Back when I did my Top 10 list for 2006, I was a bit disappointed by the quality of cinema that year. I think 2007 was just as mediocre, if not worse. Still there were a few movies I enjoyed this year. Feel free to comment about my choices, or anything you think I overlooked:
- Juno - What threatened to be too hip for it's own good, ended up being a really sweet movie, and lived up to all the buzz leading up to its release in theaters.
- No Country For Old Men - This was probably the most solidly made film of the year, and I almost put this number one. I don't know how the Coen Brothers are going to top this--they introduced us to perhaps the scariest villain...EVER!
- Into the Wild - You might think Christopher McCandless was just plain nuts, but you can't tell me you didn't think about selling all your worldly possessions and going on walk-a-bout for a split second while watching this movie. The epiphany he has at the end is simple, yet powerful.
- 3:10 to Yuma - Westerns are always great for exploring the moral ambiguities of life. I'm glad this film has brought the genre back.
- Atonement - I took a class called "Film as Literature" in college, and I think this is the best example of such a movie this year. I kind of want to see it a couple more times just to absorb all the nuances.
- Transformers - I'm still in disbelief that Michael Bay succeeded in bringing these toy robots to the big screen and making it so believably realistic looking.
- The Bourne Ultimatum - This was just a pure adrenaline rush from start to finish. All action movies should be like this.
- Control - Every frame of this movie seems like a well composed photograph that almost seems like a character itself.
- Paris Je T'aime - Perhaps the next best thing to visiting the city itself.
- Knocked Up - I don't have kids, so the fact that I found this movie to be so hilarious leads me to believe that I might just die from laughter once I can more truly empathize with some of the pregnancy-related jokes when my wife does get "knocked up."
Potential movies I missed that might have cracked the Top 10:
Charlie Wilson's War
Rescue Dawn
Lust, Caution
Biggest surprise: Bridge to Terabithia
I accidentally caught this on a flight on Frontier Airlines since it was showing for free. The lady sitting in the row behind me was bawling her eyes out by the end--I almost did, too. Because my eyes were a bit dry. It's dry in those airplane cabins. And I got lint in them. Yeah, yeah. Lint.
Biggest disappointment: Spider-Man 3
More isn't necessarily better, as this third installment proved. I ended up laughing at Venom more than I trembled in his presence. What a waste of an awesome villain.
Biggest "I should have known better than to believe the hype": Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
I'm not that much of a Broadway musical fan, but I enjoy an occasional Stephen Sondheim tune or two. Unfortunately, Sweeney Todd isn't remembered as his most memorable work, and Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter just can't belt out the tunes with enough presence to make this music any more memorable. Probably didn't help that I don't really like Tim Burton movies that much, either.
What I'm looking forward to in 2008: I say this alot every year, but this time I think my head is really going to explode. This is a comic-book geek's dream of a line-up!
- Iron Man (May 2)
- Speed Racer (May 9)
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (May 22)
- The Incredible Hulk (June 13)
- The Dark Knight (July 18)
- Where the Wild Things Are (October 3)
- Bond 22 (November 7)
- Star Trek (December 25)
That's just the fanboy stuff. I don't even know much about the real high-falutin' drama stuff, like Righteous Kill which reteams Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro for only the second time in history. And believe it or not, there's actually a movie called Synecdoche, New York coming out this year, too. Synecdoche, not synechdochy--I guess we've been spelling the word wrong this whole time. No wonder this blog is the first hit on a Google search. Thanks, Firecracker George. ;-)
3 comments:
Interesting top 10. I have only seen five of the 10, and I am a bit surprised at number 10. While I did think it was hilarious, and I will vouch for it probably being funnier when your wife is with child, I am not sure it warrants a top 10. Granted, it was in last place and it was a lackluster year.
If I had seen more movies I might have been able to come up with a top 10 list. If I had one, I would have had the Kite Runner in there, along with 3:10 to Yuma. 3:10 might have made my number one spot. I also would have thrown in the animated movie Ratatouille. I can't wait to see numbers one and two on your list. If my wife had had her way, you might have seen me putting Bella in my top 10 too. She loved the movie, but once again it is one I have yet to see. I also heard that Dan in Real Life was good, but when you don't see the movies it is hard to place them in any sort of list.
I haven't had a chance to see Ratatouille yet, and I probably should have listed that in the "potential contenders that I didn't see" list.
I think putting Knocked Up on my list was just more out of desperation--that's how hard it was to think of ten movies I really enjoyed this year that I would care to watch again
The Kite Runner is another one of those movies I haven't seen yet, although I probably need to, not only because it's supposed to be a good movie, but because Marc Forster directed it--he's helming the next Bond film.
And did you ever get a chance to see Into the Wild? With your love of the outdoors, I figured that would have been right up your alley.
I did see Into the Wild, and I would put it in my top 10 for a couple reasons. I thought the actor who played Alexander Supertramp did a great job, and I liked the movie. Those two things alone would easily put it in my top 10 for 2007.
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