Yippie Kay Aye: 2007

Instead of posting a standard top ten or even top twenty list like any other movie connoisseurs I’ve decided to create one article first so I could talk about any movie I wanted to over the past year. Lots of movies had some incredible moments even if they don’t make my top ten list. But for that reason alone doesn’t mean they weren’t great movies. I’ve seen a good majority of the movies that have made other’s lists but some need more time to sink in. Most of them include some late bloomers like There Will Be Blood (which isn’t even playing in a theater near me), Gone Baby Gone, Control, and so on.

The year started out looking terrible with releases like Primeval, The Hitcher, and Epic Movie (yeah, Superman getting shot in the eye…hilarious). Unfortunately this downward plunge continued into February to a degree. Wide-releases were almost unbearable besides Breach. Actually, Breach is supposedly the first good wide-release of 2007. I have to say supposedly because I still haven’t seen it myself but the cast looks promising. Chris Cooper (Adaptation, Jarhead) plays the lead alongside Ryan Phillippe who wasn’t horrible in 2005’s Crash. February also brought the year’s best film which I won’t mention here to not ruin my top ten list that follows.

March was one of my busiest months for movies this past year. It started out great with Zodiac (Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr.) which is possibly one of the more overlooked movies on top ten lists that I have noticed. It reveals the grueling and tediousness of investigations or more specifically the investigation of the Zodiac Killer from the 60’s and 70’s. The movie is often knocked for its length but I find it appropriate because it puts you in the same position as the detectives and people following the case. It also had a great stylistic theme of blue and gray colors and an accurate presentation from that time period. The following week brought 300. I had been excited from the beginning after hearing about its release. The trailer describes the movie you are going to get to the T. This is both a good thing and the problem. You get the battle sequences expected, but like the trailer, it lacked a significant storyline to keep me going. This ultimately led to one of my biggest disappointments of 2007 (but not the biggest).

Independent releases were also great toward the end of March. Both After the Wedding (featuring the baddie from Casino Royale) and The Lookout were delivered in the last week. Like most independent releases I still have yet to see After the Wedding but The Lookout is now a part of my collection. It is has its moments and I can’t say it is a complete disappointment but I expected it to deliver on so many other levels. Don’t get me wrong, though. I liked the movie I just didn’t love it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Brick, Mysterious Skin) showed again that he is a great actor and someone to watch out for in the future.

April and May came with a mix of great (Hot Fuzz), mediocre (28 Weeks Later), and downright horrible films (Spiderman 3). Let’s start horrible and work our way up. Spiderman 3 what positive things could I possibly say? Well, I guess I could hope this brings an end to the never-ending streams of trilogies but that won’t happen. To be honest, this movie stomped all over my childhood. It was more of a time piece then an accurate depiction of the comic books. Someone suggested making Peter Parker dance. This alone almost made me walk out. If I hadn’t spent eight dollars on a ticket I would have. 28 Weeks Later is the perfect example of a movie that you don’t hate but you certainly can’t love it. It is just O.K. That said, I didn’t go into the movie expecting a whole lot. After knowing Danny Boyle was merely going to produce the movie instead of being the director I sort of gave up on it. To my surprise the movie definitely had its moments. The beginning was great and the plot was reasonable. Plans for another installment are in the works only this time Danny Boyle would return to direct. Whether that is a good or bad thing we will have to wait and see. Hot Fuzz was something I had been waiting for since I saw Shaun of the Dead. To see the trifecta that is Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright back on the silver screen was great. Like their zombie venture this movie is largely a spoof on the action packed cop movies. My recommendation is not to watch it once but at least three times before you judge it. The little things are what make Edgar Wright’s movies what they are - great.

June was largely a disappoint until the end of the month when Live Free or Die Hard, Ratatouille, and Sicko came along. Fortunately there was a lone bright spot at the beginning of June with Knocked Up. This could be why it made it into the top fifteen best grossing films of 2007 with $148.7 million in box office receipts. Rarely do you see an R-rated comedy do that well. Well, unless you’re Judd Apatow. The 40-Year-Old Virgin also made it into the top twenty when it was released in 2005. Enough figures, though. The movie works well because of the contrast it sets up. A very unfunny situation with outrageous characters suddenly makes for a good motion picture. It has very real emotions and issues mixed in with the comedy which makes it much more than the average slapstick comedy that most people are used to. Mark this down as just one more reason Judd is called “the Mayor of Comedy.”

The summer would have been almost a complete bust without a few titles. One has already been mentioned (Knocked Up) and the others all come from completely different fields. We had Sunshine for Science Fiction, Rescue Dawn for a classic war story, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for a good ol’ fantasy adventure. This all goes without mentioning The Bourne Ultimatum and Superbad. Considering the summer months are supposed to be the busiest compared to any other time out of the year this was pretty weak. Only a handful of titles were actually noteworthy. Granted, the ones that were good were really good. Sunshine totally blew my mind with its stunning attention to scientific detail. While I thought the movie was going to be good I didn’t expect to like a few key actors - namely Chris Evans (Fantastic Four). He actually delivered a compelling role alongside one of my favorite actors Cillian Murphy. Superbad was the third best comedy of the year right behind Knocked Up and Hot Fuzz. Jonah Hill final got the lead role that he deserved and it fit him perfectly. What else could you expect from Judd Apatow’s dream team.

From here on out were a lot of movies I’ve never gotten a chance to see. Mostly due to the fact that I’m at college and the funds are more limited than ever. This however didn’t stop me from seeing some of the better movies of the year when I got a chance to come home. 3:10 To Yuma was a great surprise for me in 2007. I virtually didn’t hear a thing about it up until a few weeks from its release in theaters. The best part was that even though Bale and Crowe were great finds, Ben Foster stole the show with an amazing performance. Who would have thought this would come from a kid that used to be in Flash Forward on the Disney Channel. After 3:10 I ended up missing some of the year’s best - Into The Wild, Eastern Promises, and Control. These movies are still on my list of things to see.

Believe it or not the next time I made a venture to the theater was to see the Coen brother’s No Country For Old Men. It was stunning and possibly one of the best Coen brother’s movies to date. It successfully captured the beauty and noiseless void of the desert. The movie itself has no music whatsoever besides a small 10 second bit in the middle of the movie. Plus Javier Bardem gave a mesmerizing performance which draws a sharp comparison between his character and the desert. Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin are also great in their roles as sheriff and everyday guy Llewelyn Moss respectively. It also features one of the most controversial endings of the year. The critics are split, but I believe it is perfect. You get a real grasp of the characters over the course of the movie and in the end form your own conclusions to how exactly they would react in a given situation. The open-ended finale allows the audience to get involved in the movie. In my opinion the best movies bring up discussions and by that measure you would have to say this is a damn fine film.

More of the same in December because of school again. When I did finally make it back for Christmas break I managed to fit in Juno. This is a more teen based version of Knocked Up and holds some similarities. It differs mostly because it focuses more on a girl’s view of the situation. She is more a town boy then most of the girls at her school and goes as far to call herself a freak. (That’s alright considering all the popular boys secretly like the freaks anyway as she explains in the movie). Ellen Page does a great job but overall the film doesn’t live up to the hype as much as I would have liked. It may end up being a film a person needs to see again. Besides Juno I managed to catch up on a few releases that came out in the months prior like Shoot Em’ Up. This first made its debut at this year’s Comic-con. Largely the audiences loved it but the critics disagreed. While it is fun to watch for awhile the action gets old and the film sways into obscurity. I guess some people can only handle so many carrots.

Overall the year was packed with some movies that were expected to be good and some that came out of the blue. But besides the obvious best choices were some big disappoints. The third Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman 3, and Shrek 3 all fell short in both regards to critical and financial success. 2008 is already promising some great movies to look forward to. Cloverfield and Rambo are just a few that will be hitting theaters shortly (within a week or two). Hopefully 2008 will see an even better year and the end of the writer’s strike that currently shadows over everything.

Top 10 Movies of 2007:
10. Zodiac
09. I’m Not There
08. The Bourne Ultimatum
07. Knocked Up
06. Hot Fuzz
05. There Will Be Blood
04. Atonement
03. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
02. No Country For Old Men
01. The Lives Of Others

Last edited: July 13th, 2008