Gary Dretzka
Leonard Klady
Emanuel Levy
David Poland
Douglas Pratt
Ray Pride

2000 Points Of Right

We finally passed the 200 mark, so we figured it was time for some serious analysis of this year's MCN Top Ten chart. There are bigger charts (see Engin's List of 545), but we are a bit more selective. Engin includes a lot of "industry" people who make no real claim to being critics. But still, doesn't it scare you that there are more than 350 people are making a claim to being critics these days? (One for almost every film festival.)

Anyway…

The Top Six are pretty much the same any way you slice it. Sideways, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, Before Sunset and The Incredibles.

The group is distinctly separate from the rest of the field, every film amassing more than 500 points. The next film, Kinsey, has "only" 345 points as of this writing (1/12/05). Only seventeen titles have as many as 200 points.

Sideways is the clear leader. It appears on 70% percent of our charts and is ahead in both total number of charts and total #1s. Most importantly, it is the only film with more than three votes in this poll to average 7 points per vote. (We count chart on an inverted scale, 1 pt. for a #10 vote, 10 pts. for a #1 vote.)

The second best average per vote belongs to Million Dollar Baby, with 6.9, though the film is in #3 because Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind not only has a very strong 6.4 average, but it appears on 25 more lists or 11% more of the lists in our survey.

In fact, the only real disagreement in this group between the MCN chart and the all-inclusive Engin list is with Million Dollar Baby's position in the Top Six. Engin has the film in sixth place. Also, Eternal Sunshine is even stronger on Engin's list. I think that both differences can be attributed to a much larger sample of internet critics, which skews the survey both younger and includes more writers who simply have not had the chance to even see Million Dollar Baby.

None of this should be seen as a suggestion that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is not the clear #2 in the eyes of critics this year. It is. On both lists.

The Aviator, Before Sunset and The Incredibles are quite distinguishable from the Top Three in the non-voting voting. None of them has passed 600 total points yet, while #3, Million Dollar Baby, has 717.5. What is interesting is that only one of the trio, The Aviator, is considered a serious Best Picture candidate. Even though Ray (#18) has less than one-third of the votes that The Aviator does, it has a higher average per vote. This could be a good indicator of the film's potential success as an Oscar nominee.

It is compelling to see The Incredibles ranked so high and I'm sure that it leaves some people reconsidering its Best Picture chances. But one thing that is unique about the film's chart position is that it is the only film in the Top Six that has a vote average of less than five. In fact, it is the only with an average that low in the Top Sixteen and it and Spider-Man 2 are the only ones with such a low average in the Top Twenty. Of course, that means a lot of votes.

Also in the Top 20 in total points and averaging a 6 per vote or better are Finding Neverland, Bad Education, and Kill Bill, Vol 2. If you are wondering what the case is for an Oscar Best Picture race between Sideways, Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, Finding Neverland and Ray, that's where it is.

Two years ago, all the Best Picture nominees came from the Top Eleven and last year, The Top Nineteen (though four of the titles were in the Top Eight). If Ray is one of the nominees, as of this chart, all four nominees would likely be in the Top Eighteen, with three of the Top Four getting in and the fifth nominee coming from somewhere in the low teens… unless Fahrenheit 9/11 (#8) gets in. Then, four noms would come from the Top Eight and the last would be ranked between #12 and #18.

By the way… using the Academy system of preferential voting, only Sideways would make it into the Best Picture slots based on #1 votes alone, as long as we count its one #1 tie vote from David Elliot, who had the film tied with The Motorcycle Diaries (#19). But you can surely say that critics are choosing from a much larger pool than the vast majority of Academy voters. Or are they? Two hundred and thirty two films made the chart so far (every update brings a few new titles) and the Academy qualified 267 this year. I would be shocked if more than 50 films received, with all those ballots out, more than a half dozen votes for Best Picture. Out 219 critics gave that much cred to 61 films.

Academy voters are not the only group that has a surprisingly narrow view. Just take a look at today's new charts looking at the top films from Dependents and the ones from True Indies. Might you not expect the high-falutin' critics to grab hold of a film like The Return and fight for it until the end? But alas, no. Only three True Indies managed to acquire as many as 100 points from our 200+ critics… only F9/11 cracked 200 pts. The Dependents had thirteen films with more than 200 points.

No documentary other than F9/11 and Tarnation could crack the 100 pt. ceiling either. But it was a banner year for foreign language films, with eight drawing more than 100 votes, four of them over 200… two of those by Zhang Yimou. Only three got to 100 last year.

Why don't documentaries and True Indies get more attention from critics? Well, to be fair to critics, a lot of these films get very limited distribution. If they aren't getting to critics, they sure as hell aren't getting to the public. And one of the culprits is The Dependent. There are six foreign language films amongst the twenty highest ranked films from Dependents. There is not a single documentary. If you are not Michael Moore or Errol Morris, you can save the price of postage sending your film to a Dependent. So much for the doc explosion…

It is interesting how the Top Ten lists do seem to end up as a partial reflection of the awards season. Strip away the art-y stuff and the films that combine some commercial value and critical credibility always seem to rise to the top of whatever this is. But are critics affecting the vote or is the voting affecting critics? You be the judge.

That's it for now… chew on the charts and e-mail me your ideas and perspectives. I'll post the great ones on The Hot Blog.

The Big Chart - Updated Jan 11
The Top 20 Indies, Dependents, Documentaries and Foreign Language

- br David Poland