BC Magazine's Best Films of 2007
Published January 02, 2008
2007 was a very good year for movies; so good in fact I am unable to decide on just one, so I am going to cheat.
Based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel, the sword-and-sandals epic 300 is a glorious ballet of violence with the ramifications made clear. Best action film of the year.
Pixar and Brad Bird make another gem with Ratatouille, a very good film that offers an engaging story for both children and adults about creativity.
Matthew Vaughn and his team succeed in bringing Stardust, Neil Gaiman’s fantastic fairy tale, to life.
Westerns were the backdrop of many American legends and the genre is marvelously revisited in James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma, a story about choices made in life, brilliantly personified by Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.
Who knew Juno, a black comedy about teenage pregnancy, could be so sweet and inspiring? Screenwriter Diablo Cody created a brilliant female character, brought to life by Ellen Page, as witty as any male.
There Will Be Blood is a great drama about the oil boom at the turn of the twentieth century. Epic cinematography combined with Daniel Day-Lewis’ captivating performance will keep your eyes glued to screen.
Lisa McKay: No Country For Old Men
Joel and Ethan Coen have created one of the best films of their careers to date in No Country for Old Men. A bleak tale about the stupidity of greed and the inevitability of evil, the film brings to life one of the most memorable screen killers since Hannibal Lecter in the person of Anton Chigurh, portrayed to perfection by Javier Bardem. His pursuit of a down on his luck welder named Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), who’s in possession of a satchel of money that doesn’t belong to him, and the efforts of jaded sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) to track them both, are the frame upon which this neo-noir western hangs.
While the tale, on its surface at least, seems familiar and predictable, the Coens turn narrative convention on its head midway through the action, which has been a source of some complaint among audiences, but which I thought worked wonderfully here. Beautifully shot by frequent Coen collaborator Roger Deakins, sparsely scored, and superbly acted all the way around, this film is an object lesson in how to use the language of cinema to tell a tale originally conceived in book form (the source material is the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy). Definitely not a feel-good movie, this is, ultimately, a film lover’s film, as admirable for its cinematic craftsmanship as it is for the creepy story it tells.
- BC Magazine's Best Films of 2007
- Published: January 02, 2008
- Type: News
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Film and TV Business, Video: News
- Writer: Lisa McKay
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- Lisa McKay's personal site
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No apologies necessary.
I'll take both Blood and Old Men over I'm Not There. Although the Cate Blanchett and Christian Bale parts were fantastic, the rest of the movie was boring and forgettable. After reading your article, it sounds like the previous two are not overrated, but rather thematically unsatisfying to you. Most of the praise stems from the performances which you acknowledge are warranted.
(btw, The Departed was not one of the best of '06. It had some good scenes, particularly when Wahlberg and Baldwin were in them, but Nicholson was terrible in his hammy performance, and the script was unbelievable. How could Costello not figure out that the new guy was the mole? The film falls apart on repeated viewings.)
Simple sure, but what was dumb about 300? Best action film I saw. You want dumb, the two worst films of the year were Smokin' Aces and Waitress. Shoot 'Em Up was pretty bad as well.
I agree about Waitress, although it showed up on Time magazine's top 10. I could only get through the first 20 minutes of the DVD and back it went to Netflix. Life is too short.
I avoid most movies I know I'll hate, so my list of dumbest movies is very incomplete. I went to see 300 in Imax out of curiosity. It's certainly the dumbest Imax movie of the year. But it's not uninteresting to look at.
"Most Overrated" doesn't mean worst, just that those two films [T.W.B. Blood and N.C.F. Old Men] have been praised to high heaven. I believe there will be others like myself who find them too heavy to be entertaining, and too steeped in shallow nihilism to succeed as art, despite the talent involved. The Anderson film in particular will not play in Peoria. [But neither did Citizen Kane, so what do I know.]
The two worst films of the year were Good Luck Chuck and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Shoot 'Em Up at least knew what it was doing and presented itself in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion, making it a send-up of action films. It also had some really rich satire tucked in it, so I'm not really buying it as a bad film.
No Atonement mention? For my money, that's the finest film of the year.
I really liked No Country For Old Men - up until the ending. It was rather bizarre, to say the least. The funny thing is, it actually made me think about it for the next few days - and, upon further review, I was rather impressed by the film's "outside of the box" approach ...in the end.
Most underappreciated film:
The Bourne Ultimatum
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/72538)
I would add:
Zodiac
Across the Universe
I'm Not There
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Bourne Ultimatum
And the documentaries
Lake of Fire
The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-65
And [sorry, El Bicho], worst [well, maybe just dumbest] movie of the young century:
300
Most overrated:
The Lives of Others
There Will Be Blood
No Country for Old Men