As we celebrate the year that was 2007 in movies, the intrepid, unbelievably longsuffering AP Kryza weighs in with his favorite movies of the year (and the films that hurt him bad, baby):
Anybody who bitches about being paid to see movies should seriously consider re-evaluating any shitty job they’ve ever worked. That’s because watching films, quality or not, is a pretty good way to earn a little extra change, and sitting on your ass for two hours beats the tar out of flipping burgers or stacking bricks.
Still, for a person who truly loves cinema, being a second-string film critic has its sacrifices. Namely, you’re forced to sit through crap like The Brothers Solomon or Pathfinder while the boss (in my case, the illustrious Aaron Mesh) gets all the good stuff like There Will Be Blood or Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.
Which makes assembling a “Year’s Best” list rather difficult. Of the dozens of movies I’ve been commissioned to comment on this year, I can hardly count the good ones on my digits. Yet still, among the Pathfinders and P2s, through all the Game Plans and Freedom Writers endured, there are some films I’ve reviewed (or ventured out to see via free will) that served as a reminder of why we go to the movies in the first place. They may not be the most prestigious films (hey, I’m second-string!), but when you’re a true movie nerd, you need some fartsy to counteract the artsy.
In no particular order:
No Country for Old Men
The Coen Brothers’ return to their gritty roots of Blood Simple is a masterful noir, a classic modern Western and an exercise in primal fear. Dotting a dusty Texas landscape in blood and wresting career-best performances from Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem, the brothers ditched the screwball shit of Intolerable Cruelty to offer one of the most realistic, simplistic and terrifying cat-and-mouse thrillers ever committed to film. There’s an overall sense of isolation and dread, and each wound counts. It’s all anticipation—and the payoff is massive. Bardem’s villainous killer is a monster for the ages, and The Coens have pulled everything in their diverse arsenal into one gnarled package.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
First things first: I hate musicals. Sweeney Todd opens with a cheeseball number from a twitty sailor excited to land London’s port of dreams, singing operatically about finding love and success (yack). But no sooner does he hit his high note than Johnny Depp’s Sweeney begins to rain on his parade, singing with bitter angst about London as a shit-filled pit of despair. From that moment, Tim Burton’s macabre musical adaptation of the Steven Sondheim musical spirals with malevolent insanity. Burton hones his trademark gothic style with a precision to top his previous works, offering a film almost void of color save the arterial sprays of victims’ necks. His bleak London is a wasteland of depravity and corruption, and Burton turns the city into a character all its own. He also pulls phenomenal performances from Alan Rickman, Sascha Baron Coen, Timothy Spall, Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Like any musical, it has its eye-rolling moments (particularly the subplot involving the aforementioned twitty sailor’s love of Sweeney’s daughter). But the cheese serves to offset musical numbers involving montages of hacked-throats and cannibalism. Sweeney Todd is an exercise in gleeful lunacy—a revenge musical drenched in blood, a heartbreaking tragedy and a hilarious dark comedy.
Ratatouille
Brad Bird—in his first film since the phenomenal The Incredibles—hits a high water mark on the already illustrious Pixar belt. In telling the story of a foodie rat’s adventures in the kitchen of a failing Paris restaurant, Ratatouille never stretches too far, instead offering the tale from the rat’s perspective. In doing so, kitchens, sewers, vents, streets and alleys take on epic proportions, making even the most commonplace areas seem like something out of Greek mythology. The wry humor and visual bravado make Ratatouille exceptional. Its story, execution, characters, and heart make it classic.
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Seth Gordon’s hysterical documentary is at once a celebration and an indictment of competitive video gaming. The film chronicles milquetoast hero Steve Wiebe’s quest to have his all-time high score in Donkey Kong recognized by the videogame mafia, who suckle on the pasty teat of champ Billy Mitchell. Always tongue-in-cheek, Gordon captures every blip of arcades, but also crafts a classic battle of good vs. evil. Sure, Mitchell is probably unfairly vilified, but damned if he isn’t the most cartoonishly rendered baddie since Snidely Whiplash. Despite the fact that the film’s subjects take the game so seriously, Gordon never does, making for a pleasurable look into misguided obsession and the creepy lengths one pony-tailed man-child will go to remain king of the schoolyard.
The Bourne Ultimatum
There was no reason to expect much from this summer’s influx of “threequels.” Which made The Bourne Ultimatum all the more surprising. It’s a thinking man’s actioner—neither as smart as it seemed nor as dumb as it should have been. Director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon pulled off the most spectacular action flick in recent memory (with the possible exception of Casino Royale). The rooftop chase through Morocco is jaw-dropping, and the climactic car chase is one for the records. It’s a rare feat—a final chapter that topped its predecessors. Bourne stands like a colossus over the rest of the summer bilge.
Hot Fuzz
The Shaun of the Dead team’s loving parody of action movies is the sort of slam-bang comedy hybrid one could only expect from the British, who love action films above all else, teatime included. The action is hot, and the jokes get better with every viewing. Nobody will look at neighborhood watch associations the same again.
Zodiac
Knee-jerk reactions to David Fincher’s decades-sprawling story of the Zodiac Killer (mine included) were harsh. It’s a three-hour movie about a serial killer who spends years in dormancy, with a minimal of the bloodletting one would expect from the director of Se7en and Fight Club. But it sticks with you. Fincher’s film isn’t about the killer—it’s about those obsessed with finding him. The murder scenes are among cinema’s most disturbing, but more disturbing is watching the slow burnout of Robert Downey Jr’s ace journalist, Mark Ruffalo’s stalwart detective and Jake Gyllenhaal’s cartoonist.
Superbad
Not since Dazed and Confused has teenage awkwardness—and the awkwardness of adults who can’t seem to grow up at all—been so tangible. The Apatow machine is now a genre all its own. Anyone who didn’t double-over to McLovin’s deflowering, Seth’s attempt to remove a “merlot” stain or Evan’s rendition of “These Eyes” needs a defibrillator.
Meanwhile…The Year in Bummers
It’s easy to rip down a movie like the Oscar-bait disaster Things We Lost in the Fire or the drivel of Hostel: Part 2. It’s another thing when marketing, hype and all-out gullibility get the best of you. Rather than offering a “Worst of the Year” list, below is a list of this year’s biggest disappointments.
Live Free or Die Hard
In a PG-13 Die Hard, Bruce Willis wasn’t allowed to say it, so I will: Fuck you, Live Free or Die Hard. Even the most skeptical action fan got a little excited at the prospect of Bruce Willis wasting more terrorists. But the film was a fan’s nightmare. Nevermind the fact that bad editing, lack of blood and obvious dubbing made it look like the movie was edited for television. Die Hard is all about the everyman. When that “everyman” starts punching a Harrier jet mid-air—and wins the fight—you’re left with the feeling that the producers just raped your nostalgia.
Spider-Man 3
The third installment of the web-slinger’s sage looked amazing, and the action was top-notch. But it lacked something that made the first two blockbusters stand out: charm, likeability and the sense that the filmmakers cared just as much as the audience.
Rob Zombie’s Halloween
Horror remakes are generally a bad idea, but for some reason Rob Zombie seemed a solid choice to remake the John Carptenter classic. Whoops. Zombie simply ups the gore and examines Michael Myers’ background. Instead of making him scarier, Michael becomes a WWE star with daddy issues, and Zombie reinforces fears that The Devils Rejects was a fluke.
CGI Animals
Evan Almighty—one of the year’s absolute worst—cost a reported $200 million, and the CGI monkeys and elephants looked like screensavers. I Am Legend’s vision of postapocalyptic New York was chilling—until cartoonish CGI deer, lions and monsters cheapened the whole affair. CGI is cool when it’s used sparingly, but filmmakers need to understand that a real animal always looks better—and probably costs less.
Transformers
Finally, a film Michael Bay seems qualified for—it’s about toys fighting. How hard is that? Robots fight. Shit goes boom. The fact that it was as cluttered and boring as it was is a testament to Bay’s arrogant incompetence.
The Grindhouse fiasco
Tarantino and Rodriguez crafted a giddy, double-feature homage to trash cinema. When it wasn’t financially successful, Harvey Weinstein neutered the DVD release, forcing fans to buy separate copies of Death Proof and Planet Terror, sans the brilliant fake trailers that split the theatrical bill. So-called bad boys Tarantino and Rodriguez quietly bent over and took it like the rest of the poor saps who were deprived one of the coolest cinematic experiences of the year.
John Cusack
We get it. You’re quirky and eccentric. With Martian Child and 1408, you’ve cemented your shtick. Move on. I want my two dollars.
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