Year in Review: 2007
No worries, everyone. This whole year-late things stops with my Best of ‘08 list, which should be out in the next week or two. As I said when I released my Top 10 list for 2006 in 2007, distance on these sorts of arbitrary rankings is only a healthy thing. In the case of this list, some films were helped by a second viewing, and some are likely helped by the fact that it’s been over a year since I’ve seen them.
No matter, though. As any critic will tell you, these lists are only good for the first four or five on the list, and then it gets muddled trying to rank movies. Especially in a year like 2007, which was not a particularly great year for movies in my opinion, there were a lot of very good movies that have faded from memory. A lot of enthusiastic B+ and A- grades around here, but not a lot that really captured my enthusiasm. With that, here are the ten films from 2007 that I enjoyed the most:
If Juno was the zeitgeist movie of 2007 for any reason in particular, it would probably be Diablo Cody’s quippy dialogue and Ellen Page’s iconic performance as the eponymous pregnant teen. What garnered the film so much critical acclaim, I think, was the fact the film is actually good. It’s emotionally resonant, the performances are all note-perfect (which can be attributed partly to director Jason Reitman, too), and the film tells a simple story and tells it well and entertains the audience along the way. Few films from 2007 managed to accomplish this as fluidly.
Though Lions for Lambs was a critical and box office flop, I happened to find it fascinating. Emerging at a time when politics were just starting to enter common dialogue as the Presidential election heated up, the film was a biting look at the value of the self, the value of service, and the role of government and journalism. The film’s only flaw is that it’s essentially a play – it’s very talky for a film. But when you have Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, and other fine actors doing the talking, you’re willing to gloss over this fact. It’s simply an exhilarating film about the political process.
The Coen Brothers finally hit their peak with No Country for Old Men, or so the critical establishment at large would have you think. Though I have very few qualms with the bevy of awards the film had bestowed on it, it’s still a far-from-perfect film. Still, what the Coens get so right is the creation of suspense. Very little was more thrilling all year than the hotel sequence. With carefully-chosen sound design and a careful attention to nuance, the directors were able to craft a character-driven study in morality and crime. It’s not perfect, but it’s damn good.
Here’s where the problems with Top 10 lists become most apparent. Do I really think Transformers is necessarily a better film than No Country for Old Men? Perhaps not. All I know is that few films from 2007 entertained me as thoroughly or effectively as Michael Bay’s latest. The film has no ambition beyond blowing a bunch of shit up real good, and the film’s primary success is that this assault of explosions never feels particularly rote. It’s simply a solid action film with few pretensions, and from my point of view, there’s something to be appreciated about that.
Here’s a primary example of awards-season hype clouding my judgment of a film, a tendency that I’m trying to work on eliminating in my assessments. Atonement was the big Oscar prestige film of 2007 when it came out last December, and as objective as I wanted to be, I couldn’t help but nitpick and declare that it was simply good-not-great. Having reviewed the film a few months ago, I can safely say that the film is a minor masterpiece. Regardless of small flaws, the film remains a gorgeous period piece with a killer twist and strong performances across the board.
Perhaps my award for the most under-appreciated film of 2007 was The Golden Compass. What writer/director Chris Weitz lucked out with is the film’s source material and central conceit: that there are parallel universes to our own where things are mostly the same, but slightly different. The ingenuity used to execute the film’s special effects and deft voice work for the animated creatures are the main triumphs of the film, in addition to the handsome set decoration and lead performance of Dakota Blue Richards. It’s all very well done and I hope that Part Two gets the green light.
Once is the very epitome of an independent film, being made for under a million dollars with non-actors and shot digitally on handheld cameras. Why this film caught on with audiences so strongly is the film’s ability to use music to completely soar beyond the limited means of the production. The film transcends whatever production limitations must have been placed on the filmmakers and through the performances of the central couple, the film manages to pulse with emotion solely on the strength of the songs. That audiences discovered this small gem was a satisfying triumph in 2007.
I constantly return to the credo that a film critic evaluates a film’s purpose and then evaluates how successfully the film executes that purpose. In the case of Helvetica, a documentary about, of all things, the font Helvetica, the film perhaps drags at times. But boy is it fascinating, and the production is handsomely mounted. It manages to make fonts interesting and uncovers something that we look at every day and take for granted. Then, it forces us to pay attention just a little bit more carefully. It’s an oddly-compelling documentary.
Helvetica was certainly engrossing and fascinating, but No End in Sight was the documentary of 2007. More even-handed and cool-headed than Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, the film is a systematic evaluation of how and where the invasion of Iraq went wrong. No End in Sight is so effective because filmmaker Charles Ferguson simply presents the facts in a compelling and straightforward manner, effectively making his point without ever preaching. No film was more important or necessary in 2007 than this documentary.
Pixar continued their winning streak in 2007, more than making up for the minor misgivings of 2006’s Cars. With Ratatouille, Pixar has leapt past simply making kids’ films. While still working in the mode of an animated film with a G rating, the filmmakers at Pixar have now entered a period of filmmaking where they are pushing the boundaries of what those limitations even mean. With Ratatouille, writer/director Brad Bird has crafted a sophisticated tale of a rat named Remy who dreams of being a chef and manages to execute not just the more frivolous elements of the story like Remy’s antics-prone family members, but a love story and a commentary on the state of criticism in modern culture. The animation is exquisite, a given for Pixar, rendering Paris in painterly hues, mirroring Remy’s fascination and idealization of the city. So many dismiss animation as being in a different, lesser league than traditional filmmaking, but with Finding Nemo and especially Ratatouille, Pixar has proven that animation is very much traditional filmmaking’s equal. And in doing so, they crafted the best film of 2007.
© 2004-2009 Ben Waldorf. Posted December 25, 2008.