Haven't had time to check into the new Blogger format. Anyway, the indieWire critics poll is no online: my surprise is that many of my choices actually made it into the Top Five. The Number One film was "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu". Anyway, to check out the poll, here's the link: www.indiewire.com/buzz/061217.html#006350 and hopefully it will be fun to see what some other people (such as Jim Hoberman, Amy Taubin, Ed Halter, Berenice Reynaud, Godfrey Chesire, Armond White, Nathan Lee, et al) were thinking about this year in movies.

Just e.mailed off my DVD Beaver poll of the Best DVD Releases of 2006. Ok, here's my list: 1) "Star Spangled to Death" (Ken Jacobs; self-distributed; Region 1 USA); 2) The John Wayne-John Ford Collection (eight films) and The John Ford Collection (five films) (John Ford; Warner Home Video; Region 1 USA); 3) Max Ophuls: "Letter From an Unknown Woman"; "The Reckless Moment"; "Le Plaisir"; "The Earrings of Madame De..." (Max Ophuls; Second Sight; Region 2 UK); 4) Mikio Naruse: Three Films, and "Toni" (Jean Renoir) (Mikio Naruse and Jean Renoir; Masters of Cinema/Eureka; Region 2 UK); 5) "Wintersoldier" (The Wintersoldier Collective; Milliarium Zero/New Yorker; Region 1 USA); 6) "The Other Cinema Collection" (fifteen titles by Craig Baldwin, Mike Kuchar, Lewis Klahr, Janie Geiser, et al) (The Other Cinema; Region 1 USA); 7) "Marlene Dietrich: The Glamour Collection" (five films) (Josef von Sternberg, Rene Clair, Mitchell Leisen; Universal; Region 1 USA); 8) "The Complete Mr. Arkadin" (Orson Welles; The Criterion Collection; Region 1 USA); 9) "Wanda" (Barbara Loden; Parlour Pictures; Region 1 USA); 10) "El Doctor, Joy Street & Asparagus" (Suzan Pitt; First Run Features; Region 1 USA).

So that's done....