Movie City News has up a running tally of film critics' top ten lists for the year, and it's no great surprise that No Country for Old Men is in the lead. What is a bit of a surprise is how utterly it is dominating the field, with more than twice the weighted votes of its nearest competitor.
For my part, I was thrilled to see that Zodiac and Once, which have both been pretty much stiffed so far this awards season (and you wonder why studios hold all their best films until the end of the year), clock in at a remarkable second and third in the overall tally. The good news is that, with the DVD release of Once yesterday, both are now available on video, so if you haven't seen them yet it's an easy oversight to remedy.
Other surprises: Juno ranks a disappointing #12, and Gone Baby Gone and American Gangster don't even crack the top twenty. My fear that the latter would emerge as a safe, consensus pick for Best Picture thanks to its Oscar-friendly stars and director does not, happily, seem to be panning out.
--Christopher Orr