I had a piece of film that I used to show myself all the time under the piano; it lasted two minutes and you could see galloping horses hooves, a mysterious stranger turning his head, a lady dressed in white lace holding a pair of opera glasses and accompanied by a gentleman in a top hat; I saw this film hundreds of times and it was not until almost 35 years later that I saw Renoir's Nana at the Cinematheque and suddenly shouted out: "That's my piece!"

So I would say I'm very much influenced by Renoir.

— Alain Resnais, The Cinema of Alain Resnais (1968) by Roy Armes, whose source is Cinéma 65 Nos. 91-92, Dec. 1964-Jan 1965.

RD: Every day on the way into work I pass through the subway station in San Francisco where Harvey Milk Plaza is. Who is Harvey Milk and why make a movie about him?

Gus Van Sant: Well, he's one of the most important San Francisco representatives of the Castro who made it to city supervisor, the first openly gay politician in the state, and he was shot by his fellow supervisor. He's a very iconic figure in the gay community, and [he] hasn't really had a dramatic film made about him. It's a project I've been working on for a while, and finally we get to do it.

— December 2007

Indeed. It's hard not to wonder if Van Sant's seeming fascination with shootings — seen in Elephant, Last Days, etc — was in some way a reflection of the Harvey Milk project that might never be made.

Now shooting in San Francisco, the film will be made, with actors Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, and Diego Luna. I took these pictures from a single spot on the sidewalk (almost) near the corner of Castro and Market, turning to snap the camera at three different angles. Notice the Castro Theater's spiffy new deep-red paint job, the enticing marquee's (fake) siren call toward the Poseidon, and the sandwich board placed in front of every storefront, proudly announcing that business remains open during the making of a biopic about the neighborhood's most famous resident, yes sir.

Actually appearing on the Castro's screen this week, it's not Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Roddy McDowell, and Red Buttons, but the sixth annual Noir City festival, whose movies show an even older — although perhaps no darker — San Francisco. As the poster says, "10 Days, 20 Films, No Happy Endings!"

Just a quick note: I'm back from Sundance, and you can find a summary of impressions here with links to various blog entries. After I thaw out, I'll be back at Errata.

Arriving only a couple of weeks late, here's my list of favorite movies released in US theaters in 2007. I've got twenty-eight of them for you, plus five undistributed films that only played at festivals, followed by some brief comments.

Top 2, in order

Next 5, in no particular order

truth through curiosity
• Forever (Honigmann) and
• Offside (Panahi)

wisdom despite youth, vibrance despite age
• Youth Without Youth (Coppola) and
• Away From Her (Polley)

epic bombast and my favorite performance
• There Will Be Blood (Anderson)

For #8, a Tie

two poignant comedies in a year of many
• Year of the Dog (White) and
• Waitress (Shelly)

For #9, a Ten-Way Tie of Documentaries

• My Kid Could Paint That (Bar-Lev)
• Protagonist (Yu)
• Manufactured Landscapes (Baichwal)
• The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nuns (Grønkjær)
• No End in Sight (Ferguson)
• All in This Tea (Blank, Leibrecht)
• Murch (Ichioka)
• In the Shadow of the Moon (Sington)
• God Grew Tired of Us (Quinn)
• The Rape of Europa (Berge, Cohen, Newnham)

For #10, a Nine-Way Tie of Narrative Films

• Brand Upon the Brain! (Maddin)
• Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (Lumet)
• Grindhouse, particularly the Death Proof portion (Tarantino)
• Inland Empire (Lynch)
• Dans Paris (Honoré)
• Comedy of Power (Chabrol)
• Michael Clayton (Gilroy)
• Starting Out in the Evening (Wagner)
• Persepolis (Paronnaud, Satrapi)

5 Great Undistributed Films Seen in 2007, in viewing order

• Colossal Youth (Costa)
• The Man From London (Tarr)
• In the City of Sylvia (Guerin)
• Memories (Farocki, Costa, Green)
• Import/Export (Seidl)

Some Brief Notes

It was a strange, lumpy year for me, with a few dense periods of movie watching and some stretches of unusually light viewing. This is reflected in my list — concentrated at the nozzle, atomized in the final mist — and so is the fact that I don't feel like I saw many masterpieces, even though I saw a near metric ton of very good films, making this a stronger year than most, I think, but one that's hard to boil down to a top ten.

Isn't it cheating to include a nine-way tie and a ten-way tie in your top ten list?

Actually, no. The bylaws specifically allow this sort of thing, and in fact I had a three-way tie for #1 last year. I'd tell you who wrote the bylaws, but the bylaws strictly forbid it.

I did cheat once, though: I saw Colossal Youth in 2006. But I saw it again in 2007, at the San Francisco International Film Festival. I've been granted a variance by the keepers of the bylaws.

(I cheated a second time by making the the ties occupy just one slot instead of one slot per film. I was not granted a variance for this; I simply relied upon the mathematical laziness of the certifying judges. It worked!)

OK, but where is Hou Hsiao-hsien's latest film?

Lo and behold, Flight of the Red Balloon will be released in 2008. Which is fabulous. It used to be virtually impossible to see films by HHH, but that has begun to change. Surely it helps that his latest film stars Juliette Binoche and takes place in International Cinema Town, but I've got no complaints.

OK, but I can't believe you left out that other good movie!

The world of movies is larger than you think, as highlighted by this paragraph from Jonathan Rosenbaum's year-end write up:

Film Comment recently put together a list of eligible titles for its own annual poll. It's 105 pages long, with roughly 23 films per page—more than 2,400 titles. "Major studios" released 119 films, or about one-twentieth of the total (I saw 33 of them), and 49 more came from "specialty divisions" (I saw 22 of those). "Independent distributors" were behind nearly 500 (90 of which I saw). The remaining 1,600-plus titles came out of festivals (where I saw about 50 not included in the other lists).

Do you feel you saw enough of those 1,600 films to get outraged about one omission? I don't. It makes things much simpler to do like the magazines and award ceremonies do — and like I've done here — which is to limit the list to whatever was theatrically distributed in New York or Los Angeles (excluding festivals) in 2007. But even that is a staggering number of films.

It's a selection process. No-one-but-no-one's list is comprehensive. I imagine most of us have a list of want-to-sees, and near the top of mine, if not sitting at the head, is 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which has shown up on a number of other lists.

But of course not seeing a movie is only one explanation for its absence from my list. Another is that I didn't like it very much. Black Book, I'm Not There, and Atonement fall into this category. No Country For Old Men does too, or maybe into an oily pit in the middle; even after much discussion I have decided I still don't much care for it, despite how good it is. I think I could be convinced to include Sweeney Todd and Zodiac by the right people, but as I said I'm already a couple of weeks late. No time!

But none of these omitted films actually raises my ire, so I mention them only in passing. Drawing one out for special mention, I'll list a film that does:

The Film with the Least Helpful Political Commentary, the Least Context for the Events it Depicts, the Least Justification For its Tacked-On 30-Second Moral, and the Biggest Waste of Functioning Brains

• Charlie Wilson's War (Nichols)

And Finally

One of the many joys of living in San Francisco is that the streets are paved with celluloid. It's not a movie-making town; it's a movie-watching town. And my friend and fellow blogger Brian Darr has assembled a list of favorite repertory screenings in the San Francisco Bay Area to which I contributed. It's a great reminder of where I live, sure, but also a reminder of the mountain of film history that all of the above new films are standing upon.

It reminds me of an Al Franken joke. We're all privileged to live in this country because we get to stand on the shoulders of people who stood on the shoulders of people who stood on the shoulders of people who stood on the shoulders of people who stood on the shoulders of people who stood on the necks of Indians. Cinema is also thus. The cinematic equivalent of those boots-on-the-neck is Birth of a Nation, of course.

But now I've really left the topic. Where was I?

Here: Thanks for your time. Let's get together a little more often in 2008, what do you say?

Update: We discussed this list belatedly on the March 1 episode of the Errata Movie Podcast.

Greetings. I'll be back here at Errata on February 1, but for the next 10 days I'll be blogging about Sundance over at Paste's site. Come along.

I've turned off comments on this post so you can post them over at Paste.