Because I already used the most festive pun I could come up with to call my last blog entry, the whimsically titled “Yule (B)log,” it’s likely going to be 2008 before I can possibly be bothered to come up with something half as clever as that (I thought it was sorta funny anyway). So it’s on that somewhat wistful note that I am now writing this, my final blog entry for 2007.
It’s somewhat cliché to make statements like “time sure does fly,” but I can honestly say without the faintest hint of irony that this year, time sure did fly.
Looking back I think it’s very fair to say that 2007 was a pretty good year for documentary filmmaking (and between “No Country For Old Men” and the recent crop of gutsy major studio releases like “The Mist” or “I Am Legend,” really a pretty good year for film in general). It’s with no sense of false positivity that I can honestly say 2008 is going to be even better. There are a lot of great films to look forward to and a number of them we’ll proudly be screening for you right here on our very own airwaves—we don’t wanna give away anything, so mum is currently the word, but soon gentle viewers, soon. At any rate, this is the part of the show where I get a wee bit sentimental and I offer up a tip of the pre-holiday hat to all the filmmakers and film fans that have helped those of us at DOC on our path to become your one-stop shop for the most incredible films the documentary world has to offer.
It’s been a real pleasure to watch it all unfold and to read the incredible responses from our viewers (we totally called that you guys would love “Johnny Berlin” and you didn’t disappoint us. We’ll proudly be serving up the television premiere of the sequel in 2008). And while the current climate of political correctness would dictate that we shouldn’t offer up Tiny Tim’s iconic holiday wish of “God Bless Us Everyone,” it is with tongue no where near cheek that we wish all of you out there, all races, religions and sub-cultures, the happiest of holidays (however it is you choose to celebrate them).
We hope you’ll keep that TV dial tuned to DOC next year. as our plan is to do nothing less than dazzle you. We fully realize that we’re setting the bar pretty high with such statements but we hope you’ll think of us less as being arrogant and more as proud parents who are sure our youngster will grow into an honor roll student (in this case our Emmy win for Peter Raymont’s “Shake Hands With the Devil” being the TV equivalent). All in all, not a bad year.

Though it’s always exciting to stare down a new year, and I’m already kicking a few potential resolutions around—eat less, rock more, that sort of thing—2007 isn’t quite over yet, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to do as I’ve done in years past and list five of my favorite docs that saw release this year.
If you’re a fellow Doc-head, you’ve probably seen at least a couple of these already, but if you haven’t, I can’t recommend the following films enough (by the way it was too much of a Sophie’s Choice to rank them in any kind of order):

1. Billy the Kid—Though I first saw Jennifer Venditti’s film way back in March, it hasn’t really left my thoughts since then, It’s funny, it’s poignant and it’s got “cult classic” written all over it.
2. King of Kong—Seth Gordon’s doc about the bitter rivalry between two Donkey Kong-obsessed gamers took me back to “Hands on a Hard Body” territory and has one of the better twist endings in documentary history. It’s also got a fun soundtrack that even manages to re-use “Eye of the Tiger” and not have it feel like a cliché’.
3. Sicko—Though for a lot of folks the jury is still out as to whether Michael Moore is to be trusted, I found his latest film to be an entertaining and infuriating experience worth watching if only to bitterly debate it with friends, co-workers and loved ones.
4. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream—As both a fan of Tom Petty and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, there were lots of reasons to love this film. Also at almost four hours long, the pace of the movie doesn’t suffer one bit.
5. Joy Division/The Ballad of AJ Weberman—it was too tough a call to choose one or the other of these two, though they couldn’t be more different. “Joy Division” is a well-made document of arguably the defining band of the post-punk era and “The Ballad of AJ Weberman” is a profile of Weberman a self-professed Bob Dylanologist who also become a successful artist by fashioning works of art out of stolen trash. It’s a tough call, and you know what, I’m not going to make it.

Honorable Mentions
No End in Sight
Taxi to the Darkside
Kamp Katrina
Silver Jew
Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story
Helvetica

Jennifer Vendetti’s fantastic documentary “Billy the Kid” was one of my documentary highlights from this year’s SXSW festival. So it was with great pleasure that I profiled the film on DOC’s website this week. In addition to giving you a bit of info about the film, my intention was to make adventurous doc fans curious enough to seek out “Billy the Kid,” which should see a DVD release sometime in 2008. Also, I finally had a chance to check in with “Johnny Berlin” filmmaker Dominic DeJoseph about his progress on the as-yet-untitled sequel to JB that he’s been working on. Dominic was kind enough to answer some of my questions about the new project and even let slip the details of “Promiscuous Stories,” his new proposed anthology film based on the short stories of one of my current favorite authors, Jonathan Letham. DeJoseph is spear-heading the project, which will feature adaptations by not only Dominic but eight other up and coming filmmakers. We wish Dominic all the best with his new projects. Go forth and check out the all the fun.