My Favourite Films of 2007

It was a strange year of film going for me, due largely to some rather daunting issues on the private life front which I have no interest in divulging at this time, but which stole a big chunk out of my life from September until mid-December. Which is to say, I had to use these last couple of weeks of the year to play some Big League Catch-Up, and though I have given it the good ol' college try, I have come up a little bit short. Some films that have ranked highly in other's lists that I have yet to catch up with include There Will Be Blood (still hasn't opened here), Persepolis, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (though I will be seeing this on the weekend), and The Assassination of Jesse James etc.

So, with that caveat, here are my favourite flicks of the past twelve months.

Honorable Mentions: Manufactured Landscapes, Killer of Sheep, Michael Clayton (with a different ending, easily in the top ten), Kim ki-Duk's Time, Gone Baby Gone, Bourne Ultimatum, The Host, Hot Fuzz, Superbad, Sicko, No Country for Old Men, and Knocked Up.








10. Sweeney Todd etc. (USA, 2007, Tim Burton)

The subject matter plays right into Burton's wheelhouse, and he damned near knocks it outta the part. Too bad that none of the leads can really sing much, but Johnny Depp's affinity for this sort of admirable maniac carries us past this particular shortcoming on many an occasion.






9. Zodiac (USA, 2007, David Fincher)

David Fincher's film is the sort of mournful elegy that seldom gets this kind of money and talent thrown its way. As usual, Fincher is right at home exposing the obsessive and fragile egos of the modern male to the harsh light of day, but continues to seem a little out of his element when dealing with anything feminine. Downey Jr. is particularly affecting as a newspaperman's version of, well, himself.








8. 28 Weeks Later (UK/Spain, 2007, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo)

Boy, did this film ever take an undeserved critical pummeling. In this time of rapidly dissolving faith in the war in Iraq, you might think that a few more openly critical and questioning films might have been made about the disintegration of the American mission. In true zombie spirit, it was great to see young director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Intacto) tackle such pricklish and topical matters head on. As allegorical horror films go, it didn't get any better than 28 Weeks Later in 2007.












7. Grindhouse (USA, 2007, Tarantino/Rodriguez)

While Tarantino's half of the twin bill (Death Proof) was clearly the superior cinematic experience, that is not to slight Rodiguez's Planet Terror, which was an amusing and grisly distraction (Tarantino's cameo notwithstanding). The films are best experienced in their original form, for divorced from all the b-movie trailers and each other, the films lose some of their original perversity and pleasure.








6. The Lives of Others (Germany, 2007, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)

Yes, yes, I know, it was technically a 2006 release, but it never came anywhere near my berg until well in 2007, so onto this year's list it will go. A riveting character study, and deserving Oscar winner, the film's study of the machinations of paranoia, both within the state and within each individual, was unforgettabe. Ulrich Mühe gave one of the year's best performances.









5. Away from Her (Canada, 2007, Sarah Polley)

A beautiful adaptation of a very moving Alice Munro story, this touching study of two flawed but loving people, married for 44 years, struggling to deal with the effects of dementia was as tender and touching a love story as any brought to screen in the past year. Julie Christie has gotten all the accolades for her performance, but don't forget the great Gordon Pinsent, who has the less flashy role of the man left behind. Also, as directorial debuts go, none was more promising this year than this of Ms. Polley. A quiet but intense film, directed with masterful care.








4. Once (UK, 2007, Jim Carney)

Like Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise/Sunset, this is essentially a two-person drama, only instead of the couple connecting via conversation, they do so over music. And is there a more romantic medium than music? I don't think so. Glen Hansard's songs are integral to the film's success, as is the breakthrough performance of Marketa Irglova. It would take a hard heart not to be moved by this film.









3. Control (UK, 2007, Anton Corbijn)

This one snuck up on me, largely because I know very little about the video work of director Corbijn, or the acting chops of Sam Riley, who plays the pivotal role of Ian Curtis, lead singer of the seminal post-punk band Joy Division. Turns out, Corbijn knows a thing or two about cinematic storytelling, and Riley is a stone cold killer of an actor. I also really enjoyed many elements of the Dylan bio-pic I'm Not There, but while there's no denying that Dylan is the much more important artist, it turns out that Curtis had the more interesting story to be told. At least for this year.









2. Ratatouille (USA, 2007, Brad Bird)

So, really, there's nothing more to be said about this than this: Brad Bird--Iron Giant, The Incredibles--is a freaking genius who can, to this point anyways, do no wrong.










1. Into the Wild (USA, 2007, Sean Penn)

Into the Wild was my favourite film of 2007. The movie is a touching and honest tribute to one questing vagabond, to this beautiful if ill-prepared and starry-eyed pilgrim soul, part Thoreau, part Kerouac, and Penn does a commendable job of capturing, honouring and questioning McCandless's journey.

Having already read Krakauer's book, I knew exactly what was coming, yet Penn (and Hirsch) made every moment a revelation nonetheless. I can think of no higher compliment than to point out that while I always knew what was coming, this did nothing to lessen the film's impact; by the end, I was completely devastated.

The Golden Compass (UK, 2007, Chris Weitz)



Egads, what happened here? Great source material (Pullman novel), some pretty good actors (Craig, Kidman, McKellan), and an apparently capable director (Chris Weitz, About a Boy) and yet, when you put it all together, what do you get? Tripe. Paint by numbers tripe. It looks all right from a distance, but when you cosy up to it, you can see where all the colours separate, and the illusion dissolves. The Golden Compass bears the brush strokes of a film produced by a committee of people intent on trying to make some money rather than a good movie. It looks like they got neither.

The story, which takes place in an alternate or parallel universe, involves a clever but saucy young girl named Lyra Belacqua (newcomer Dakota Blue Richards) who, while roaming the hallways and grounds of a Jordan College with her good friend Roger, learns of a plot by the sinister Catholic church-like Magisterium to silence her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) whose discovery of a magical particle called Dust opens up the possibility of connecting us with an infinity of parallel universes. The concept is anathema to the Magisterium, they pronounce it heretical, and launch a surrpetitious search and destroy mission on Asriel as he explores the Arctic for more information about this Dust. Lyra, while seeking to protect her uncle, must also contend with the fact that Gobblers, who are stealing poor and often orphaned children, have stolen her closet friend Roger. After she escapes the evil clutches of her ward Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), and with the help of a particularly ferocious ice bear (voiced by Sir Ian McKellan) witches and Gyptians, and Lyra launches a search of her own, to retrieve her pal Roger and to warn her uncle Asriel of impending dangers.

So what went wrong? The set designs are cool, the actors are, as a whole, attractive, intelligent and capable, and the story clips along at a good pace. Yet, it does not engage; the centre does not hold. It seems that director Chris Weitz, who displayed a nice, light touch in About a Boy, is adrift with the fantastical and epic nature of this story. The film certainly fires along briskly, hitting all the key plot points and introducing all the necessary supporting characters, but in such efficiency may lie the rub. The film gives little time over to developing atmosphere and exploring the mythic themes, or to allowing us the luxury of really getting to know these characters and the significance of their relationships. In a film that is so clearly trying to borrow the formulas of the very sucessful Harry Potter series as well as the mythic clout of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, it is interesting that the producers have hedged their bets by bringing the film in at under two hours running time. Without having the extra time to devote to character, atmosphere and mythic themes that these far more successful films have generally been allowed, The Golden Compass comes off as a scattershot affair, telling the story well enough, but not immersing us into the world deeply enough to believe in it or its characters. Hence, we care far less about how things will turn out than we should.

It is unclear at this point if the rest of the series will be made, as the movie has not had the sort of boffo box office necessary to induce a sequel. And while I'd like to see Pullman's books up on the big screen, I have to think that if The Golden Compass is deemed a failure by the money men in their fancy suits, it could ultimately be a good thing. Perhaps next time (assuming there is one) they will allow the work's heart and soul to shine through, because as it is, The Golden Compass lacks the human touch. It feels like a film put together by committee, and the lines between the colours show, often badly.

Playing Catch-Up

Fully intending to write full length reviews of at last some of these films in the near future, I offer up sound bites of the following movies, hoping to whet rather than sate your appetite.





No Country for Old Men: The near-universal praise for the latest from the Coen's is, in some ways understandable, as this is the best film they've made in quite some time, and a return to form is always a welcome thing, whatever your chosen field. However, let's be honest. A return to form with the Coen's, whose work I must confess that I have often enjoyed, does not signal the resurrection of Kieslowski or Tarkovsky. The boys are skilled craftsmen, but they are not visionaries. Good film, with a great performance by Javier Bardem, but hardly the second coming of cinema some might have you believe. 76/100




Margot at the Wedding: Baumbach's follow-up to the mildly overpraised Squid and the Whale makes the fatal error of thinking that the titular character, played with chilling cruelty by Nicole Kidman, is more interesting than the fragile and loving little sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Indeed, one could make the same argument when it comes to measuring the career and, on a more particular level within the film itself character arcs of the two actresses. Leigh's work is much more affecting and compelling, and her character's confusion and angst far more interesting than Kidman's. To the film's credit, artistic self-involvement has seldom been more unappealingly portrayed. 66/100




Juno: Another film being wildly overpraised simply because it doesn't suck. Ellen Page is a star in the making, and her presence papers over the film's facility. Essentially a 90m sit-com which never digs any deeper into the trauma of teenage pregnancy than the first layer of skin, there are some terrific pieces of dialogue and the title character spews a delicious array of cutting epigrams, but there's no meat on the bone. A fun piece of fluff, but fluff it is. Michael Cera's short shorts and the director's affinity for low angle shots may have you wondering where to look at times, but keep your eyes on Ellen Page. She's worth the price of admission. 71/100



Control: Wow. Now this was an unexpected treat. I know a little about the life of Ian Curtis (played in the film by Sam Riley) and the significance of his seminal post-punk band Joy Division, but I know very little about the music video work of director Anton Corbijn, so I was curious to see what this marriage of subject matter and blank slate talent would produce. Colour me impressed. Corbijn crafts a sensitive and intelligent film that is shot in deceptive stylistic simplicity, and captures the time and place with equally deceptive perceptiveness. Corbijn also coaxes a performance out of Sam Riley that was more than a simple impersonation. Not only does Riley do a spot-on impression of Curtis's on stage antics, but in the film's many moments of quiet introspection, Riley's doe-eyed sadness blends beautifully with a certain beaten-down intensity to create a characterization as complex and compelling as any this year. Samantha Morton is predictably excellent as Curtis's beleagered wife Deborah. One of the year's best films. 85/100

Romance & Cigarettes (USA, 2007, John Turturro)

There is a boldness in John Turturro's Romance & Cigarettes, as Turturro has produced a karaoke musical that stars non-singers (shades of Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You) and has them spontaneously belting out a wide array of very familiar tunes in both expected and unexpected places. Choosing a Queens working class family for his story’s setting, Turturro should be given some credit for attempting to breathe some blue collar life into the largely middlebrow musical genre. While he doesn’t always have his feet rooted beneath him while in that world, Turturro does craft a film this is often delightfully rude and irreverent. Further, some of the set pieces are wonderfully bawdy and tasteless. However, while Romance & Cigarettes is clearly meant to be both parody and homage, the film has an overall tonal inconsistency and suffers from the occasional bout of tin-ear-itis, which ultimately derails this sometimes interesting attempt at reinvigorating the genre.

A skeletal summary of this threadbare story will suffice. James Gandolfini , the portentously named Nick Murder, is middle-aged married man obsessed with the red-tressed and foul-mouthed Tula (Kate Winslet). When his wife Kitty (Susan Sarandon) learns of this betrayal, after enlisting the support of her daughters and friends, she gives Nick the heave-ho. Nick then embarks on a journey to redeem himself in his wife’s and children’s eyes. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. I thought so. Anyways…

Given the familiarity of the plot, it is not terribly surprising that the film has no real narrative drive, as the tale of a marriage gone wrong is given nowhere to go, at least until the story takes a rather predictable melodramatic twist, while the film’s inconsequential subplots do little to illuminate the film’s themes, and are ultimately simply frittered away. As for the actors, some casting is to type—Gandolfini in particular seems right at home in the role of philandering behemoth—while others are walking the tightrope without a net, sometimes to good result (Winslet is a blast), other times to disastrous effect (Walken is completely out of control here, while Mary-Louise Parker is criminally neglected in the supporting cast.)
















Finally, as for the musical interludes themselves, in the tradition of musicals of old, the film lurches from one set piece to the next, with morsels of story and character development portioned out between. Given the narrative scarcity, the karaoke montages are put in the position of making or breaking Romance & Cigarettes, and one’s ability to enjoy the film resides almost completely upon how one responds to them as a whole. And ultimately, while there is a certain delightful novelty in watching as Bobby Cannavale and Aida Turturro tackle their musical numbers, the film is unable to sustain a consistent level of energy or cheekiness necessary to make us care about how the whole thing will turn out. Lastly, while trying to get a grip on this film--is it a comedy? A musical? A family drama? A wacky satire? A heartfelt homage to musicals of the days gone by? A little of each?—one is left with little choice but to peg Turturro, like the proverbial jack of all trades, as being the master of none.

Best Music of 2007

Okay, so here's a little break from all the movie reviewing.Keeping in mind that I don't have the time to keep on top of every single motherfreaking indie release, so lay off okay, here's a link to a list of my favourite music of 2007, which is capped with my top ten of the year.

I promise I'll soon get around to doing the same thing for 2007's flickers. Soon. Promise. Really.

Charlie Wilson's War (USA, 2007, Mike Nichols)

Mike Nichols may not have the sort of critical reputation of a Scorsese or the kind of popular success of a Spielberg that would place him near the forefront of directorial talent in American cinema, but he does have a rock solid resume in a mixture of genres that places him comfortably in this field's second tier. It has been over four decades since he made his debut with his wicked take on Albee's corrosive Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and followed it up with what would prove to be his one enduring classic, The Graduate. In the intervening decades he has produced some admirable, if not quite classic, works including Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge and Angels in America, and while his films may not bear the distinctive stamp of a true auteur, Nichols has made some significant and lasting contributions to his craft.

Unfortunately, what Nichols lacks, and what a film like Charlie Wilson's War really demands, is the kind of intellectual heft to cut through the story's slick veneer and Aaron Sorkin's witty but sometimes trite script in order to get to the guts of this never more relevant story of one congressman's manipulation of Washington's secretive and labyrinthian fiscal nether world in order to fund America's "secret" war with the Soviet Union in 1980s Afghanistan. Instead, Nichols is happy to skip along the surface of this superficially entertaining tale of the infamous good old boy Texas Democratic Congressman, played with undeniable charm by the seemingly always likeable Tom Hanks, as he manuevers and manipulates his ways into the deep pockets and the various wallets that feed Washington's covert operations.

There is no doubt that Nichols and Sorkin are capable of unleashing some really delightfully wicked scenes, including one real show stopper that sees the great Philip Seymour Hoffman, as CIA Afghan expert Gust Avrakotos, ping ponging in and out of Wilson's office, all the while monitoring Wilson's conversation via a surreptitiously planted bug. It is the sort of moment that is played for laughs, but carries with it all kinds of wicked implications about the nature of homeland surveillance which clearly anticipates the dark stain that in The Patriot Act in a way that is neither preachy nor facile. It is easily the best scene in the movie, and if only Nichols had managed to build on this to produce a likewise insightful study of the complex and explosive politics of this global tinder box, we might have had a movie worth really caring about.

Instead, Nichols and Sorkin take the easy way out, promoting the personal tale of the roguish Wilson, as he smoozes, boozes and beds his way into the money and weapons he needs to wage his war. The nearly disastrous miscasting of Julia Roberts as Joanne Herring, the conservative Christian Texan socialite who helped Wilson line up the necessary backing for his mission, does nothing to help distract the audience from the film's superciliousness. However, in the other actor's defense, Tom Hanks is quite capable in the role, and when paired up with Hoffman, the film almost ALMOST ascends to something meaningful. However, in the end Nichols' reliance on personality over establishing a real socio-political context within which something insightful might have emerged proves to be the pinpick that deflates the balloon.