Films seen so far this year: 13

Awards season: All eyes on the BAFTAs
Earlier this week, the Writers Strike reduced the sprawling, normally 4 hours plus Golden Globes ceremony to a brisk 32 minute press conference that went by so quickly it left even the BBC News 24 reporters struggling to catch up. With the Oscars currently under threat of the same treatment, all eyes are turning towards the BAFTAs, which were announced this week. Given that the stars may be forced to boycott the Oscars as they did the Globes, the BAFTAs could be their only chance to get the frocks out this year, so there are high expectations for a bigger turn-out than usual.

As for the awards themselves, There Will Be Blood is currently the front-runner for Best Film, with Atonement (which won the Golden Globe) likely to pick up Best British Film as compensation. I confess, I was mystified to see American Gangster among the nominees for Best Film - for me, it was one of the year’s biggest disappointments. Finally, I’ll stick my neck out and say that Daniel Day-Lewis will win Best Actor for There Will Be Blood (which is astonishing) and Julie Christie will win Best Actress for Away From Her. Oh, and I’ll be rooting for La Vie En Rose to win Best Foreign Film, even though it’s probably the least likely of the five contenders.

Top Ten Of 2007
I really struggled with my Top Ten this year. Normally there are 13 or so contenders and I agonise over which three to drop but this year I had a shortlist of 20 and it was really painful to choose between them. That said, the top 4 were a lock from the start and my favourite film of the year was definitely the Jesse James movie.

1. The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford 2. Zodiac  
3. The Lives of Others
4. The Science of Sleep
5. La Vie En Rose
6. Once
7. Planet Terror
8. Two Days In Paris
9. Sherrybaby
10. Air Guitar Nation

Honourable mentions go to: This Is England, Hairspray, Paranoid Park, Jindabyne, The Bridge, Shut Up And Sing, Ratatouille, Atonement, Inland Empire, Control and Across the Universe.

DVD of the Week: Superbad (released 21st Jan, RRP £19.99)

Along with Knocked Up (also produced by Judd Apatow), this was one of the funniest films of last year and the 2-disc DVD is an absolute treat. Aside from a cast and crew commentary, the usual Making Of documentary and a great selection of deleted scenes, it also has an entire disc full of extras that includes a gag reel, footage from the auditions, set diaries and tonnes of specially-filmed sketches and spoofs that poke fun at the whole Behind the Scenes process, such as a featurette called ‘Everyone Hates Michael Cera’ or ‘Press Junket Meltdown’ where co-star Jonah Hill loses his temper with an irritating British journalist who keeps asking him if he has to be fat to be funny.