By Nathan Duke
Critics' groups have already placed “Michael Clayton,” “American Gangster” and “Before the Devil Knows You're Dead” on their lists of the year's best films and two of the three films received multiple nominations for the Golden Globes, which will air in January. The films, which included shooting in Bayside, Douglaston and Kew Gardens, will likely go on to become Oscar contenders.George Clooney received Best Actor nods from the National Board of Review and the Washington, D.C., and San Francisco Film Critics Circles for his portrayal of the titular morally challenged attorney in “Michael Clayton,” which featured scenes set at the courthouse in Kew Gardens. The Broadcast Film Critics Association, which will host the Critics' Choice Awards on Jan. 12, has nominated Clooney for best actor and Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson for their supporting roles. The association also nominated the film for Best Picture and Screenplay.Clooney, Swinton and Wilkinson have also been nominated for Golden Globes for their performances and the film is one of seven competing for Best Picture in the drama category. The Globes will air on Jan. 13.Ridley Scott's crime epic “American Gangster,” which featured shooting at a private residence in Douglaston, also snagged a Best Picture nomination from the Broadcast Critics. The film will go up against “Michael Clayton” for Best Picture at the Globes, while Denzel Washington will compete with Clooney in the Best Actor race. Scott was also nominated for directing.Surprisingly, awards season darling “Before the Devil Knows You're Dead” did not receive Globes nominations but will likely fare better at the Oscars. That film, which was centered around a heist at a Bay Terrace jewelry store, won Best Ensemble at the Satellite Awards, where it was also nominated for picture and director, while the Broadcast Critics nominated Sidney Lumet for Best Director.Academy Awards nominations will be released in late January and the ceremony will take place on Feb. 24.But 2007 was also a great year for films shot in Queens at the box office. Two of the year's biggest hits – “Spider-Man 3” and “The Bourne Ultimatum” – included filming in the borough. “Spider-Man 3,” which was shot in sections of Forest Hills and Astoria, also became the first major motion picture to premiere in the borough this past April, as the United Artists Kaufman Studios Cinema 14 rolled out a thematic black carpet along 38th Street in Astoria for the film's stars and hundreds of cheering fans.Other 2007 films to be shot in Queens include “Music and Lyrics” and “Brooklyn Rules.”And despite an ongoing strike between the Writers Guild of American and film producers, 2008 will see the release of even more films that were shot in a variety of borough neighborhoods.On Feb. 27, Cannes Film Festival favorite “Chop Shop” will open at Manhattan's Film Forum. The film, which was directed by Ramin Bahrani, follows two Puerto Rican youths who live above an auto repair shop in Willets Point.The following month will see the release of Griffin Dunne's romantic comedy “The Accidental Husband,” which featured shooting under the elevated N and W subway tracks on 31st Street in Astoria. The film, which stars Uma Thurman, is a comedy about a radio talk-show host with relationship problems.The long-awaited “Sex and the City” feature film will open on Memorial Day weekend. Both the film and the show were shot at Long Island City's Silvercup Studios, as well as numerous Manhattan locales.Other 2008 releases include “What Happens in Vegas,” a comedy starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz that was partially filmed at Silvercup; a remake of “The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3” that is being filmed at Kaufman Astoria Studios; “Old Dogs,” a comedy with John Travolta and Robin Williams that featured shooting at Kennedy Airport; “The Babysitters,” a 2007 holdover that included sequences at the Clinton Diner in Maspeth; and “Fighting,” director Dito Montiel's follow-up to his Astoria-based “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” which will feature scenes all over the borough.My own favorite films from 2007 reflected the year's overall consistently dark tone. For several years, critics have been looking for films to reflect the troubled world in which we live, and this past year gave them a lot to chew on. The summer and holiday movie seasons were reliably filled to the brim with special-effects extravaganzas and feel-good family films, but most of the year's best Hollywood offerings were bleak, grim, violent and not for the faint of heart. The year's best included cannibalism mixed with musical numbers; the Iraq war; life or death decided at the flip of a coin; and mobsters, both stateside and international.My 10 favorite studio films, in alphabetical order, were: “American Gangster,” “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” “Eastern Promises,” “Grindhouse,” “I'm Not There,” “In the Valley of Elah,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” “There Will Be Blood” and “Zodiac.”
