LUCIDMEDIA

The Best and Worst Films of 2007

Written by Adam A. Donaldson Friday, 04 January 2008 11:01

2007

1) No Country for Old Men
In what was a great year for crime movies generally, none got any better than No Country. A creative revitalization for the Coen Brothers, the film’s smooth narrative was anchored by three great performances from Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem. Two months after seeing the film, Bardem’s Anton Chigurh still remains the most chilling villain of ‘07, but one must also not discount Brolin as the wily hero being pursued, making this one of cinema’s great cat-and-mouse games.

2) Into the Wild
Sean Penn brilliantly realized the book by John Krakauer, while Emile Hirsch is a standout as Christopher McCandless; carrying the vast majority of the film on his back, alone, in the Alaskan terrain. Penn manages to balance McCandless’ dual impulses of selfishness and self-realization, shying away from neither part of the young man’s psyche. With great supporting performances from Vince Vaughn, Catherine Keener and Hal Holbrook, as well as lush cinematography and great music, Into the Wild was a visual and emotional treat.

3) Zodiac
Where as David Fincher’s seminal Seven was about the ghoulishness of a serial killer’s rampage, Zodiac, the director’s meditation on the infamous San Francisco murders, saw things through the eyes of the pursuers. Fincher’s film is story of obsession, the resolution of the case explicably tied with the resolution of the case, and since there was no resolution to the case, how can the men involved ever move on. Zodiac was a brilliantly realized procedural.

4) Juno
In one of the most unconventional movies in some time, director Jason Reitman makes us fall in love with a girl named Juno, a high school junior who sasses her way through an unplanned pregnancy. There are no fake emotions in the movie, just genuine affection. This is the opposite of a sophomore slump for Reitman, who last year rocked with Thank You For Smoking, and screenwriter Diablo Cody is an exciting new voice in film.

5) Once
With an approximate budget equivalent to what Dreamgirls probably spent on catering, director John Carney crafted a low budget musical that’s pure poetry. Acting rookies Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová are simply marvelous making music together; they’re so natural and so is the rhythm of the film where singing happens as easily as talking, but it’s all in keeping with the story. The film is so simple that you’re surprised every time at how affecting it is.

6) Waitress Waitress is a bittersweet film in so many ways; not only is it the last film from Adrienne Shelly who was murdered in 2006, but the content itself is as tangy and tart as one of the main character’s imaginative pastry concoctions. It features two great romantic leads in Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion and is filled with quirky characters for who the script carries great affection for, and affection that translates to every member of the audience. It’s one of the true crowd-pleasers of 2007.
7) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Once may get the prize as the year’s best musical, but Sweeney Todd will go down as the bloodiest. Seriously though, comparing Sweeney Todd to other musicals is like comparing any Tim Burton movie to any other type of film, it almost defies characterization. Perhaps the closest companion would be the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is high praise indeed. A Rocky Horror/Sweeney Todd double-bill? I like the sound of that.
8) Gone Baby Gone Who would have thought that Ben Affleck could direct a movie? More than that though, who would have guessed that it was going to be such a blistering morality tale that it would be ripe for Oscar consideration? Gone Baby Gone is a remarkable film with an expertly executed script and a collection of solid performances, especially from Amy Ryan as the drug-addicted mother of the missing toddler.
9) The Lookout Last year Joseph Gordon-Levitt surprised as a teenage sleuth in the mold of Sam Spade in the crime drama Brick. (Incidentally, my best of 2006.) In The Lookout, Gordon-Levitt plays a different type of hero, a washed out former high school hockey hero who through a stupid accident has no short term memory and works as a night janitor in a bank. When hoodlums con him into helping him rob the bank he turns the tables while screenwriter and director Scott Frank keeps us guess as to how it all will turn out.
10) Ratatouille I love Ratatouille for the way it thumbed its nose at animation conventions, a fact made all the more glaring as it opened against another formulaic Shrek film. It’s a delightful twist on the underdog story that keeps getting better with each viewing as you take in more and more detail. A true classic that will be talked about long after Shrek’s been forgotten.

2007

1) Perfect Stranger What’s perfectly strange is how Halle Berry and Bruce Willis got suckered into this hollow Fatal Attraction look alike. The ridiculous twist at the end was so predictable which was pretty much the same story for the rest of this ridiculous effort.
2) I Know Who Killed Me I remember hearing that Lindsay Lohan rehearsed with actual strippers for this movie and I’ve got to wonder, did they skip the part about how strippers… strip. Seriously though, that’s the least of the concerns for this picture, which made about as much sense as Springfield’s Cat Lady on a drunken bender.
3) Happily N'ever After This was quite literally a poor man’s Shrek and it was unceremoniously dumped in the waste bins of the first weeks of January. I haven’t thought about it since.
4) Hannibal Rising So Hannibal Lector was a poor, little war orphan that was used and abused after his family was killed. Colour me unimpressed. Way to suck all the mystique out of your greatest creation Thomas Harris, this is like finding out Santa Claus delivers presents as community service for ripping off the collection tray at church.
5) Norbit Let me put it this way: it cost Eddie Murphy the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Nuff Said.

6) Premonition
It’s incredible to think that the guy that wrote this tripe is the same guy that wrote the utterly charming Enchanted. Clearly we know where his efforts went in 2007, but this time travel blunder-piece was insufferable to sit through.

7) Feast of Love
Too bad it cannibalizes other romantic dramedies, this thing is a Frankenstein’s monster of a plotted movie and it looks almost as good. I love Morgan Freeman, but even God errs occasionally and this is a big error of a movie.

8) Because I Said So
I don’t know what Diane Keaton was drinking during the making of this movie, but I think she downed too much of it. Cramming every rom-com cliché it could into a single, annoying script, Keaton does so much mugging that even Mandy Moore looks embarrassed for her.

9) Good Luck Chuck
The popularity of Dane Cook continues to astound, although I’ve been told he’s better doing stand-up than he is acting. Still, he wasn’t the worse part of this pathetic sex romp rom-com that was neither sexy, romantic or funny. That prize goes to Dan Fogler, whose deplorable plastic surgeon character only finds happiness with a three-breasted woman. Good message for the kids out there: breasts are literally everything.

10) Primeval
It’s worth mentioning for the way I still feel cheated by the marketing. The trailer said serial killer, the movie showed a giant crocodile. What happened? Did they change that around in post of something?

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