The Best Films of 2007
By Nareg Torosian
2007 was a year of revival in Hollywood. It brought back two seemingly
bygone genres - the musical ("Hairspray," "Sweeney Todd:
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," "Once," "Across
the Universe") and the western ("3:10 to Yuma," "The
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford") - to considerable
critical and popular acclaim. It resuscitated an interest in speaking
out against the Iraq war ("The Kingdom," "In the Valley
of Elah," "Lions for Lambs," "Redacted"), but
audiences stayed away in droves. Instead, they flocked to the familiar,
commercially reviving a number of film series, especially if it came in
threes - "Spider-man 3," "Shrek the Third," "Pirates
of the Caribbean: At World's End," "The Bourne Ultimatum,"
"Rush Hour 3," and "Ocean's Thirteen" all made north
of $100 million at the box office, as did flicks about killer robots ("Transformers")
and Spartan soldiers ("300"). Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen revitalized
the big-screen adult comedy with "Knocked Up" and "Superbad,"
and a number of noted auteurs returned with their biggest achievements
yet, most notably Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen brothers, whose flawless
masterpieces ("There Will Be Blood" and "No Country for
Old Men," respectively) are ones for the ages.
Before getting to my top 10, here’s a list of films that barely
placed out but deserve recognition: “Atonement,”
Joe Wright's imperfect but inventive adaptation of Ian McEwen's novel; “I'm
Not There,” Todd Haynes's ballsy, bewildering Bob Dylan biopic;
“Once,” perhaps the most subdued,
naturalistic, and emotionally intelligent musical ever made; “Into
the Wild,” Sean Penn's evocative, well acted dramatization
of the life of Christopher McCandless;
“Rescue Dawn,” Werner Herzog's
solid dramatic reworking of his Vietnam War POW documentary "Little
Dieter Needs to Fly"; “Juno,”
a quirky but affecting indie comedy with a star-making performance by
Ellen Page; “Eastern Promises,”
another brooding, provocative piece of pulp filmmaking stemming from the
collaboration between Viggo Mortensen and David Cronenberg; “The
Lookout,” Scott Frank's twisty film noir cum character study
with an astonishing lead performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt; “Michael
Clayton,” Tony Gilroy's engrossing legal thriller with one
of the year's best ensemble casts; and “Gone
Baby Gone,” an astute, morally complex thriller that serves
as Ben Affleck's assured directorial debut.
Now, here are the films that I believe were the best of 2007. Please
note that I exclude foreign films and documentaries from these lists,
as I reward them in separate categories in my
yearly film awards list.
10. “Margot at the Wedding” –
Director: Noah Baumbach
Cynicism and self-loathing have rarely been used to such devastating comic
effect as they have in Baumbach's uncompromising follow-up to "The
Squid and the Whale." Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black are superb
in dialed-down roles, but Nicole Kidman is a force of nature as the monstrous
title character, whose verbal violence interrupts the lives of everyone
around her. An ugly comedy but a truthful one, "Margot" is for
those who take their tea with a healthy dose of arsenic.
9. “Superbad” – Director: Greg
Mottola
It should come as no surprise that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote
the first draft of "Superbad" while they were in middle school
- it's clueless about girls and has more dick jokes per capita than the
oeuvre of Kevin Smith - but there is an undeniable sweetness to the characters
and dialogue, even when drenched in rhythmic profanity. The central relationship
between Jonah Hill and Michael Cera (and the events that befall them)
are handled with documentary-like precision, making this the funniest
and most accurate high school movie since "Election."
8. “Knocked Up” – Director:
Judd Apatow
After mining virginity for laughs in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin,"
Apatow set his sights on unplanned parenthood and struck comic gold once
again. "Knocked Up" is a delicate balancing act, combining camaraderie-stemmed
dialogue with realistic characterizations, while not short shrifting on
the emotional anxieties faced by both sexes when coming to terms with
parental responsibility. Apatow's script is a rarity - a perceptive, richly
textured romantic comedy - and it's brought to fruition by a game cast,
most notably by Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd.
7. “Before the Devil Knows You're Dead”
– Director: Sidney Lumet
Desperate for cash and down on their luck, brothers Philip Seymour Hoffman
and Ethan Hawke plan to rob their parents' jewelry store. The heist goes
horribly wrong, setting off a chain of events that, in a less capable
director's hands, would be steeped in post-Tarantino mimicry. But in the
firm grasp of the legendary Lumet ("Network," "Dog Day
Afternoon"), the film is raised to the scale of Shakespearean tragedy.
Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, and Rosemary Harris round out a first-rate
ensemble cast, who do great service to first-time screenwriter Kelly Masterson.
6. “Away from Her” – Director:
Sarah Polley
Movies as of late have depicted Alzheimer's as a plot device rather than
an actual illness ("The Notebook," "The Memory of a Killer"),
so this profoundly compassionate and humane film about the ravages of
the disease is as timely as it is sobering. Julie Christie and Gordon
Pinsent give career-defining performances as a couple whose 40-year marriage
is put to the test when they must deal with Christie's worsening condition.
At just 28 years of age, Polley has directed a sensitive love story that
never resorts to Oscar-baiting speeches or cheap melodrama.
5. “Ratatouille” – Director:
Brad Bird
Following up the cute but uninspired "Cars," Pixar returned
to top form with this paean to culinary arts, the creative process, collaboration,
and the City of Lights. The animation is dazzling and technically impeccable,
able to make the smallest physical gestures register on a grand scale,
but it is the care, imagination, and attention to detail behind the artistry
that gives Bird's work such staying power. If you're looking for the movie
moment of 2007, you'll find it when food critic Anton Ego tastes the titular
dish.
4. “The Assassination of Jesse James by
the Coward Robert Ford” – Director: Andrew Dominik
Are all the best Westerns being made in Australia now? Like 2006's "The
Proposition," "Jesse James" takes a revisionist approach
to the genre, doing everything it can to de-romanticize the notion of
the glamorous outlaw. But "Jesse James" does something more
- it plays as a potent parallel to today's obsession with celebrity culture.
Dominik's mesmerizing second directorial effort brings to mind the best
genre work of Terrence Malick and Robert Altman, and Brad Pitt and Casey
Affleck deliver complex, startlingly good performances as the respective
title characters. At nearly three hours, this is a long sit, but those
who appreciate contemplative storytelling will be richly rewarded.
3. “Zodiac” – Director: David
Fincher
With the glut of theatrically released serial killer movies growing with
each passing year, it is apparent that Fincher's "Seven" has
become (for better or worse) a touchstone of modern cinema. Though "Zodiac"
was a return to the genre that Fincher galvanized, it's not a return to
form - it's a supersedence of it. In the books of Robert Graysmith that
meticulously detail the hunt for the real-life Zodiac killer, who terrorized
San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s, Fincher found a protagonist whose
obsessive tendencies matched his own as a director, and the maturation
of his craft to bring Graysmith's story to the screen is evident. The
resulting masterpiece is a powerhouse paranoid thriller that delves into
the collective psyche of a city trying to make sense of the horrific.
2. “There Will Be Blood” –
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Anderson is no stranger to painting on large canvases - witness the porn
epic "Boogie Nights," the grand meditation on chance that is
"Magnolia" - but even his most fervent admirers could not be
prepared for the sheer majesty of this magnum opus. Daniel Day-Lewis is
magnetic and towering as an oil entrepreneur whose all-consuming greed
alienates him from his partnerships, his family, and his humanity. His
association with charismatic preacher Paul Dano is rife with symbolism
about the relationship between capitalism and religion, but it is a testament
to the film that no message is delivered with a heavy hand. Robert Elswit's
vibrant cinematography and Jonny Greenwood's haunting score (the year's
best) help paint an unforgettable portrait of an unforgettable man.
1. “No Country for Old Men” –
Directors: Joel & Ethan Coen
A perfect film. Adapting Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name to the
screen, the Coen brothers return to their noir roots of "Blood Simple"
and deliver the most gripping, fully realized movie in their storied careers.
It begins with some money - hunter Josh Brolin discovers $2 million in
cash at a botched drug deal and runs with it, though he soon discovers
that psychotic assassin Javier Bardem and aging sheriff Tommy Lee Jones
are both on his trail. But as the film progresses, its weightier themes
come to the surface, and all three men are faced with existential crises
that will question their ability to comprehend their roles in an increasingly
violent and maddening world. All of this is done with an economy of style
and storytelling unrivaled in this or any other year.
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