -- and should -- learn from Dionne Warwick.” The Reeler. 24 October 2007. For all the standout film writing S.T. VanAirsdale does, why is it we’ve selected the one piece that has nothing to do with film at all? Simple. With the Totally Unrelated Blog-a-Thon, VanAirsdale has used the Internet (the future of most journalism, and film journalism especially) to best effect. By asking others to contribute, VanAirsdale began a dialogue of sorts that extends well beyond the parameters of the project itself. It was at least a temporary creation of an online community, and that small step goes a long way to increase exposure for the films covered in The Reeler. Isn’t that exactly what all forward-thinking publications are supposed to do?

Tom Chiarella. “The Sexiest Woman Alive IV Starring Charlize Theron as Herself.” Esquire. November 2007. Tom Chiarella ran a large risk with this article, namely that its screenplay structure is at its surface kitschy. Chiarella opens: “FADE IN: A man’s voice plays over the credits on an otherwise blank screen. This is the writer speaking, to himself.” Fortunately, Chiarella is a master of his words and narrative beats, placing each, without the least bit of manipulation or abuse, in cohesive and remarkable lines of dialogue and action, as in: “I have to point out—despite my sensibility that wants not to offend women—that there is a lot of flesh. There are a lot of parts—tanned arms, even the tips of her fingers, when [Charlize Theron] jabs the air to make a point. I have to look. To set her up as a series of parts, and present her as a whole.” While much of the article is self-evaluating commentary on the process of celebrity profile writing, the rest utilizes its structure to realize a vision of Theron entirely, making of her anecdotes and memories scenes that run as poignant flashbacks. It’s a piece that easily could have failed and does instead the exact opposite. It triumphs quite quietly and almost, dare we say, lovingly.

Rob Nelson. “Stop the Presses.” Film Comment. November/December 2007. Cut up any which way, watching media rivalries play out is a hoot. In recapping Joan Micklin Silver’s Between the Lines, a commentary on the demise of the alternative press, former film critic for The Village Voice Rob Nelson—much like a spurned lover would—takes the occasion to dish it to his last employer.

“Indeed hasn’t The Village Voice, along with the nation’s other alt (or “alt”) weeklies, been dying for decades?” he asks. Were Nelson to stick on this theme throughout the article, it would be little more than published spite, and while he does still insidiously dig in to the Voice’s credibility, he tempers it with a compelling study of Silver’s work and the real life connections bonded to that feature.

Kent Jones. “Bergman Vs. Bergman.” Film Comment. November/December 2007. Using Jonathan Rosenbaum’s The New York Times Op-Ed on Ingmar Bergman “Scenes From an Overrated Career” as a bounce board, Kent Jones, in a stunning, comprehensive and articulate piece of film writing, draws a clarification between Bergman and his reputation, allowing equally for both the good and bad in the filmmaker’s career.

“…that Bergman had the ability to secure funding by simply snapping his bony Scandinavian fingers, while a Welles or a Bresson was in a perpertual struggle to finance every new project, was the ultimate affront,” he admits. Yet, in the end, Jones writes of Bergman’s work: “Bergman’s films strike me as explorations, in the very best sense of the word. I suppose I qualify as a fan, and I will admit that I see no “higher form” of humanity in Bergman’s work, just plain old humanity, as a good portion of it sees itself: alone, uncertain, eternally defensive, and open to revelation without knowing it.”

Dave McNary & Cynthia Littleton. “Writers Call For Strike; Union, Producers to Resume Talks Sunday.” Variety. 2 November 2007. As talk of the strike became reality, Variety’s coverage met every challenge in the process, reporting all sides of the story and maintaining a fairness throughout. Dave McNary & Cynthia Littleton’s story in particular stands out as clean and comprehensive newswriting for an issue that will resonate well beyond 2007.

Adam B. Vary. “Out of Sight.” Entertainment Weekly. 2 November 2007. In the wake of the cultural shockwave that was Brokeback Mountain, Adam B. Vary takes a look at the effects, or rather lack thereof, of the film on promoting other substantial gay cinema. “Almost two years after Brokeback, the best Hollywood can do with gay content is the “I’m not gay!” punchlines of Wild Hogs or the homoerotic homophobia of 300,” Vary writes.

Reasons vary for the dearth of gay cinema content, as explored by Vary, but the overriding reason it’s held back deals with the trepidation of the studio heads. In turn screenwriters don’t spend much time penning content that’s not in demand, and hence producers have no material with which to approach studios. Essentially, it’s a cyclical mess.

In his closing lines, Vary pines for Brokeback’s success to spill over into other areas of film. It’s a plea not only Vary voices but one expressed in dollars and cents by an audience that will pay to see good cinema.

Eugene Hernandez. “Bias? Conflict of Interest?” Eugonline [Part of the indieWIRE Blog Network]. 14 November 2007. Let’s just say that the public trust in media has over the years been greatly diminished. Let’s just say that’s less opinion than fact. So as a journalist, what do you do when confronted with a compromised situation? After publishing Jeff Reichert’s Southland Tales review, one called into question by representatives of Samuel Goldwyn Films when they realized that Reichert is the Senior Vice President overseeing publicity and marketing at the competing Magnolia Pictures, indieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez could easily have pulled the review down and gone on with his business, losing iW’s integrity not with the studio but certainly with the readership.

Rightly, Hernandez instead took the harder road, the one more fair to his audience. In a blog entry, he explained the situation, cited the newly printed Letter to the Editor from the Samuel Goldwyn Films reps and opened the floor to discussion. Not entirely a selfless act on Hernandez’s part, the entry and review generated huge comment buzz for that week in November, yet the transparency Hernandez offered here is commendable. It was a sure proof of iW’s commitment both to its readers—to telling them the truth about films—and also to the makers and distributors of the films. In our view, the situation couldn’t have been better handled in the aftermath, although it should have been prevented from the start.

J. Hoberman. “Like a Complete Unknown: I'm Not There and the Changing Face of Bob Dylan on Film.” The Village Voice. 20 November 2007. “This is the [Bob] Dylan movie that Dylan himself could never make,” J. Hoberman writes of Todd Haynes atypical biopic I’m Not There. Weaving ideas in and out of the film, Hoberman pens a sprawling and intriguing assessment of Dylan and his work. Like Haynes’ film itself, the article is layered and detailed, hitting on the Dylan revival of late; on the stream of conscious structure of Haynes’ film; on the importance of The Other Side of the Mirror. It’s all here, although as Hoberman is quick to remind, the man himself is not. It’s a beautiful piece of film analysis and commentary, a study fully realized and articulated.

AJ Schnack. “COMMENTARY: A Dark Day for Documentary as the Academy Changes Course, Fights the Future.” All these wonderful things. 20 November 2007. Moving and inspirational, dedicated nonfiction film blogger AJ Schnack’s passage speaks out about the slights of the Academy and the International Documentary Association in its 2007 awards list. “When presented with the following choice - do we prefer a competent, conventionally-styled film that maintains a even keel or do we prefer a film that swings for the fences, a film whose highs hit us in unexpected ways, even if it occasionally falters in its risk-taking - the Academy and the IDA have chosen to stand on the side of conventional and competent,” he writes.

The essential problem, Schnack points out is that for far too long nonfiction has been seen as a tool solely to educate. However, with the influx of creative nonfiction films, the parameters from the artistic end, the crafting end are changing. “…Many of us believe in nonfiction filmmaking as more than a teaching tool, as something that can be entertaining, as something that can be artistic, as something that can push stylistic boundaries, as something that can reveal the human condition, as something that can be as rival narrative as a filmgoing experience,” he continues.

It’s Schnack’s conclusion though, much like Tom Hall’s conclusion of ‘Categorical Defiance’ that is so stirring. It can—and should—be read here.

Addie Morfoot. “Will weak box office end flock to docs?: Distribs find niche films can't support hefty prices” Variety. 6 December 2007. Taking a look at the theatrical landscape for documentary films, Addie Morfoot questions the art form’s financial viability, citing the lack of momentum gained by Sundance purchased releases including My Kid Could Paint That and Crazy Love. If indeed nonfiction films are making headway into the mainstream, how is that truly reflected if the box office numbers—and in turn the DVD sales numbers later—are so low? It’s an important issue for doc filmmakers and distributors alike and indeed for hungry doc audiences as well.

The following publications were considered in the compilation: Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly, Filmmaker Magazine, Film Comment, Cineaste, Moving Pictures, Sight & Sound, The New Yorker, indieWIRE, indieWIRE blog network, The Reeler, Spout Blog, All These Wonderful Things, Drifting: A Director’s Blog, Girish, Scarlett Cinema, Bright Lights Film Journal, Film Threat, Ain’t It Cool News, GreenCine, Twitch, The Workbook Project, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Atlantic Monthly, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, The Village Voice, The Believer, Zoetrope: All-Story, Paste Magazine, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Men’s Journal, GQ, Interview, BOMB.

We regret we were not able to review for consideration: Fade In, Film Ink, Film Int., Premiere, Newsweek, Film Quarterly, Chicago Tribune, Salon, Slant, Student Filmmakers, Cinema Scope, The Guardian, Tokion, American Cinematographer, Creative Screenwriting, Scr(i)pt and Release Print.

Because SM’s editor has in the past held connections with MovieMaker Magazine, an active choice was made to omit entries from this publication for sake of fairness.

The editor wishes to thank Michael Tully, Stu VanAirsdale, Nick Schwartz and Ashley Sabin for their support and contribution in compiling this list.

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