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What a difference a year makes. When we announced last year's awards, there was a tone of apology in our writing. Few of the top flight productions delivered quality entertainment while the real race was at the bottom. When voters have more difficulty narrowing the field for a worst of list than a best of list, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. Just when all hope was lost, 2006 provided movie salvation. The majority of the heavily hyped productions were ultimately satisfying. Big budget blockbusters such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Night at the Museum not only met but exceeded expectations. Major awards contenders such as The Departed, The Queen, United 93, Little Miss Sunshine and Letters from Iwo Jima were the rare projects from the Oscars trail to fully deliver upon the promise of greatness.

The end result of all this quality is that the 2007 Calvins represent a particularly strong set of nominees. Unlike 2006, we weren't struggling to find laudable people to fill out the bottom of some of our lists. Top tier talent exists across the all categories with this leading to a deep set of worthy contenders. 2007 features arguably our best top ten for Best Picture out of the seven years we have presented our annual awards. Many of the acting awards were bunched as closely as we have ever tabulated. We're talking Florida in 2000 close.

What this creates is a series of 21 categories that we are proud to present as the collective opinion of the staff at BOP. We have added only one new category this year, but we won't tip our hand as to what that is until it's published on Friday. In the interim, we will follow a schedule of four selections a day. We are certain you will not agree with all of our selections, but it's our goal as a group to create discussion among our readers about what defines greatness in cinema. We also managed to extend our feud with Uwe Boll for another year. If he was any type of man at all, he'd take us up on our offer to square off in the ring...but since several members of BOP are 6'3" or bigger, we are not expecting the phone to ring any time soon. Until then, the only beatings we may administer are in the Worst Picture and Worst Performance categories. Hint: Bloodrayne makes an appearance or two.

While we don't want to give anything away about the rest of the week's results, it is safe to say that the results of the categories posted thus far foreshadow a lot of outcomes that surprised even the voters. Some less heralded movies such as The Descent, The Queen, Pan's Labyrinth, and Children of Men are going to be a factor throughout the week. Meanwhile, films like Dreamgirls and Babel failed to create much of a stir with many of our panelists. Like most other end-of-year voters, however, we are enamored of The Departed, and we had labeled it the heavy frontrunner for Best Picture. Will it win? Keep checking back between now and Friday.


Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Breakthrough Performance
Best Cast
Best Director
Best DVD
Best Overlooked Film
BOP's Person of the Year
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Special Effects
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best Television Show
Best Trailer
Best Use of Music
Best Videogame
Worst Performance
Worst Picture



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See our 2003 Awards
See our 2002 Awards