What a year. When you are gifted with a year like 2007, how do you
possibly make a Best Of list? My top five or six films listed below
could each have easily been number one for the year, and in my ways I
consider the films in slots two through six to be tied. CHUD’s Top
Fifteen has always felt like a weird number, and in years past I’ve
snuck less than great movies into that bottom five slot; this year I’ve
used those spots to house films that, had they come out last year,
would have been top five material. That’s how strong 2007 has been.
And I haven’t even seen everything I wanted to see this year. Would
Persepolis have knocked something out? I have an unwatched screener of
Away From Her sitting next to me right now – what difference could that
film have made? People keep comparing 2007 to 1999, but to my mind
there’s no comparison – this was a year studded with flat out
masterpieces while 99 was a year filled with exciting new voices, or
filmmakers finding their footing. For some of those filmmakers, 2007
was the year they came into their own and made the best movies of their
careers.
My Top 15 of 2006
My Top 15 of 2005
My Top 15 of 2004
15. Sicko (My Reviewish Advocate)(Buy the DVD)
I’m
still trying to figure out why this movie hasn’t changed the country.
Mostly free of the attention grabbing theatrics that have kept people
from connecting with his previous films in a real way, Michael Moore’s
documentary about the sorry state of health care in America is
essentially indisputible. If you believe that someone should be allowed
to die from cancer just because they don’t have enough money or the
right insurance to cover the treatment, you’re a cocksucker. There’s no
way around that, and this movie spends its whole running time
reinforcing that, showing us normal, decent people whose lives have
been ruined by bad runs of medical luck and the truly nasty, greedy and
satanic insurance companies that won’t help them. Every now and again
human decency must come before monetary concerns, and health care is a
perfect example of that. I have to give Moore credit for making a movie
that focuses on the issue, and not just him and his indignation, but I
have to take our lawmakers to task for ignoring one of our most
pressing domestic crises.
Current Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: Moore
lets the stories tell themselves. He can’t help getting all PT Barnum
with a trip to Cuba, but that’s a small part of the very moving, very
scary running time of this film.the
Performance to
Savor: Hilary Rodham Clinton as the villain.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: “Michael Moore’s documentary will make you sick with indignation!”
14. Black Book/The Lives of Others (My Review)(Buy Black Book on DVD)(Buy The Lives of Others on DVD)
Well, I cheated and did a tie in one slot. But they’re connected beyond being foreign language films about oppression: both movies feature amazing performances by Sebastian Koch, the kind of handsome, manly movie star we don’t see much anymore. In one film he’s on the side of the oppressors, playing a conflicted Nazi in Black Book, and in the other he’s an East German playwright being spied on by the secret police. The two films couldn’t be more different – Paul Verhoeven’s return from the joke bin is pulpy and explicit and just a little bit loony, while Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s movie is sober and often grim. Both are exhiliarting pieces of filmmaking that maybe go on a little longer than they should – I found the epilogue of The Lives of Others especially cloying – but both films are about nations trying to come to terms with their own dark pasts, but so we should give them some meandering room.
Current Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: Bad, bad Germans.
Performance to
Savor: EyKoch in both films and the stunning Carice van Houten in Black Book.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: “Ich bin ein terrific!”
13. Margot at the Wedding
Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to The Squid and the Whale is a much more caustic movie, one that will offend and repulse many viewers. But for those willing to endure the high level of dysfunction and cruelty on display, Margot is a movie that’s surprisingly funny and always feels completely honest. Maybe that’s what some people didn’t like about the movie – it doesn’t sugar coat the way families can be so bad to one another in times of crisis.
Current Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: Baumbach again brings a sympathetic openess to his filmmaking. A scene with Margot masturbating fruitlessly doesn’t feel voyeuristic or exploitative, but rather very insightful.
Performance to
Savor: Nicole Kidman, who has had a bad, bad run over the last few years, reminds us that she was an actress before she became a walking Botox ad.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: “This movie could well make you shit your panties.”
12. The Bourne Ultimatum (My Review)(Jeremy’s Review)(Buy the DVD)
What
a movie. Paul Greengrass is a master of kinetics, and this is his
magnum opus. Movies without scripts should be big, dumb disasters, so
how did this one end up so thrilling, so tight, so smart? Having Matt
Damon, Joan Allen and David Strathairn as your leads goes a long way,
but I think most of the credit must go to Greengrass. This is a guy who
likes putting his ass on the line without a safety harnass and seeing
what happens. Someday he’s going to crash really, really hard, but
right now he’s at the top of his game and that game is immediacy,
relevance and excitement.
Current Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: It isn’t just the action that’s thrilling in Ultimatum; Bourne also finds the truth of his own origins and the darkness he finds there is unexpected at the heart of a mainstream action franchise and utterly of the political moment.
Performance to
Savor: Matt Damon, ever sharklike as killer who is trying to find his true self.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: “This film will jump through your window and strangle you with a washcloth!”
11. Knocked Up (My Review)(Jeremy’s Review)(Buy the DVD)
It’s hard for me to believe that this film has ended up outside of my top ten. On top of that, Superbad didn’t make my list at all. That’s just how good this year was. I also resisted the temptation that many critics have succumbed to of listing Knocked Up and Juno in the same slot – Juno is a great movie, but it also didn’t make the list and while it’s a funny film about pregnancy as well, I think Knocked Up deserves its own space. The thing about Knocked Up is that even if you question some of the motivations or actions of the characters, the film’s warmth and humor allows you to move beyond and suspend your disbelief. Judd Apatow has again created a marvelous little world that’s crude but somehow decent and wholesome, and it’s a place that you feel good visiting. And that makes you feel good when you see pieces of yourself reflected within it.
Current Rating: 9.0 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: The Apatow players are firing on all cylinders here.
Performance to
Savor: Paul Rudd, Paul Rudd, Paul Rudd.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: “Your belly will be pregnant with laughter!”
10. Gone Baby Gone (Jeremy’s Review) (Russ’ Review)
Holy
shit, Ben Affleck. Here’s a weird vision of the future: pre-movie
trivia quizzes that ask if audiences knew that before director Ben
Affleck was a respected filmmaker he was a matinee idol actor. Gone Baby Gone isn’t
just a good directorial effort by an actor, it’s a great directorial
effort period. Affleck has a whole other skillset we didn’t know about,
and maybe that Best Screenplay Oscar isn’t going to be so lonely
forever.
Current Rating: 9.0 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: A remarkable sense of place. The casting shows that Affleck is a fan of The Wire,
and that show’s concept of city as character is used here for a side of
Boston we rarely see on screen. Also, the movie might have the best
final minutes of any this year. They’re not explosive, they’re not a
huge twist, they’re not a shockeroo – they’re just a gripping
examination of a moral problem without an easy answer.
Performance to
Savor: Casey Affleck, in one of two appearances on this list.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: “I really like them apples.”
9. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
There’s
a sense that movies about overcoming adversity are inherently schlocky,
but Julian Schnabel shows how that just isn’t the case. Jean-Dominique
Bauby was the editor of Elle, living the high life when he was struck
down with a sudden and massive stroke. He was left with ‘locked-in
syndrome,’ leaving him utterly parazlyzed except for one eyelid, but
also totally awake and aware. It was like being buried alive inside
himself. Bauby learned to communicate using just that eyelid, and he
dictated a book about his experiences. Schnabel brings us inside
Bauby’s tomb of a body and makes us feel every horror but also every
triumph and small moment of grace. Alternately transcendent and
devastating, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly reminds us how cinema’s greatest power can be to let us experience someone else.
Current Rating: 9.0 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: Janusz
Kaminski outdid himself here. Much of the film’s first half hour is
shot from Bauby’s POV but it never feels gimmicky or silly, and once
the camera’s lens is allowed to roam, Kaminski reminds us of the
claustrophobic nature of this man’s existence, while also reminding us
of the freedom he could find in his mind. Breathtaking.
Performance to
Savor: Future Bond villain Mathieu Amalric is remarkable, but Max von Sydow as his father broke me.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll become very familiar with the alphabet in French.”
8. I’m Not There (Russ’ Review)
It’s a
puzzle, but it’s not a puzzle movie. It’s about a person, but it’s not
a biopic. It’s the story of Bob Dylan, but nobody in it is named Bob
Dylan. Todd Haynes continues to be the director most drawn to bringing
the mainstream and the avant garde together, and he has delivered
another thrillingly satisfying experiment in form and storytelling. A
traditional biopic of Dylan would be garbage, so Haynes has created a
cryptograph of a film, a movie whose metapors and allusions and
obfuscations would mirror those in Dylan’s own music. It’s an
examination of the life of one of America’s greatest songwriters and
poets and it’s done in the spirit and style of his own work. I’m Not There is
a movie that is accessible to people unfamiliar with Dylan – if they’re
brave and willing to do the work. The movie is crammed with meaning and
symbolism and imagery, and Haynes isn’t interested in taking you by the
hand. Just like a great Dylan song, you don’t have to get what I’m Not There ‘means,’ you just have to get how it feels.
Current Rating: 9.0 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: Bob Dylan’s amazing music is the heartbeat of this daring, exciting movie.
Performance to
Savor: Cate
Blanchett is great, but you don’t savor her, since she’s so generous in
her greatness. The performance you savor is young Marcus Carl Franklin
as Woody.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: "Todd Haynes’ in the basement mixing up the greatness, I’m on the pavement thinking about the Oscars."
7. Hot Fuzz (My Review)(Jeremy’s Review)(Russ’ Review)(Buy the DVD)
This
has been a terrific year for comedies, yet only one of them makes my
top ten. I feel bad about that, and I wish that I had room in here for
an Apatow movie. But I don’t feel bad that the one comedy that makes
the cut is Hot Fuzz, a movie that’s like a warm hug for film fans. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg had a tall order in following up Shaun of the Dead,
and while I don’t think they topped that absolutely perfect film (to me
they couldn’t have – I love zombie movies far, far more than action
films), they made a movie that again deftly juggles character and
comedy. That’s the secret that Apatow has learned as well – you don’t
have to sacrifice real characters with real arcs for the comedy, and
vice versa. You can make a movie where the audience genuinely likes and
cares about the characters while also laughing at jokes ranging from
the absurd to the sublime. The real genius of Pegg and Wright, though,
is how they can take jokes that are referencing specific films and
action/cop movie tropes and yet make them utterly accessible to the
uninitiated. It’s some kind of comedy alchemy, and it makes what on
paper look like geek-only movies into films that appeal to everybody.
Current Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: Long for a comedy, Hot Fuzz doesn’t feel stretched out and it doesn’t have boring patches. And like Shaun, this film has a script so tight it makes Sharon Stone’s plastic surgeon jealous.
Performance to
Savor: Rafe
Spall and Paddy Considine as the Andys! This movie is packed with
wonderful performances, but these two kill me every second they’re on
screen.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: "I love this movie so much that if I was chasing it and it was getting away I would fire my gun in the air and go ‘Aaaaargh’!"
6. There Will Be Blood (Review Coming Soon!)
No joke: how the fuck is this movie number 6? How could a movie this incredible clock in outside of the top five? Like I said in my intro, I see this and the next four films as essentially tied, but the fact that the movie that announces Paul Thomas Anderson’s artistic maturity is coming in at number six is just a testament to how lucky we all were to be alive and seeing movies this year. There Will Be Blood shares a number of traits with the films that follow: it’s uncompromising in how it pursues its vision – not since Scorsese was hoovering coke and Coppola was freaking out in the jungle have filmmakers of such talent and ability been given so much money to follow their own uncommercial muses to places of such brilliance. That’s another thing it has in common with the rest of the movies on this list – it’s fucking brilliant. If I see a movie in 08 that captures a quarter of what PTA accomplishes in There Will Be Blood, I’ll have a top ten film on my hands.
Current Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: Paul Thomas Anderson has grown up. He hasn’t left the movie quotes behind, but he’s stepped away from his ironic hipster intelligentsia comfort zone to make a visceral, brutal and beautiful film. Jonny Greenwood’s score, both grating and mesmerizing, is a perfect complement.
Performance to
Savor: Daniel Day Lewis may have well walked across water to appear in this movie.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: "There Will Be Genius."
5. The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford (Russ’ Review)
In ten years people won’t believe that this film was largely ignored by the public. Over the next few years the reputation of this movie will grow, and by the time I’m discovering there’s no Social Security left over for me, this film will have been canonized and enshrined in a way that audiences in 2007 – and the Warner Bros marketing folks – were too daft to do when it came out. A work of fierce beauty and restless brilliance, Jesse James is the sort of movie that both elicits and answers the question, ‘Why don’t they make them like this anymore?’ A throwback to the 70s only in that it’s a film unafraid of being expansive and thoughtful, there’s not a frame of this film I would change. Even the digressions that so many complain about only add to the texture of the tale. This is only Andrew Dominik’s second film, by the way. What does it feel like to be that good?
Current Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: Roger Deakins. Between this and No Country, if Deakins doesn’t win the Oscar I say we burn Hollywood down.
Performance to
Savor: You know when critics are all lazy and say that so and so’s performance was a revelation? Yeah, that’s Casey Affleck. I never imagined he had so much to give the camera.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: "Don’t let the assassination of this movie by the cowards at Warner Brothers deter you."
4. Into the Wild (My Review)
Sometimes you go to the movies to have fun. Sometimes you go to have your beliefs reaffirmed. But the best times are when you go and are challenged and moved and maybe even changed by what you see on screen. You sit in a chair watching what’s happening up there, but that doesn’t mean movies should be a passive medium; they should be engaging you, interacting with you, making you think about things you didn’t think about before, making you feel things you didn’t know you could feel. Jon Krakauer’s original book about Chris McCandless’ doomed (or was it successful?) trip to find himself did that for me, and Sean Penn’s adaptation of that book did it again, and in whole new ways. Any hack filmmaker can send you out of the theater wanting to buy the merch, but it takes a genius to make you want to leave all that merch behind and search for something more meaningful.
Current Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: Sean Penn zeroes in on the humanity of the story, and he treats McCandless with respect and honesty. Plus he brings together a cast – including an apparently exhumed Hal Holbrook – that creates an organic feeling of truth.
Performance to
Savor: Emil Hirsch is the nature boy I wish I could be.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: "Let Into the Wild bring you into yourself."
3. No Country For Old Men (Russ’ Review)
Did the Coen Brothers take it easy on their last two fairly terrible movies so that they would be rested up enough to knock this one out of the park, over the parking lot and through someone’s kitchen window? No Country For Old Men arrived in theaters like Anton Chigurgh himself, looking to kill the crap that clogs our cinemas. This is a movie that should be energizing every other filmmaker out there, a perfect marriage of script and actors and technique and tone, a movie that, in the pursuit of its own perfection, isn’t afraid of alienating the audience with an ending that challenges rather than comforts. No Country is funnier than most of the comedies released in 07, more tense than just about any of the thrillers. As beautiful and bleak as the southwestern landscape it fetishizes, No Country undoubtably sits comfortably alongside the Coens’ other masterpieces.
Current Rating: 10 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: Cormac McCarthy’s dialogue, often kept verbatim, is funny and real.
Performance to
Savor: Did we know that Josh Brolin could do this? Did we expect Javier Bardem to be so perfect?
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: "Don’t flip a coin to decide – just go see this movie!"
2. Zodiac (My Review) (Buy the DVD)
David Fincher is known as an exacting filmmaker, someone who will do hundreds of takes to get exactly what he wants. His latest film isn’t just about the investigation into the Zodiac killings, it’s about the very obsessiveness that drives him as a director. No movie has ever captured what it’s like to be completely wrapped up in something the way Zodiac does. Anyone who has ever become fixated on something – especially any kind of mystery – will recognize (hopefully small) bits of themselves in these characters and their single minded pursuit of the truth. The film spreads itself out, takes its time to get where its going and allows you to luxuriate in the beautiful visuals and nuanced acting for almost three hours. It could have gone longer.
Current Rating: 10 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: A fastidious attention to detail and facts makes watching Zodiac feel like reading a good non-fiction book. You walk out of the movie knowing more than you did when you walked in – and it’s all true.
Performance to
Savor: Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr show the rest of Hollywood what actors at the top of their game look like.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: "This is the Zodiac speaking. My movie is fucking amazing."
1. Once (My Review)(Buy the DVD)
I went back and forth on making this film my number one movie of the year. This film holds an incredibly personal meaning to me, one that’s impossible to separate from the way that I look at the movie itself. Then again, this is an amazing and moving film – even if it didn’t encapsulate who I am and what has happened to me in 2007 in a bittersweet way, Once is a wonderful movie. In a year when the masterpieces were big and epic, Once found a way to get across twice as much meaning and emotion on one twentieth of the budget and without the help of the finest actors and craftsmen in the business. This movie, like the guitar Glen Hansard plays in it, doesn’t look like much at first glance, but don’t be deceived. In the right hands Hansard’s guitar produces the most beautiful and touching music, and in the hands of director John Carney, Once is just as beautiful and touching.
Current Rating: 10 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: The best love story since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is lifted higher by the music Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova make together.
Performance to
Savor: Hansard and Irglova work together naturally, making every moment of this film feel true.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: "Don’t just see this movie once. You have to experience it again and again."