This past year was, by anyone's reckoning, a very good one for movie lovers. While there was plenty to choose from throughout the year, the autumn and winter brought even more bounty as studios released their end-of-year Oscar hopefuls. While year-end "best of" lists are inevitable, it's not always an easy task to rank one's favorites, especially in a year when there's so much to pick from, and especially since it's unlikely that every writer has seen every single release.
With that in mind, we'd like to share our picks for best film of 2007 — these are the best of the movies we found to be worth watching, and if you haven't seen any of them yet, they come highly recommended.
Amy Steele: Broken English
Broken English is the story of Nora (a formidable Parker Posey), a 35-year-old single urbanite who seems stuck in a rut, both personally and professionally. She’s the quintessential over-educated, under-utilized 30-something woman. She is beginning to delve into the Bell Jar after years of seeming to know what she wanted and finding herself at the age where she feels she should already be there. This character is so relatable. If you haven’t experienced some of these things, surely you know someone who has. Date after date leads to further frustration until she meets Julien (Melvil Poupaud). Is it a merely a charming facade or is he being honest with Nora? When she loses his number, she travels to France with married best friend Audrey (a solid performance by Drea de Matteo) who is both understanding and concerned about her friend.
Written and directed by Zoe Cassavetes, Broken English is raw, real, and honest. Cassavetes' spot on, direct, honest script captures this woman's fears, disappointments, and frustrations. Posey turns out a tour de force performance. Darkly reminiscent of Looking for Mr. Goodbar and steps above Sex and the City-type single girl stories, Broken English does not look through rose-colored glasses but tackles Nora's issues head-on. The film does not gloss over anything from Nora's morning-after bed head hair to her depressive, insecure moments.
Broken English is one of the most resonant films of the year.
Brandon Valentine: No Country For Old Men
Among a year of few masterful endeavors, No Country for Old Men is easily the finest.
Executed to perfection, No Country for Old Men is a classic take on the good vs. evil tale. While the film may appear to be focused on the paper that makes the world go round, it’s entirely centered on the contrasting personalities of its main characters. Between a small-town sheriff, a “lucky” hunter who believes in finder’s keepers, and an outright madman, there is purpose, providence, and chance, respectively.
Article comments
1 - handyguy
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
2 - El Bicho
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.
3 - handyguy
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.]
4 - Jordan Richardson
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.
5 - Chris McVetta
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