Here we go...
With the caveat that I haven't seen American Gangster, An Inconveinent Truth, Eastern Promises, Kite Runner, the Debaters, or Into the Wild and a few other key films, I'm going to set out what I felt were the top 10 films of 2007.
I will first list all of the films I've seen using this reference:
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/index2007.phpSmokin Aces
Breach
300
I Think I Love My Wife
Reign Over Me
Spider-Man 3
Pirates of the Carribbean 3
Ocean's 13
Silver Surfer
The Simpsons Movie
Superbad
3:10 to Yuma
Michael Clayton
30 Days of Night
Juno
Atonement
I Am Legend
Charlie Wilson's War
Sweeney Todd
Aliens v. Predator: Requiem
There Will be Blood
No Country For Old Men
I'm Not There
Ratatouille
Bourne Ultimatum
Knocked Up
First of all, I saw fewer films this year than last year, in which I had seen much fewer than the year before that. I attribute much of that to the fact that I saw very few films in the first half of this year.
As I look through the list of film's I've seen this year, I'm saddened to see that there were a number of films on there that were just plain awful. Smoking Aces, Pirates, and Silver Surfer stand out.
There is also no film that jumps out as the film I thought was the best of the year. There was a high concentration of films near the top. Since I can't really decide which film I liked best, I'll just start with one I really liked:
1) Michael Clayton
George Clooney stars in Michael Clayton, a psychological drama about a law firm "fixer" embroiled in a multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit. Clooney is sent in to rein in the lead counsel for the casen, an attorney who suffers mental breakdown that sends the case into a downward spiral.
Superbly acted, this film is perhaps the best film I viewed in 2007. Clooney, known to play swaggering male leads, carefully draws that exterior inward and shows a man oddly vulnerable, yet "together." This movie is entertaining and well paced. It's also extremely engaging, from start to finish.
2) 3:10 to Yuma
This movie was a pure delight. The acting is almost certainly the high point of the film. Christian Bale is superb. He manages to create an intrigue and depth in a rather blandly designed character with a simple backstory. Russell Crowe doesn't really have to try.
While the ending is a bit implausible, thematically its a big bullseye.
3) Superbad
Humor is important. Movies that are both entertaining, have something to say, and can create a gut-busting laugh are sometimes the most rewarding. This movie was smart, modern, and hilarious.
I've NEVER really enjoyed films about teenagers. I never liked the Breakfast Club or American Pie or Porky's or any of that crap (I liked American Pie 2, but only because it was set in college). There were two teenager films that I thought were superb this year, and this was only one of them.
4)Charlie Wilson's War
This is one of those films whose content does not quite equal the brilliance of the message(s) it conveys. Juno may be somewhat ambiguous in its message, but is crystal clear in the impression it leaves, this film leaves an indelible mark in spite of the lacking chemistry. The cast is bedecked with Oscar winners, so the pedigree is there. The screenwriter is Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men). You have the ingredients of a top notch film. The end product is something very close.
Tom Hanks is a philandering congressman who initiates a covert operation in Afghanistan to fund the insurgent operations that eventually drive out the Russians. The film follows Hanks attempts to persuade local and international power brokers to his cause and the aftermath of his secret war.
An earlier LJ post delved into one of the messages in the film, the all-important point about unintended, long-term consequences coming back to bite us. But another aspect of the film that really impacted me was the way that history interweaves itself throughout time.
I caught this movie at least a month, probably longer, after its release. Yet mere days earlier, Banazir Bhutto of Pakistan was assassinated. Being set in the early 1980s, this film referenced the death of Bhutto’s father in a coup in Pakistan. The resonance of the past on modern day events in ways that weren’t even foreseen by the filmmakers really drove home the point’s basic message.
This was one of the year’s most important films.
5) No Country For Old Men
Few films this year have won the praise of this movie. Based on the novel by American master Cormac McCarthy, this film follows the aftermath of a bad drug deal and the trail of money.
Warning: I will be talking about the plot of this movie in detail, so if you don’t want the plot spoiled, stop reading now.
At the end of the movie, many of the viewers, including myself were a bit mystified. The movie seems to abruptly end. A few moments before the end, I sensed what was coming, but it still felt a bit jarring. For a film-maker to do that is a pretty audacious stunt. The end leads to serious reflection about what this movie was about.
The basic theme of the film is time and change in the west. This theme recurred itself in many ways. In some ways, this is a western, even though it was set in 1980. The big money drug business and law enforcement in the southwest had many of the core elements of the films like 3:10 to Yuma or the Wild Bunch or even Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where criminals rob banks, trains, and gangs have shootouts.
Tommy Lee Jones opens the film with a short voice-over explaining that he is a law-man just like his father and grand-father before him. Although the first two-thirds of the film follow Llewellyn Moss, a sort of anti-hero as he discovers the money and tries to escape the tangled web of pursuers following him from town to town and into Mexico. Abruptly, that storyline ends and we follow Tommy Lee Jones and he begins his hunt of the vicious and psychopathic character played by Javier Bardem. The movie shifts from being a money chase to a more standard good guy v. bad guy pursuit, unclear as to who is the hunter and who is the hunted. Although there is almost a confrontation between the two, after some odd vignettes, Tommy Lee Jones retires with Bardem still on the loose.
Although the point of the film may be to mystify, I have found a clear meaning in its structure. For me, the film was about expectation and the narrative of good guys versus bad guys. Tommy Lee Jones was on a trajectory that would have taken him to his doom in a final shoot out between him and Bardem. By retiring, he managed to snap that inevitable end and survive the film. The idea is to turn the conventional narrative of the tragic Western and turn it on its head. One way that this was reflected was to emphasize the generational aspect of the film. The radically changing criminal culture was part of the conversation between lawmen in this film. And yet, the counterpoint seemed to be that as much as things change, they stayed the same. In the end, Jones dream of his father in the pass signifies the fact that he avoided an untimely end in his life journey, although is now deceased father will be waiting for him when he arrives.
This is a great American film.
6) Juno
Juno is a film of incredible depth and is rightly hailed as one of the top films of the year. It tackles one of the most complex moral issues of our time with artful grace and necessary candor. The plot basically follows a young teenager as she becomes pregnant and struggles to find a home for her unborn child and grapple with the social reality of teenage pregnancy.
Let me begin my analysis by stating at the outset that I generally do not enjoy (despise may be too strong of word) films about teenagers, high school or that entire genre. I think a brief Family Guy parody really made the point most effectively: High School is a very brief and relatively unimportant period in a person’s life, but because everyone goes through it and because so much of our culture caters to that age group, it takes a heightened importance in our society that it does not deserve. A single year of college is more formative than four years of high school. I do not like the Breakfast Club, I don’t enjoy the first American Pie film, and I generally dislike the entire genre. This year has been the exception. I thought Superbad was hilarious and smart. And Juno is perhaps the best film I’ve seen from that “genre,” if it is even fair to categorize it as such, and it is not.
The first ten minutes or so were difficult for me because I kept seeing this as more of a movie about a 15 year old girl than anything else. In spite of the incessant smart-aleck remarks and the over-the-top (witty?) attempts to draw the viewer in and seduce you into liking the protagonist, I was eventually drawn in by the portrayal of her family life and the situations she encountered. Although I was bracing myself for an implicit pro-life message, I found that the movie tackled the subject of teenage pregnancy with alot of the nuance that it deserves.
I agreed with the small minority of critics that the dialogue was a bit too much. Although my girlfriend and I have argued about this at length, I do not think that large chunks of the dialogue were realistic. They felt as if they were written by Hollywood or TV screenwriters, despite the realistic lingo and slang. It was simply too witty for even a brilliant, ivy-league ascendant teenager.
One standout scene was Juno’s experience in the abortion clinic, from the dialogue to the emotional intimidation outside and inside. The sheer complexity of this scene alone is worth mountains of analysis.
The supporting cast was unbelievably effective. Her father and mother are both played by standout character actors and her love interest nailed the part of the awkward, but sweet teenage boy.
One criticism I have of the film, however, is wondering how it was that she decided to have unprotected sex. The conception was described and portrayed as premeditated, not as a product of unplanned hormonal combustion. For a girl whose knowledge of the world and culture is as broad as Juno’s and whose intellect matches it, I could not help but wonder about this perhaps necessary tension. I could not fathom that Juno would be unaware of the fact that sex sometimes leads to pregnancy, and for someone who has no trouble navigating an adult world, surely contraception was not beyond her reach.
This was a brilliant if imperfect film. And by the end of the movie, I found myself desirous that legions of high schools show this movie to teenagers around the country. The perspective of a girl who is not in the “popular” clique but not in any easily discernible or stereotyped clique that I could perceive should make this film engaging to any teenager.
7) Aliens v. Predator: Requiem
I have long been a fan of the Alien franchise. I adore all four of the original films. Aliens versus Predator was one of the worst films I'd ever seen. I had hoped better for this one. I was not disappointed.
We leave off where the last film ended - a face hugger had attached to a predator. When the Predators left Earth in the parting shot, a chest burster erupted from the torso of the incapacitated Predator.
The ensuing fight strands the predator ship in the outskirts of a Colorado town, which is drawn into a fantastic fight between Aliens and Predators. This film actually manages to be not simply entertaining, but with turns of greatness. Every cliche is burst in a film that is truly surprising. There were at least a half dozen amazing, gut wrenching surprises in the film, a film with an actual coherent plot, witty dialog, and impressive special effects.
8) Atonement
The film follows the story of a young girl who falsely attests that her older sister's lover is guilty of raping another girl. The movie follows the lives of the people involved and the suffering they endure as a result of this false witness. The title takes its meaning from the penance for her action.
This film is artfully crafted, and the acting is superb. The film feels a little too much like a staged period piece - symbolic representation of events - rather than actual events. Things flow a little too smoothly. It's like the best episode of the Brideshead Revisited. (
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083390/ ) The dialogue was a little too perfect and the music was extremely heavy handed.
I'll be honest - I was gushing at certain points in the film, and I rarely cry. Although the plot twists were predictable, I wasn't trying to predict them and was thus caught off guard.
What makes this film are the excellent plot and superb acting.
9) There Will Be Blood
This film is a character study of a young oil barron who is making his way through the American west in search of lucrative oil tracts. The film follows Daniel Day-Lewis from the turn of the century into the waning years of his life.
This film is utterly alluring and bizarrely strange. In a way, this feels like several films in one. The first half of this movie, it is undoubtedly a 4 star film. However, the second half sputters. And before its all over, it's already evident that this is more of a character study rather than a full blown narrative. I was ready to declare this one of the great American films, but by the end I was as impressed with the lead's acting as I was dissapointed in the narrative meltdown.
If DDL doesn't win best actor, I'll crap my pants.
I ventured, somewhat hesitantly, into the movie theater this weekend in search of a good film. Ratatouille was the best reviewed film in the multiplex from what I gathered from the papers. Word of mouth confirmed this impression.
10) Ratatouille
The last few films I had been to were summer fare disappointments: Pirates and Spider Man. I was hoping for something good.
I was not disappointed.
This film follows the travels of Emil, a rat with a unique sense of a smell and a penchant for cooking. While I wouldn't launch this film into the classic range of Lady and the Tramp, Toy Story, or Monster's Inc., this film is charming and enjoyable. There are so many things this movie does right, from the way that they represent food tasting, to the bit about Emil's "figment of his imagination," to the sophisticated way that Emil grapples with his loyalties.
Very enjoyable.
So, there it is. 2007 had a very nice crop of films, but they didn't start unloading until the second half of the year. The big summer movies all sucked this year, which was a bit surprise considering how good the summer films have been in year's prior. Batman Begins and Spiderman 2 were both very good. Hopefully I'll find the time to see the rest of the films I missed!
