Okay, this is my first post, so I’ll start by giving my top 20 movies for 2007.  I used to judge people based on their movie tastes, so it’s therapeutic to lay myself bare right off the bat.  And for the record, I still love Mars Attacks and plan to torment my children with it, should I ever have children.

1.  Inland Empire
2.  There Will Be Blood
3.  I’m Not There
4.  No Country For Old Men
5.  Zodiac
6.  Atonement
7.  Michael Clayton
8.  Gone Baby Gone
9.  Into the Wild
10.  Once
11.  Grindhouse
12.  The Simpsons Movie
13.  Superbad
14.  Southland Tales
15.  Blade Runner: The Final Cut
16.  No End In Sight
17.  Sicko
18.  The Lives of Others
19.  28 Weeks Later
20.  Sunshine

Inland Empire:  I don’t know if this movie has an official release date, but it would be my favorite in either year.  This is the one where Lynch finally goes all the way into his obsessions, unencumbered by studio constraints and without having to make compromises to investors.  I was skeptical of the video approach at first, but now I hope Lynch makes every movie this way.

There Will Be Blood:  P.T. Anderson was done channeling Altman and Scorsese when he came out with the wholly original “Punch Drunk Love.”  Now he’s gone one better on the master himself, Stanley Kubrick.  The themes, the stylistic flourishes, even the score, are reminiscent of some of Kubrick’s best work, but Kubrick never got to work with the madman Daniel Day-Lewis.

I’m Not There:  Yes, Cate Blanchett looks and sounds a lot like the mid-60s Bob Dylan, but the real joy in this movie is watching how Dylan the artist carefully manipulated what we know of the man.  Creating a realistic portrait of Dylan is not the point, or even beside the point, it’s the opposite of the point.

Grindhouse:  ”Planet Terror” was fun, but it was really more of an inside joke intended for Z-movie fans.  ”Death Proof” was the real deal, full of genuinely disturbing violence, tough women and the coolest car chase since, well, “Vanishing Point.”

Political Movies:  It seems like most good movies out this year had something to say, at least peripherally, about the arrogance of U.S. foreign policy, or the dangers of the Patriot Act.  But even Warren Beatty’s “Reds,” originally out in 1981, was hailed as being so “now” when it was released on DVD last year.  I don’t think it’s a sign that filmmakers are entering the fray as much as it is a reminder that things don’t ever change all that much, and any movie that deals with the abuse of power will seem relevant to any generation.

Southland Tales:  Is it wrong to love a movie for what it tries to be?  Richard Kelly has all the ambition of David Lynch and P.T. Anderson, without the skill to fully recreate that vision on screen.  But it’s buried up there somewhere, and you can see snatches of it from time to time, and boy is it awesome, with all its giant CGI zeppelins, floating ice cream trucks and rips in the space-time continuum.  I’d rather watch an over-reaching failure like this one than any ten movies like “300″ or “Transformers.” Sure, those movies succeed on the terms they lay out for themselves, but are those terms worth my ten dollars?

Atonement:  It’s sad that this movie didn’t wind up on more year-end lists, even though it does fall under the dreaded “prestige picture” category and is reminiscent of the kind of movie Miramax was releasing every other weekend in the 90s.  That wasn’t always a bad thing, and this one is a pretty good adaptation of a pretty great book.  Plus, the hottest shot in any movie out this year is when Keira Knightley’s shoe falls off in the library (granted, the effect is spoiled when it’s clearly seen back on in the next shot).

This year caused more “lump-in-the-back-of-my-throat” moments than any year in recent memory.  Hal Holbrook crying over Emile Hirsch’s departure in “Into the Wild,” the look on Marketa Irglova’s face at the end of “Once” as she plays her piano, father-son bonding as Homer lets Bart hold the bomb in “The Simpsons Movie.”  I look at 2007 as the year genuine feeling came back into the movies.