Article published December 30, 2007
The 10 best and worst films of the year
Heath Ledger starred in Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There."
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By CHRISTOPHER BORRELLI
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Minutes makes it worthwhile.
Sometimes seconds.
But rarely entire films.
Just moments and snippets.
Someday when I look back on 2007, when I think of the movies I saw that year, as in most years, it's not the films I will remember but moments and scenes, a line of dialogue, a single look. It's always this way. My editor asked me to write about one film, but I am incapable of this. The year in film was the year of the eerie simultaneous passing of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, a sort of literal last gasp for world cinema. Otherwise, it was a year for the usual: the usual controversies (The Golden Compass and organized religion, Michael Moore and health care reform), the usual big hits (Spider-Man 3, Transformers), the usual disasters (Evan Almighty, anything pegged to the Middle East). And the usual great films.
But just one great film?There's always a bunch.
There's always 10, at least.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse, left, and Jonah Hill in "Superbad."
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Don't buy that old thing about how there's nothing to see. There's always something, always something that gives a chill of recognition and delight. Below you'll find my top 10 for 2007. What they share, looking back, is a disquieting open-endedness - bunch them with the finale of The Sopranos and it was the year of just, you know ... trailing off, leaving life unresolved.
Read into it what you will.
But the moments - indelible.
George Clooney turning the screws on his nemesis in Michael Clayton (the year's single best scene) ... the flood of recognition Jake Gyllenhaal gives a probable killer in Zodiac ... the flood of memories when a critic takes a bite from the eponymous dish in Ratatouille ... Matt Damon driving a car backward off a parking garage in The Bourne Ultimatum ... Kelly Macdonald refusing to call heads or tails in No Country for Old Men, holding on to a shred of dignity, knowing she's dead no matter what she calls ...
And on and on.
First, the 10 Worst Movies of 2007 - in no particular order:
The Kingdom, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Martian Child, Hostel 2, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Because I Said So, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Stardust, Across the Universe, License to Wed. (And an honorable mention goes to Evan Almighty, for providing a solid 45-minute nap during a busy week - that's $200 million well spent! Thanks again, Universal!)
Now, 10 honorable mentions, to films that just missed the Top 10 (also, in no particular order):
Michael Clayton, Diggers, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Grindhouse, Breach, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, No End in Sight, The Bourne Ultimatum, Hairspray, and Into the Wild.
And finally, my Top 10 of 2007:
• 10. Once. Brief, swoony without being cloying, it's a complete reinvention of the movie musical as indie drama. (On video now.)
• 9. The Savages. Tamara Jenkins' painfully honest antidote to the traditional, hugs-for-everyone holiday comedy. Not comfortable or easy, which makes it all the more touching. Stars Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as siblings watching over the last days of their father's life. (Opens soon.)
• 8. Summercamp! Of all the portraits of childhood I've seen, few are as deceptively simple or deeply affecting. Barely released in theaters (but available on video), a nostalgic, wandering, and sweet documentary about a few kids and three weeks at a Wisconsin camp, it pushes out for the deepest waters possible - that place where children are not yet adolescents but, sensing a change, have become wistful.
• 7. There Will Be Blood. Is Paul Thomas Anderson the most exciting American filmmaker working today? For two-thirds of this, it's easy to think so. Haunting, hypnotic, the story of America and its contradictions, as told by an oil man (Daniel Day Lewis) and his foe, a preacher (Paul Dano). (Opens here Jan. 18.)
• 6. Live Free or Die Hard. Popcorn picture of the year. Which needn't be shorthand for moronic. Jaw-droppingly extravagant but streamlined to the essentials (bad guys, heroes, situation), and as a bonus, frighteningly astute about the extent to which we rely on technology. It may be mindless and crass, but get over yourself. When I think back on the summer of 2007, I see a lot of forgettable CGI effects and one memorable image, Bruce Willis and that smirk. (On video now.)
• 5. No Country for Old Men. A nearly flawless example of craft, with the Coen brothers eschewing their usual flights of fancy for a rigidly controlled superlative instance of suspense and storytelling. With Javier Bardem as the best villain in ages. (In theaters.)
• 4. Four Months, Three Weeks, and Two Days. Not the easiest sell, a Romanian abortion drama set during the grim final gasp of the Ceausescu regime (whew). So nothing flashy, of course. But with a disspassionate eye and ear of the cadences of an average day, it turns intensely gripping without growing melodramatic, a well-observed study of the soul-crushing compromises we make daily. And at a time when foreign film distribution in this country is on life-support, here's a vital reminder of the importance of fresh views. (Opens next year.)
• 3. Zodiac. A remarkably obsessive meditation on obsession itself, David Fincher's chilling police procedural was not the serial-killer movie audiences were led to expect. Which is why so many hated it. But what they got if they stayed was All the President's Men stretched into an epic, a film so entrenched with details, its subjects (hypnotized with purpose) lose all focus on their own lives. (On video now.)
• 2. Superbad. Never has an American comedy captured the puzzlement and humility of adolescence with as much unadorned, lived-in awkwardness as this blockbuster from the Judd Apatow bittersweet factory. Its charm is not that it's metaphorical or especially deep, but that it deals with the pain of being young now, right up on the sweaty surface. (On video now.)
• 1. I'm Not There. So rich in ideas and moments, and thick with great filmmaking, it's true genius will probably only reveal itself years from now, when you've forgotten every other movie you saw in 2007. Nominally, and audaciously, it's the story of Bob Dylan and his many mysteries, as told through six actors, including one woman and a black child. And the gauntlet it throws down is not an appreciation of Dylan, but the shock of the new - as alive as anything you'll see nowadays, it's a challenge and a taunt: You want new movies and fresh perspectives? You want something you haven't seen? Well, here it is. Now the rest is up you. (In theaters now.)
Contact Christopher Borrelli at: cborrelli@theblade.com or 419-724-6117.
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