2007 - A Year In Review

As far as I'm concerned, these were the best movies of 2007:

1. Black Book
2. The Bourne Ultimatum
3. Ratatouille
4. Interview
5. Gone Baby Gone
6. Juno
7. I'm Not There
8. There Will Be Blood
9. Enchanted
10. This Is England



In terms of awards specifically (I'm talking about awards in general, because as far as I'm concerned this is the year the Oscars have lost any credibility), these are the people I would nominate (note that throughout this post, I consider Black Book eligible, since it was released in the US in 2007):

Best Director

Todd Haynes, I'm Not There
The Coen Brothers, No Country For Old Men
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
Paul Greengrass, The Bourne Ultimatum
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell & The Butterfly

Best Actor

Brad Pitt, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
James McAvoy, Atonement
Benicio del Toro, Things We Lost In The Fire
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Best Actress

Sienna Miller, Interview
Carice Van Houten, Black Book
Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose
Ellen Page, Juno
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Best Supporting Actor

James Marsden, Enchanted
Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
Nick Frost, Hot Fuzz
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Homayon Ershadi, The Kite Runner

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Michelle Monaghan, Gone Baby Gone
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Michelle Pfeiffer, Hairspray
Samantha Morton, Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Best Original Screenplay

Diablo Cody, Juno
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
Adrienne Shelly, Waitress
Shane Meadows, This Is England
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages

Best Adapted Screenplay

Steve Buscemi, Interview
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Wilson's War
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
John Logan, Sweeney Todd

Best Score

Dario Marianelli, Atonement
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Ford
Michael Giaccino, Ratatouille
John Greenwood, There Will Be Blood
Clint Eastwood, Grace Is Gone

Best Song

"Falling Slowly", by Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, Once
"Guaranteed", by Eddie Veder, Into The Wild
"Pop! Goes My Heart", by Adam Schlesinger, Music and Lyrics
"Le Festin", by Camille, Ratatouille
"How Do You Know?", by Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz, Enchanted

Best Cinematography

Janusz Kaminski, The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
Roger Deakins, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Ford
Seamus McGarvey, Atonement
Robert Eltswit, There Will Be Blood
Darius Khondji, My Blueberry Nights
Best Animated Film

Ratatouille
Bee Movie
Persepolis
Beowulf
The Simpsons Movie
Best Documentary

Sicko
Manda Bala
In The Shadow Of The Moon
Taxi to the Dark Side
The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters

Best Visual Effects

Beowulf
The Golden Compass
Transformers
I Am Legend
Spider-Man 3

Best Editing

The Bourne Ultimatum
I'm Not There
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Foreign Language Film

Lust, Caution
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
La Vie En Rose
4 weeks, 3 weeks, 2 days
Triad Election

Best Makeup

I Am Legend
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End
La Vie En Rose

Best Costume Design

Albert Wolsky, Across The Universe
Marit Allen, La Vie En Rose
Colleen Atwood, Sweeney Todd
Patricia Norris, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Ford
Jacqueline Durran, Atonement


Best Art Direction

Sarah Greenwood, Atonement
Patricia Norris, Martin Gendron and Troy Sizemore,The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
Dante Ferreti, Sweeney Todd
Carlos Conti and Karen Murphy, The Kite Runner
Jack Fisk, There Will Be Blood


The other categories - such as sound or sound editing - I could never claim to know enough about to "nominate" anyone, so I'll leave them be without insulting all the people involved by pretending I have any knowledge about the matter.

I won't ramble on and on either, but in terms of overrated films, performances, and other bits of business of the year...

1) ATONEMENT - A masterpiece of a novel, it became a film that looked gorgeous, had the best score I've ever heard in a year, and was technically flawless. The only problem with it? It's dull, it's got no rhythm, and worst of all, no heart. As one reviewer of the film put it in the Guardian, how does it feel to watch a film where "only the lawns are real"?

2) MICHAEL CLAYTON - Seriously. If this was the 90s, this would just be your run-of-the-mill John Grisham thriller everyone goes to see on a date and forgets about a minute later. Sidney Pollack being Sidney Pollack, Tom Wilkinson being Tom Wilkinson, and George Clooney being a slightly overweight George Clooney in a plot that's way too intertwined for its own good. Doesn't deserve any of the award noms and wins it's been getting.

3) OVER-COMPLEX PLOTS - That would be you, Michael Clayton, Pirates Of The Caribbean and other films that think "not underestimating the audience" means "having plots that don't make any fucking sense". How about being emotionally challenging, rather than logically challenged?

5) JULIE CHRISTIE - A fine actress if there ever, ever was one. But her performance in Away From Her is slightly above average at best - predictable, straightforward, theatrical, she plays "the complexe woman with Alzheimer's" the way any Broadway actress (or James Woods, if he were a woman and this were a made-for-TV movie) would. Not exactly worthy of all the kudos she's been getting, and don't even mention the Oscar she's probably gonna get (which, in my humble opinion, shall be akin to her beating Marion Cotillard up in a back alley and robbing it from her). Away From Her itself is little more than a Lifetime movie - a good Lifetime movie, but still a Lifetime movie - directed around obvious metaphors and indicating of emotions. If you want to reward the film's connection to the audience, reward the one person involved whose work is actually down right impressive - Gordon Pinsent, who proves why he's a national treasure in Canada.



And that's the year for me. Overall, it was one of very few great films (Ultimatum, Ratatouille), a few mind-blowing performances that shall unfortunately go overlooked (Sienna in Interview, Marion Cotillard), a ton of disappointments (Live Free & Die Hard, Atonement, American Gangster, Charlie Wilson's War, nonsensical Academy rules for who's eligible for nominations), and a handful of really good, interesting, challenging films, be it in style or content or tone or all of the above (Once, I'm Not There, Interview, Gone Baby Gone).

2008's got a lot of great stuff lined up - so here's to a great year in film.