The complete list of finalists can be found below:

http://hopepubs.home.comcast.net/~hopepubs/HAcategoryfinalists.html

For continued reading, check out: http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com

I am currently featured on MySpace's Word Weavers for the week of 1/13/2008.

http://www.myspace.com/weaversofwords

D. H. Schleicher holds a background in Psychology and Criminal Justice from his undergraduate days at Elon University in North Carolina. Always a crafty storyteller as a child, Schleicher honed his skills in college where his studies fueled his ideas and helped him develop his characters. Schleicher took many chances early on by self-publishing three psychological thrillers over a course of two and half years after graduating college in 2002. His projects were unmitigated disasters, but provided him valuable lessons. Sometimes a writer must learn the hard way and must write a lot of garbage before finally writing something worthwhile that will connect with audiences.

That breakthrough came in late 2006 with the publication of The Thief Maker. Here Schleicher finally found his voice and delivered a dark, psychologically complex, intertwining tale of love, hate, and crime on the streets of Philadelphia and New York City. The Thief Maker has been earning rave reviews and accolades (including Honorable Mention in the Genre Fiction category in the upcoming Writer's Digest 15th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards) over the course of the past year. Schleicher has employed a slow-burning grassroots marketing campaign built on the strong word of mouth from readers and critics and his always lively blog where he discusses films, books, current events, and shares his trials and tribulations with self-publishing and living the writer's life.

http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com

The author finds endless inspiration from his love of films and books. He believes you learn to write well by reading as much of the classics as you can, but also by reading some of the bad writing (be it one's own experiments from the past or current best-sellers that are less than stellar) to know what to avoid in one's own writing. His favorite novelist is Graham Greene while his favorite film director is Stanley Kubrick. Schleicher is currently working on his next evolution as a novelist while residing in the suburbs of his favorite city and muse, Philadelphia.

The Thief Maker is on the shelves at Philadelphia and South Jersey area Barnes & Noble stores and available for purchase worldwide through Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.

Purchase Now from Barnes and Noble

Purchase Now from Amazon.com

It's great to be nominated and in such good company, regardless of the outcome! Blogs in the Best Literature Blog category include Bookgasm (which reviewed my book, Portraits in the Dark, in September), Diary of a Heretic, Classical Bookworm, Neil Gaiman's Journal, McSweeney's and other popular nominees/finalists. You can vote once every 24 hours in each category, so if you've voted already for The Writers' Block - thank you! If not, consider using one of your votes for us as well.

Also, consider voting for great blogs in other categories, like "Jon Swift" for Funniest Blog.

Polls close tomorrow (11/08/07) at 5:00 p.m. EST (2:00 p.m. PST, 10:00 p.m. GMT).

http://2007.weblogawards.org/polls/best-literature-blog-1.php

Thanks!
Nancy O. Greene
http://www.portraits.bravehost.com
http://www.writersgrouplog.wordpress.com

In honor of The Thief Maker's critical success and the upcoming one year anniversary of the launching of my blog, I will be giving away free autographed copies of my novel in time for the holidays.

Follow the link below to find out how to enter and win, and spread the word!

http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/win-a-free-autographed-copy-of-the-thief-maker/

-D. H. Schleicher, author of The Thief Maker

 

The Thief Maker A Novel by D.H. Schleicher (iUniverse Press)

Review by Kent Manthie for Reviewer Magazine

It’s been said that the events of September 11, 2001 forever altered America in profound ways as well as the individual psyches of its people. Most Americans, but especially those who were directly affected, can chart their lives as “before 9/11” and “after 9/11”, using it as an ugly milestone to put other, tangential things in perspective.

Some people had their lives turned upside down and were forever altered by 9/11 and others who were thousands of miles away were also affected, those images having been seared onto the consciousness of millions of TV viewers.

Now that we’re a ‘safe’ distance from the actual event, six years on, there have been a couple movies, lots of non-fiction books, websites, tons of commemorative this and special issues of that as well as that horrible made-for-TV travesty last year, not to mention the legions of conspiracy buffs who’ve made their neuroses a cottage industry.

If anything positive emerged out of the mountain of dreck that 9/11 spawned it was the third novel by one D.H. Schleicher, entitled “The Thief Maker”, an inventive, stylistically nihilistic novel that uses the events of September 11, 2001 as a backdrop and even then in the latter half of the book. It’s only on the peripheries that the realities of that day interpolate, making bad situations worse or complicating matters further, but nonetheless it’s an essential element of the novel.

“The Thief Maker” jumps back and forth, from the mid-1980s to the 1990s, up to the present and even into the future – as far forward as 2008. It may sound confusing but when one is immersed in the novel it actually works quite well as a literary device.

Seemingly disparate sets of highly complex people are introduced and their character traits are developed in front of our eyes only to slowly morph into something unexpected; there’s a thread that connects these people, they all seem to be intertwined in this intricate web of humanity. The characters in the novel are all so vividly portrayed and developed so well that you come to not only visualize them in your head while reading the book but you begin to feel like you know them.

There is William Donovan, the con man whose past is never far behind him; Felice Morrison, the cold as ice lesbian psychiatrist who grows up to hate humanity and for whom love and hate are interchangeable, Frank Morrison’s a man with a secret past and a dark future. Looming above it all, haunting everyone in the story is the recently deceased Marie Gail, a hopeless young junkie with AIDS whose hate was so strong that it contaminated those around her. She died in a lonely, dark rage from the pneumonia not uncommon to those with AIDS. Marie left behind Rex, a young son who was initially taken away from Marie in her days of heroin addiction and general bad craziness, which leads us to the foster parents that take care of Rex for a few years until shortly before her death, Catherine and Rodames Fowler, two psychologists who are doing a long-term experiment with their deaf children in psycholinguistics and into which Rex had been enveloped. Marie had gotten clean and with Felice, her lover, won back custody of the boy and together they lived as much like a normal family as they could for the short time they had before Marie succumbed to her disease. Just before she died, Marie had asked Felice to take care of Rex, to raise him as if he was her own. Felice willingly accepts this responsibility and agrees to adopt him as a final act of love for Marie before she dies. This is all so complicated and I’m afraid there’s much more but instead, you’d better just read the book.

Towards the end all bets are off and suddenly the “post-9/11 world” has turned into Bedlam and realities are getting destroyed left and right; things aren’t as they seem, they never are. The climactic buildup is a shrieking anxious ride that gets thick with complexity and before you know it you’re being hit in the head with a dynamite denouement. I won’t spoil things by describing it any further, but let me just say that you’re in for some rollercoaster-style twists and turns.

You know, originally, I wasn’t really in the mood for having to read another book – I’m already juggling three books as it is and so, when they gave me “The Thief Maker” to review I didn’t look forward to reading it. I went into the book with an unenthusiastic drudgery and I wanted to hate the thing just for being made to read it. Nevertheless, I kept on and while I never thought Schleicher’s writing was without great style or that the clarity and precision wasn’t there I was just - oh, I don’t know…I mean, at first the book wasn’t what I’d call a “page-turner” but when I got to the midway point the excitement was turned up a couple notches and pretty soon I couldn’t put it down until I finished it. I can’t tell you exactly what sort of action makes it pick up because that would spoil much of the plot – I probably shouldn’t have even said that; therefore, you’d better just go buy the book to find out.

I thought D.H. Schleicher wonderfully captured a lot of nuances surrounding modern-day American living spot-on. He brings these characters to life; I found myself really identifying with characters; I really felt emotional about them, amazed by some and hating others, empathizing with some of them too and disgusted by others. Schleicher draws the reader into this smartly crafted parallel universe – one that is remarkably like our own world. The action takes place between Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey and even [banjo music playing] takes a detour down to North Carolina for a spell.

It was hard to tell at first where the story was going to go; whether it’d be to a boring, clichéd neighborhood from which you’d want to exit ASAP or a fabulous world where you want to stay around as long as you can. The latter was the case for “The Thief Maker”; in fact, I purposely took my time reading this novel. I didn’t want to flip through this too quickly; it’s only 214 pages, easy to read, not at all verbally confusing or convoluted in its prose. Mystery man, Dave Schleicher, who graduated from Elon University with a B.A. in psychology in 2002, seems to have found his voice, developed a style of his own; it’s not an ostentatious one, though; the book reads quite easily, smoothly, not too rough or stilted, making the storyline roll along with no bumps or obstacles, no extraneous riff-raff built up throughout the paragraphs either, making the basic story stick out that much more. Schleicher’s currently living in Voorhees, New Jersey, where he takes time out to smell the roses between writing binges. He also keeps a pretty regular web log at http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com – check it out, there are plenty of things to read: reviews, opinion pieces and so on.

What with the hot season coming up, “The Thief Maker” would be a great addition to your summer reading list. Check out the publisher’s website:. http://www.iuniverse.com – KM.

_____________________________________________________________________

Reviewer Magazine has been covering the cutting-edge of the music scene, idependent film, and books since 1996 from their home offices in San Diego, CA.  They have a circulation of over 10,000 in the U.S. and Canada.  For more, check out:

www.reviewermag.com

Purchase The Thief Maker from Barnes and Noble

Purchase The Thief Maker from Amazon.com

While I put the finishing touches on my next manuscript (a political thriller of sorts), my twisted hit The Thief Maker continues to gain acclaim as it was recently named a Finalist for the 2008 Eric Hoffer Award in Independent Books.

Readers can continue to find me at:  http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com

Originally written April 13, 2008

Nearly a year and a half after its publication, my novel The Thief Maker continues to accumulate accolades.

The Thief Maker was recently named a Finalist in the 2008 Eric Hoffer Award for Independent Books.

Though it will not be taking home one of the grand prizes, being named a Finalist places The Thief Maker in "the top 10% of entrants to be considered for prizes...Less than 50 books each year are dubbed with the title of Eric Hoffer Award Finalist.”

Click here for the complete list of finalists.

Grand prize winners in each category will be announced April 22, 2008.

Eric Hoffer was one of the most influential American philosophers and free thinkers of the 20th Century.  His books are still widely read and quoted today.  Acclaimed for his thoughts on mass movements and fanaticism, Hoffer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983.  Hopewell Publications awards the best in independent publishing across a wide range of categories, singling out the most thought provoking titles in books and short prose, on a yearly basis in honor of Eric Hoffer.

Whether you toil away publishing your own writing, land a six figure deal with a major publishing house, or simply share your poetry and stories in blogs and forums across the World Wide Web, it all matters not. Write because it’s who you are, not what you do. I am a writer, and I have sold my soul to you wholesale.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson has a nice phrase that I think says it best.  Put your best book forward! For Lulu authors in need of some affordable assistance, check out Carolyn's two books: The Frugal Book Promoter and The Frugal Editor.  Carolyn is a POD family member, so I trust her completely.  Her books are affordable, and the tips she has to offer are priceless!  Please check her out.

I'm looking forward to launching the first two Lulu book reviews this Saturday.  Hopefully, there will be a 3rd by middle of next week.  I'm on vacation the week of the 10th.  I'm headed to the Gulf with some Lulu books, a blank notebook, a camera, and a funny straw hat.  I'll return the week of the 17th, so you can anticipate more reviews then.

Thank you for all of those who have left supportive comments, and thank you especially to the Lulu authors who have lined up for reviews.  Please be patient as there is only one of me here managing this blog, reading, writing, and working a full time job right now.  While you are waiting, check out some of the other POD reviewers over there in my blogroll.  Say hi and leave a comment on their blogs and let them know how much you appreciate their work in the POD business. And thanks again to Floyd for mentioning me in his post today.

Well, back to reading...

There Will Be Blood is unique as it is not a traditional book to film adaptation like the other two films.  Inspired by Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, director Paul Thomas Anderson has put his own perverse spin on the classic tome by the iconic muckraker.  The film stays true to the book's period detail and basic backdrop (the early days of the California oil boom), but Paul Thomas Anderson works things up into a bold visual and aural frenzy anchored by the greatest acting performance so far this century from Daniel Day Lewis as Daniel Plainview.  The result is an astonishing cinematic work of art that will stand the test of time and likely outlive the novel upon which it drew its initial inspiration.

Below is my review of There Will Be Blood that was first published on my personal blog and the Internet Movie Database:

The World of Blood and Oil According to Plainview, 6 January 2008

Author: David H. Schleicher from New Jersey, USA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

There’s a recurring nightmare of mine where I am falling down a well. Our reality is an illusion. This life is simply the dream we have while we are actually falling down a well. It always seemed as if the well was bottomless. After watching “There Will Be Blood” I discovered the well has a bottom. At the bottom of the well is one thing. Oil.

Also falling down this well was “The Performance.” Watching Daniel Day Lewis play the unstoppable, unshakable, unfathomably misanthropic and greedy oil man that is Daniel Plainview, one is left to imagine that “The Performance” was always out there. It always existed somewhere in the ether, in our collective unconscious, in our nightmares and anxieties. It took a visionary auteur like Paul Thomas Anderson to realize that if he did a modern film update of Upton Sinclair’s early 20th century novel “Oil!” and ominously renamed it “There Will Be Blood” then this performance could be channeled onto celluloid as a testament to the defining struggles of 21st century mankind.

Blistering cinematography of stark California landscapes from Robert Elswit, an evocatively organic and haunting music score from Jonny Greenwood (from the rock band Radiohead), and the beautifully fluid movement and framing of Paul Thomas Anderson’s maniacally calculating camera grab you from scene one and never let go. Daniel Day Lewis moves through the film like a cold burning firestorm combining and combusting with the technical elements and the fabulous ensemble cast around him to create a rising tension that is unlike anything experienced in cinema since the golden era of Stanley Kubrick.

The story is multilayered and allegorical. Led to an untapped area floating in dust on rivers of oil by a mysterious young man, Plainview soon comes face to face with that young man’s twin brother, Eli Sunday (a fecklessly manipulative Paul Dano). Eli is a wunderkind preacher at the Church of the Third Revelation and has the town wrapped around his finger with his claims to be a healer and prophet. Eli agrees to let Plainview buy his family’s land for the right price. The profits are to be used to build a bigger church. But when Plainview refuses to let Eli properly bless the drill site, a series of events unfold that Eli trumpets as acts of “God” while Plainview views them as results of meddling people he can scarcely see any good in and must crush.

The heart of the movie lies in Plainview’s relationship with his adopted son H. W. (a wonderfully naturalistic and quietly expressive Dillon Freasier). When the boy is injured on a drilling site and loses his hearing, Plainview, torn by his love for the idea of the boy looking up to him and the friendly face the boy has leant to the family business, abandons him only to latch on to a shady vagabond (Kevin J. O’Connor) who trots into town claiming to be his long lost brother Henry. Plainview’s replacing of a fake son with a fake brother shows his character’s deep-seeded and wounded need to connect to someone when insatiable greed has been his only driving force.

To explore in detail the film’s deeper message and resonance for today’s audience would be to spoil the ending. Suffice it to say, after the slowly infectious, nerve-shattering build-up, the film culminates with a soliloquy from Plainview to Eli that will make your jaw drop. In the end, it lives up to its title. There was blood. Whose was spilled is not a matter of debate, but what that blood says to its 21st century audience will be discussed and argued and studied for years to come. If you want to know what happens when greed guised in religious zealotry falls down a dark seemingly bottomless well with greed blatant as corporate capitalism, look no further than this film. There is a bottom to that well. There is a winner at the finish line. Meanwhile the blood is on the floor, the walls, the desert sand, the silver screen, the nightly news, and pumping through our bodies until we die.

Originally Published on the Internet Movie Database:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0469494/usercomments-59

*Regular reviews of films can be found on my personal blog:

http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com/

-David H. Schleicher

http://www.myspace.com/weaversofwords

D. H. Schleicher holds a background in Psychology and Criminal Justice from his undergraduate days at Elon University in North Carolina. Always a crafty storyteller as a child, Schleicher honed his skills in college where his studies fueled his ideas and helped him develop his characters. Schleicher took many chances early on by self-publishing three psychological thrillers over a course of two and half years after graduating college in 2002. His projects were unmitigated disasters, but provided him valuable lessons. Sometimes a writer must learn the hard way and must write a lot of garbage before finally writing something worthwhile that will connect with audiences.

That breakthrough came in late 2006 with the publication of The Thief Maker. Here Schleicher finally found his voice and delivered a dark, psychologically complex, intertwining tale of love, hate, and crime on the streets of Philadelphia and New York City. The Thief Maker has been earning rave reviews and accolades (including Honorable Mention in the Genre Fiction category in the upcoming Writer’s Digest 15th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards) over the course of the past year. Schleicher has employed a slow-burning grassroots marketing campaign built on the strong word of mouth from readers and critics and his always lively blog where he discusses films, books, current events, and shares his trials and tribulations with self-publishing and living the writer’s life.

http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com

The author finds endless inspiration from his love of films and books. He believes you learn to write well by reading as much of the classics as you can, but also by reading some of the bad writing (be it one’s own experiments from the past or current best-sellers that are less than stellar) to know what to avoid in one’s own writing. His favorite novelist is Graham Greene while his favorite film director is Stanley Kubrick. Schleicher is currently working on his next evolution as a novelist while residing in the suburbs of his favorite city and muse, Philadelphia.

The Thief Maker is on the shelves at Philadelphia and South Jersey area Barnes & Noble stores and available for purchase worldwide through Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.

Purchase Now from Barnes and Noble

Purchase Now from Amazon.com

2007 ended up being a great year for films, possibly the best since 1999.  While 2006 was consistent in its passably entertaining mediocrity, filmmakers seemed to take more chances in 2007 leading to more highs (see below), more curiosities (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Beowulf, Sweeney Todd), and more lows (I Am Legend--not quite legendary).  The year's two greatest films explored Greed and the American Dream.  There Will Be Blood took an epic approach to explore how greed driven and focused can build nations while slowly devouring the soul of the individual, while Before the Devil Knows You're Dead took an intimate approach and explored how greed ill-planned and misdirected can destroy a family in the blink of an eye.  While Hollywood seemed to cash in on more name brand sequels and three-quels than ever before (and the public ate them up ad-naseum only to quickly forget them a few weeks later) three trends stood out in my mind that I feel defined 2007:

1.  It was a great year for the auteur.  Some, who we thought had passed on, came roaring back firing on all cylinders.  Sidney Lumet regained his 1970's stature with the darkly complex ensemble piece Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.  Meanwhile, Joe Wright came into his own by delivering his first near masterpiece, Atonement, a movie with an already classic continuous tracking shot of the Dunkirk evacuation during WWII that nearly a month later still holds me breathless.  Still another auteur who already seemed to have settled into his own unique style, Paul Thomas Anderson, performed a shocking evolution on a Kubrickian level with There Will Be Blood and delivered an American Epic on the scale of The Godfather.

2.  Thanks to the success of last year's Oscar and Davies winner for Best Picture, The Departed, 2007 became a renaissance year for the grim melodramatic crime thriller.  Flicks like Zodiac, Eastern Promises, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and Gone Baby Gone point towards a film movement not unlike the film-noir of the 1940's that mirrors America's anxiety towards the chaotic outside world inward against the intimate settings of neighborhoods and families in stylish and unsettling ways.  While these films were similar to their more overt counterparts that feebly attempted to deal directly with the greater world's current ills (films like A Mighty Heart, Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, and Lions for Lambs) in that they didn't exactly light the box office on fire, I suspect the former rather than the later group with have a more artistic resonance in future years.  I don't think anyone will be watching In the Valley of Elah in twenty years, but I can imagine Before the Devil Knows You're Dead being studied shot for shot in film classes.

3.  On the flip side, it was also a watershed year for comedies.  At the forefront, and rightfully so, is Juno, which has positioned itself as this generation's Annie Hall.  We also saw laugh-out-loud teen sex romps (Superbad), lightly satirical animated films (The Simpsons Movie), obscure absurdist sketch humor (The Ten), and destined to be cult classic spoofs (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story).  We needed these laughs in the worst way, and they provided the perfect escape from the horrors of the real world and the neo-noir films playing right next door at the multiplex.

In the end, it was a wild year at the cinema.  At times, it was extremely frustrating.  There was one actor I just wish would retire.  After 2005's The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Tommy Lee Jones essentially phoned in the same performance in 2007's In the Valley of Elah and No Country for Old Men.  Nobody else seemed to notice he played essentially the same character in all three films, but I say enough already, old man!  The summer movie season also seemed endless and void of anything worthwhile.  Still, in the final weeks of December, two films that couldn't be more different emerged and have the potential to become cultural landmark films for this generation.  With Juno touching our hearts and tickling our funny bones, "I swear to blog!" all the hip teens will be copying its quirky fashions and spouting off its one-liners well into the summer.  Meanwhile, There Will Be Blood is just beginning to infect its select audience and is making an indelible impression on those who have experienced it.  There are speeches in There Will Be Blood that will be memorized and studied in acting classes for years to come.  There are also many quotable lines that may find their way into films like Juno twenty years from now.  My early money was on "I drink your milkshake", but upon a second viewing of There Will Be Blood, "why don't I own THIS?", "I see the worst in people", "bastard from a basket", "draaaaaaaaaaaainage!", and "I'm finished!" all run the risk of joining the pop culture lexicon.  Well, I'm not quite finished...

And now...move over Golden Globes.  Say goodbye to the Oscars.  Novelist D. H. Schleicher semi-proudly presents:

The 2nd Annual Davies: Awarding Excellence and Idiocy in Film (for the year 2007).

The Top Ten Films of 2007:

1. There Will Be Blood
2. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
3. Atonement
4. Gone Baby Gone
5. Rescue Dawn
6. Sicko
7. Juno
8. Zodiac
9. Eastern Promises
10. Amazing Grace

*Special honorable mention goes to The Lives of Others and Black Book, two thrillingly thought provoking foreign films that were technically released in 2006 but didn't reach stateside until early 2007.  As such, they have unfairly ended up in limbo with no official place on lists from either 2006 or 2007.

Best Picture: There Will Be Blood

Best Director:  Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood

Best Actor:  Daniel Day Lewis for There Will Be Blood

Best Actress:  Ellen Page for Juno

Best Supporting Actor:  Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actress:  Marisa Tomei for Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Best Emaciated Actor:  Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn

Best Emaciated Actress:  Keira Knightley in Atonement

Best Reading of a Dramatic Line:  Daniel Day Lewis' satirical, hilarious, nerve-wracking, and scary "Here is my Straw, and here is your Milkshake" diatribe to Paul Dano in There Will Be Blood.

Best Dramatic Reading of a Comedic Line:  Kristen Wiig's "I believe you're gonna fail" retort to John C. Reilly's "I need you to believe in me" cry in Walk Hard.

Best Original Screenplay:  Kelly Masterson for Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Best Adapted Screenplay:  Christopher Hampton for Atonement

Most Overrated Film:  The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men

Most Underrated Film:  Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn

Best Film I Didn't Like (Most Misunderstood Film):  The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Worst Film I Did Like (Best Guilty Pleasure):  Live Free or Die Hard

Best Franchise Film:  The Bourne Ultimatum

Worst Franchise Film:  Transformers

Best Editing:  Atonement

Worst Editing:  Transformers

Best Music Score:  Jonny Greenwood for There Will Be Blood

Best Cinematography:  Roger Deakins for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Best Downer Film: Gone Baby Gone 

Worst Downer Film:  In the Valley of Elah

Most Uplifting Film:  Amazing Grace

Best Comedy:  Juno

Best Horror Movie:  30 Days of Night

Best Action Movie:  The Bourne Ultimatum

Best Ending:  There Will Be Blood

Worst Ending:  The Mist

Movie Trend I Thoroughly Enjoyed:  The Neo-Noir Movement of Grim Melodramatic Crime Thrillers (Zodiac, Eastern Promises, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Gone Baby Gone)

Movie Trend I (Mostly) Ignored:  Overtly Political MidEast-themed "Reality" Films (A Mighty Heart, Rendition, The Kingdom, Lions for Lambs, Charlie Wilson's War, and the one film of this ilk I did suffer through, In the Valley of Elah)

_______________________________

Results from the 1st Annual Davies can be found by clicking below:

http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/the-1st-annual-davies/ 

We encourage feedback and suggestions for categories next year.

Reviews for many of the films mentioned here can be found under the “Movie Reviews” category.

All of my reviews of this year’s winners, as well as many other insightful critiques, can be found archived on the Internet Movie Database:  http://imdb.com/user/ur1069062/comments