The Best and Worst Movies of 2007
I can't remember a better year for film. Granted, I've been cheating. I worked at two movie stores last year, so I managed to soak up a lot of quality film. I did meet a few duds, so I'll start with
those:
The top ten worst films of 2007:
10 - Reign Over Me
As much as I loved him in Punch-Drunk Love and Spanglish, the Sandman just can not do this sort of role.
9 - Black Sheep
Zombie sheep take over New Zealand. Yup.
8 - Shrek the Third
I think I giggled once, which means this series has really hit an awful stride. What the hell happened?
7 - Shooter
Elias Koteas goes from Casey Jones to this, where his lines near the climax actually caused me to throw popcorn at the screen.
6 - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
I like this more than the first one. Believe me, I'm really not saying much there.
5 - I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
This was incredibly homophobic, and guised in a mode where it didn't consider itself homophobic. It meant well, but it showed the gay population as consisting of queer-as-fuck crazy animals. Like Boat Trip.
4 - Smokin' Aces
This could have been a decent, silly hitman showdown. It's trash.
3 - Hostel Part II
Please don't ask me why I sat through this.
2 - Stomp the Yard
This is the most fun you can have at a theater where you just missed a screening of Children of Men, and are forced to watch the only other show playing that late. What are they doing? They're stompin' the yard! Where you from?
1 - Gray Matters
I fucking hate this film with all of my being. I can't explain why, exactly, but god-damn...it's the fucking antichrist.
I made a top ten list of the best films of the year, but I felt insecure about leaving out so many quality films. So, here's...my...uh, top thirty.
30 - The Bourne Ultimatum
The top ten worst films of 2007:
10 - Reign Over Me
As much as I loved him in Punch-Drunk Love and Spanglish, the Sandman just can not do this sort of role.
9 - Black Sheep
Zombie sheep take over New Zealand. Yup.
8 - Shrek the Third
I think I giggled once, which means this series has really hit an awful stride. What the hell happened?
7 - Shooter
Elias Koteas goes from Casey Jones to this, where his lines near the climax actually caused me to throw popcorn at the screen.
6 - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
I like this more than the first one. Believe me, I'm really not saying much there.
5 - I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
This was incredibly homophobic, and guised in a mode where it didn't consider itself homophobic. It meant well, but it showed the gay population as consisting of queer-as-fuck crazy animals. Like Boat Trip.
4 - Smokin' Aces
This could have been a decent, silly hitman showdown. It's trash.
3 - Hostel Part II
Please don't ask me why I sat through this.
2 - Stomp the Yard
This is the most fun you can have at a theater where you just missed a screening of Children of Men, and are forced to watch the only other show playing that late. What are they doing? They're stompin' the yard! Where you from?
1 - Gray Matters
I fucking hate this film with all of my being. I can't explain why, exactly, but god-damn...it's the fucking antichrist.
I made a top ten list of the best films of the year, but I felt insecure about leaving out so many quality films. So, here's...my...uh, top thirty.
30 - The Bourne Ultimatum
Matt Damon running...for two hours.
Paul Greengrass has really mastered the art of blockbuster action. I
prefer him when he does work rooted in reality (United 93, Bloody Sunday), but can you honestly remember any series where the third episode was the best entry? This is a first.
29 - Paris Je T'aime
From the Coen Brothers' segment, "Tuileries."
This is the biggest mixed bag of the list. The film is comprised of 18
short films about Paris by various acclaimed directors. Some are hits, some are okay, and some are incredible misses. The hits make the trip worth it, particularly the entries by Alexander Payne and the Coen Brothers.
28 - The Lookout
This is a very good bank robbery flick that most people managed to
overlook in the wake of so many big-budget films. Joseph Gordon-Levitt follows up his performance in "Brick" with another crime drama, where he plays a mentally-challenged janitor who gets caught up in a bank heist plot that goes terribly wrong. He's come quite a ways since "Angels in the Outfield."
27 - Bridge to Teribithia
It floors me that this is marketed to kids, when it easily made this 22 year old cry his eyes out for about an hour.
26 - Hot Rod
This is a pretty stupid film to be on this list. It's probably too
stupid to exist at all. However, occasionally one of these stupid Saturday Night Live movies ejaculates radical awesomes all over your face. Love it, and I'm not alone, so fuck all you haters.
25 - Year of the Dog
Molly Shannon loses her mind and adopts a car full of dogs.
Mike White takes a stab at directing his own script, and the results
are mixed. On the one hand, the movie doesn't really have a stern direction or goal in mind. It floats along until its inevitable and blahsay conclusion. On the other hand, Molly Shannon and Peter Saarsgard are fantastic in such a twisted way. I think the latter outweighs the former.
24 - Shoot 'em Up
There's probably a one-liner here, I just can't remember.
This is like Die Hard, but without character development, motivation,
general plot, and moments where stuff isn't getting blown to shit. It's remarkably stupid in such a remarkable way. Why? Well, the plot concerns Paul Giamatti trying to murder all the babies in a baby-harvesting plant, and only Clive Owen can stop him, for some reason. In other words, it's Children of Men 2: Children Harder.
23 - Hairspray
I will concede that I hated this the first time. I had to deal with a
video store that would play this film relentlessly, almost every shift. After a while, I found myself humming along to the music. Now I have the soundtrack on my ipod. Somebody once said of me: "Max isn't gay. He just has sex with men." Thanks to Hairspray, I am now a fucking full-fledged flaming faggot.
22 - Across the Universe
I find that our parents seem to enjoy this more than we do. That's not
to say that we don't enjoy it, as it has found a wealthy following of twenty-somethings longing for that same sense of ultimate liberation that Jim Sturgess obtains when he moves into a shitty apartment in New York with his best friend in the sixties. This is the closest we'll ever get. Oh yeah, this isn't for everyone. It's pretty out there.
21 - Walk Hard
I'm sad to see this bombing in the box office. It deserved better. Tim
Meadows steals it with the film's best running gag, and in case you were unaware, the Beatles are played by Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Jason Schwartzman, and Justin Long. Beat that.
20 - Control
Sam Riley, who will have no problems getting new roles with that face.
Joy Division is my favourite band. With that in mind, I had a lot of
problems with this bio-pic. 24 Hour Party People is a much better film, but there's no denying that Sam Riley is going to be a star. He captures Ian Curtis' self-detesting soul to its core, and the result is fabulous. When he started singing "Digital," absolutely everyone in the theatre had goosebumps. He's an absolutely brilliant find.
19 - Fido
Think Lassie, but with zombies.
This is proof that Canada is capable of producing incredible
independent comedy. I wish they handed out Oscars for roles like this, as Connolly manages to do so much with only a single facial expression. You'll piss yourself laughing.
18 - Sicko
The most disturbing sequence in Sicko, where a confused woman is thrown out of a hospital and into a cab, only to be abandoned in front of a
shelter.
Say what you will about Michael Moore's tactics, but there's no denying
that he has the power to get a nation talking about a subject. It doesn't always pay off, as Fahrenheit 9/11 has shown, but it's still worth a discussion. There are moments when you want to punch him in the face (Canada's healthcare system as a veritable candyland), and there are moments that make you damned glad that somebody is so pompous as to capture the vulnerability of the human spirit with a camera and microphone.
17 - Hot Fuzz
Let it be known that I think Nick Frost is hot as living fuck. That
aside, this is the funniest action film ever made. The last twenty minutes are disgustingly satisfying.
16 - (tie) Ratatouille
Peter O'Toole steals it.
This was the most critically acclaimed movie of the year. I have always
felt that Pixar films are slightly overrated for the most part, while other studios' CG entries are graded quite harshly. Of course, this is still an excellent film, and Peter O'Toole's character's revelation at the end of the film marks one of the best moments in cinematic history. I love that moment. It captures the Anthony Bourdain philosophy wonderfully.
16 - (tie) Surf's Up
And then there's this, which doesn't have the brains or class of
Ratatouille, but it definitely delivers more laughs. I loved the documentary-style format. It's like watching Step Into Liquid, but with hilarious penguins and a weird chicken. Radical, tubular, and all kinds of righteous.
15 - Enchanted
Amy Adams, the new Julie Andrews.
It feels like a modern take on Mary Poppins, with so much
tongue-in-cheek Disney satire that you'll wonder how Disney came up with it the first place. My favourite scene: Amy Adams and a cast of rats, pigeons and flies clean up Patrick Dempsey's apartment in one of the funniest musical numbers I can remember since the South Park movie.
14 - Away From Her
In Canada's best film of the year, Sarah Polley takes up the direction
of the beloved Alice Munro short story of a woman suffering from Alzheimers, and the man who loves her. It's a hard thing to watch. Julie Christie is glorious, and Gordon Pinsett gives my favourite performance of the year (Yes, even more than Daniel Day-Lewis).
13 - The Darjeeling Limited
Hipsters of the world unite, we have another Wes Anderson film. It's a
far different film than "The Life Aquatic" (My favourite film of all time), but that's probably a good thing. In Darjeeling, India is the star of the movie. Anderson ignores the overpopulation in order to showcase the locales, the rituals, and the attitudes of the beautiful country. Adrien Brody acts in his first Anderson flick, and walks away with it.
12 - Superbad
This feels rather familiar.
Do I really need to say anything?
11 - The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Ken Loach could be the most depressing director of all time. He chooses
stories so insanely tragic and harsh that it's hard to watch any in succession. This is his strongest film yet, and the most devastating movie of the year.
10 - The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Steve, the good guy.
Stranger than fiction. This is a documentary that follows the quest of
two rivals who strive to get the record high score for Donkey Kong. There's Steve Wiebe, who has a wife and kids, a teaching job, and a friendly demeanour. Then there's Billy Mitchell, a mulleted megalomaniac who qualifies for WWF style super-villainry. It's the ultimate battle of good versus evil, and it's incredibly depressing in a "now don't you feel better about your life" sort of way.
9 - Black Book
It's important to remember that Paul Verhoeven, the director of
Showgirls and Starship Troopers, can direct the hell out of the Dutch. He's done it before with a film called "Soldier of Orange," which concerns the Dutch Resistance during World War II, and again with Black Book, which is essentially the same story, but with a female protaganist. It's a big fucking war movie. Entertaining as hell, and old-fashioned at heart.
8 - This is England
This is the story of a boy whose father died in the Falkland Islands
War, and the group of young skinheads that take him under his wing. Unlike a film like American History X, which portrays skinheads as rebels wrapped in a sort-of sincere and deliberate disillusionment, the young skinheads presented in this are shown to be victims of their disillusionment, and strive to maintain the skinhead culture in terms of fashion and sheer anarchy. They aren't necessarily bad people, they've just found reasons to branch out to the inconceivable. That's not to say that the film doesn't have bonafide neo-nazis as well. The division between the two factions is what makes this film the masterpiece that it is, as well as some absolutely terrific acting by such a young actor. A strangely sweet and ultimately sad film.
7 - Grindhouse
FUCK YES!
6 - Zodiac
Robert Downey Jr. is on a roll. In the last couple of years, I haven't
counted one bad film on his resume. This could change with Ironman, but who knows. For the time being, we have this terrific true story of the Zodiac killer and the obsessions of those dedicated to finding him. Director David Fincher successfully emulates the journalistic dramas of the 1970's without appearing dated or untimely. It's very good.
5 - The Lives of Others
The late Ulrich Muhe.
This won the Oscar last year for best foreign film, but we didn't get
it in theatres until well into 2007. The story concerns the German Stasi, who secretly policed and monitored suspicious targets before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's a masterwork of subtlety. The acting and writing are so brilliantly understated that it's even more tragic that Ulrich Muhe passed away so quickly after the film's completion. It's a wonderful eulogy. The manner in which he delivers the final line in the film is perhaps the perfect moment of this year in cinema.
4 - (tie) Knocked Up
The best comedic duo of the year.
I have been a Judd Apatow fan ever since I watched "Freaks and Geeks"
for the first time. Knocked Up is like the unoffical sequel, eight years later, with everybody still playing the same characters. I adore this film. It manages to showcase the brilliant improv talents of Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Katherine Heigl, and Leslie Mann (God damn she's good) in both raunchy comedy and tender sweetness. I mean, shit that's tender. I get the warm fuzzies all over me every time the movie ends. On a scary note: As all the young couples exited the theatre, I heard about ten different women state that they wanted to have babies. The look on the men's faces is a terror that I can not successfully describe in writing.
4 - (tie) Juno
The year's other pregnant comedy is much less concerned with raunch and
warm fuzzies and more focused on the whip-smart writing of Diablo Cody and the star-making performance of Ellen Page. Chances are that you've already seen this, and you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, then just go see it as soon as possible. She's really, really fucking good.
3 - There Will Be Blood
I don't want to say much, because a lot of people want this film to be a surprise, so I'll just say three things:
You may not like it.
Daniel Day-Lewis is worth all the buzz.
Seriously, you really may not like it. I hope you do.
2 - No Country For Old Men
Josh Brolin, who you may remember as Brand in "The Goonies."
This is the Coen Brothers' best film since "The Big Lebowski" nine
years ago, and an indisputable masterpiece. One thing I look for in any good film is the power to resonate. Very few films have resonated with me on the same level as No Country For Old Men. That's not just this year, but in my life experience of watching movies. There has been no other film this year that instigates such passionate post-screening conversation. It's really quite something how they fuck with convention. Oh yeah, and Javier Bardem: Fucking terrifying.
and so...
1 - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Truly exquisite work. This is the true story of the late Jean-Dominique Bauby, who was the editor-in-chief of the French Elle magazine, until a stroke rendered him completely paralyzed from head to toe. The only movement he could perform was the blinking of his left eyelid. He managed to communicate through a system of blinking in confirmation of a particular letter, and wrote his entire memoirs through this tactic. The direction by Julian Schnabel ("Before Night Falls," an older Javier Bardem flick) is the best of the year, particularly in the experimental sense. Schnabel presents significant portions of the film through Bauby's perspective, and such an experience demands a big screen for the full effect. The soundtrack is phenomenal, and the acting is flawless. This is a wonderfully rich, celebratory, tragic, and life-affirming tale that needs to be seen by everyone. It's the best film of the year.
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