TOP TEN FILMS OF 2007

You can read my reviews (they are coming!) if you want some clarity as to the picks...but without further adieu, here are my top ten films of 2007.

Editors Note: I have not yet seen the following films and consider them inelligible for my list, but might have very well been on it: There Will Be Blood, Into The Wild, Gone Baby Gone, American Gangster, The Assisination of Jesse James, 3:10 to Yuma and Eastern Promises.

1. Juno
2. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
3. Waitress
4. Away From Her
5. Hairspray
6. Atonement
7. Superbad
8. Zodiac
9. Once
10. No Country For Old Men

Top 5 Honorable Mentions (In no particular order)
Ratatouille
Micheal Clayton
Rendition
Charlie Wilson's War
Sicko

Attonement

Unfilmable eh?

I think we should all pay attention to Joe Wright. He is a director, a young director, of a callibre I have seen outside the veteran precense of the likes of Spielberg, Coppala, Scorecese, etc.

Attonement is a film I need to see again. Not because I am not sure I liked it, but because it demands a second viewing to absorb all its glory. Is that a criticism? Maybe. But I am looking forawrd to a second go at it, so maybe it's part of the brilliance?

With muse Keira Knightly in hand, Wright tells us the story not of Knightly's character Cecelia, but of her sister Briony, played with sheer brilliance by all three actors in the role (Sioarce Ronan, Ramola Gairi and Vanessa Redgrave). The story is one of confusion and imagination and an imagination so mature that in such an inmature mind can have devestating concequences.

I need not go into the plot - it is thick in detail and I would not do it justice and I think it would be an injustice to you to ruin your experience.

I will say that like Pride and Prejudice, this is a beautiful looking film supported by great performances. While I typically prefer to opposite, it is nice to see once in a while that someone working today has those classic sensibilities and the passion to recreate them.

While the first act and devesating final act were well paced and served their purpose, the middle act seems to be it may have been better served in a book where words could mean to much more than a look. In a story about carefully or poorly chosen words, we are operating in a medium that depends on looks and without the proper insight in some ways I felt a little jaded following the film. I thought I deserved more of the truth and wasn't as sympathetic to Briony as I felt I should have been. Maybe I wasn't meant to. I wanted to forgive her, but all the time I kept thinking "What if". So for a film entitled Atonement, I'm not sure it was ever fully realized, but the effort was sure there.

Again, with a second look and knowing how it ends, perhaps the clues are in fact in the performance and carry more weight, but I took the scenes at face value and needed more.

Having said that, I would still very much recommend this film and you just might see it sneak into a top ten list...

4 out of 5

THUNDERCATS ARE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That level of excitement might only be about an ounce of the excitement I felt before, during and after this film. I set the bar high going in, I wanted this so badly to be everything I expected - but it wasn't - it was so much more.

I'm not sure where I can begin. Pehaps the screenplay? I've read and heard that a criticism of the film is that the dialogue, exclusively from Juno is almost too clever that it distorts the reality of the film, to which I would reply that perhaps people missed the brilliance. It's true, it is a form of hightened language, it does crackle, and crackle often - but this is Juno's defense mechanism. This is how she has survived. It's worked. Because it worked, it developed. I thought from what I knew about Ms. MacGuff, these words were painfully appropriate coming from her lips.

I don't know how they managed to make suc ha comedic gem about teen pregnancy without it coming our as pretentious, offensive or stupid. Instead it came out as honest, clever and smart. I thoght about why and it's because they didn't try and give it a treatment, it was given the "life happens" approach, and we latch onto that, cause that's the life WE are living in.

Ellen Page is frightening incredible in this performance. There is nothing else to say. Her performance was complete, it was definitive, it was dynamic, honest, complelling, beautiful. You name it. She was it.

Michael Cera may be a one trick pony with hin uncanny to deliver a line the way only Michael Cera can, but it's a good trick and has worked for him in all of his substantial roles to date. It will grow tired, but worked well in this film, in limited capacity.

Garner and Bateman shine as the would be adoptive parents of Juno unborn baby. Garner walks the tight rope between honesty and sterotype but never fell off on the wrong side. Bateman handles his delicate role with class. With a similar challenge to Garner, we need to love him, hate him but ultimately understand and sympathize with him as much as we do with Garner - and in less capable hands I think this role could have been stale and hurt the heart of the picture.

Simmons and Janney as Juno's parents were marvelous. However, where Janney held onto credibility with some over the top lines, Simmons doesn't do the job quite as well, he doesn't seem to be able to understate his lines the way the rest of the cast does, but then recovers with his moments in between.

What can I say? Director Rietman, who gave us the best film of 2005 with Thank You For Smoking, follows it up with the best film of 2007.

5 out of 5 (I'd give it six if I could)

Away From Her

The knock against Canadian film for the most part is that we tend to focus on heritage, as if wevery film out of our country also has to act as a tourist magnet. This probably has something to do with the fact that Canadian film funding demands so much of its projects that scripts are changed to reflect this all over the place and while Away From Her didn't shy away from heritage it was so much more than that.

Where a film like "The Notebook" succeeds is in its ability to make us fall in love with the romance on screen, so that when that romance is shattered, especially by something out of its control, we are devestated, we feel their ache as we feel a loss ourselves. Where a film like that does not succeed is in it's lasting and resonating impact. We all have a good cry, maybe it stays with us for a day, and then we are able to move on, because it is easy to distance outselves from a Hollywood romance, regardless of how well it was made.

In "Away From Her", we get a similar story, but in favour of Hollywood (which I do NOT mean as a knock against the aforementioned film) we get honesty. There we times in this film where I almost felt like I was watching a documentary or I was someone connected to the film on a much more personal level than simply a viewer. Nothing was glossy (though, the underrated cinematography in this film is something to behold), nothing drew too much attention to itself, it just walked us through the pain of loss, grief, confusion and the human ways we try to repair the damage, not because it's simply easier, but we have to, for personal survival.

Though I thought Julie Christie turned in an excellent performance, the real credit of the film (outside of directo Sarah Polley, who though I know it won't happen, should get careful consideration for an Academy Award nomination) lies in the performance of Gordon Pinsett. Christie's was a great performance, Pinsett's broke the barriers. I know that man. I see him every day. I felt for him. Another performance you hear nothing about from this film comes in the form of Kristen Thompson and Kristy. Again, I felt like I knew her, I felt her honesty - that's what seperates those two from Christie, while she did an incredible job convincing me of who she was, the other two didn't have to convince me at all.

This was a movie that will sit on myself and become a treasure in my collection, something I will pick up when I need some perspective.

Beautiful work Ms. Polley.

5 stars out of 5

Across the Universe

I have so much to say about this film that I feel as thought I should start with simplicity before I got lost in my thoughts.

Across the Universe = a brilliant mess.

I've read several of the reviews and they are all over the place, but one thing they seem to have in commom, both the good and bad, is that this is a message film or an anti war film. This is interesting to me because I see it completely differently.

This is a film about several confused, scared and isolated characters looking to discover themselves by running away to the centre of the universe (New York City). Each character is going through a different personal struggle and a struggle for identity and they think that the answers are as far away from home as possible. New York has always been the backdrop for the pursuit of dreams and happiness but the reality is wh often actually see NY depicted as the place where dreams don't come true but where people make important discoveries about themselves, which perhaps is the dream on a subconcious level - or at least the reality.

It isn't until these characters are thrust from their complacent and comfortable existence (at least waht THEY perceive and comfortable and WE perceive as complacent) that they actually make any real discoveries about themselves, their friends and their reality.

Clearly this movie was a bold, adventurous concept that had a group of people who were all on the same page working their asses off to make it work. The problem is the concept was too big, it was more than they could handle and I think a little overly egotistical. The filmmakers, to me, seemed to think that anything they came up with regardless of how well it connected to its audience or the film itself would work. It also came across as though they could never settle on a tone or idea so decided that they would attempt them all. Some songs were brililantly staged and choreographed and some looked as though the actors we given zero direction and told to go at it.

This was a film of brilliant moments, disasterous moments, but ultimately suffered the same fate as the jukebox musical, it was great music strung together in inconceivable ways that made little sense simply to ensure their inclusion in the film. I think what may have been more effective would be to have had the Beatles music as a backdrop for the film, and have it establish tone rather than be so much at the forefront.

Julie Taymor's famous/infamous design concepts were in play here, but came at awkward times and distracted from the film. "I Want You" was a number is which her strengths shone bright, but moments like "I Am the Walrus" and the number right after failed miserably. I think that with such bold design choices you need to stick with it and keep it consistent throughout the picture or leave it out completely. It's hard for a "non-artsy" audience to accept the surreal and fantastical when it only pops up occasionally and out of context.

The music was awful. NOT THE BEATLES, but when you take classic music and make new arrangements for cinematic/dramatic purposes they better better than the original, I don't mean to say that you could improve upon the classics, but you could make them fuller and more dynamic like Cirque did with Love.

I think everyone should see this film. I thought I would pick a side, but I am left divided. I think what I admire is the concept itself and the impression that this was a work of passion and risk - but the lack of execution and cohesiveness really burned me in this.

This WILL demand a second viewing. And I would be VERY curious to see the alternate cut.

2.5 out of 5.

The Kingdom

The reviews would have you believe that this was going to be yet another examle of a film that wanted to be more than what it was, at the truth is that walking in I was kind of expectng that, but I think this film acheived exactly what it intended to and it did it effectively.

I know some may scoff at my comparissons to this film and Syriana, but I think there are parrallels between the two worth considering.

Syriana, for most audiences, was an impossible film to sink their teeth into, because Syriana demanded a certain level of foreign policy knowledge before you even walk into the theatre. Not a basic understanding, but you have to have been properly educated on the subject of the US foreign policies with the Middle East or you had to be a CNN junkie. I conisder myself, at least to some extent, the latter, but I still had a difficult time with Syriana.

The Kingdom on the other hand, spent the opening credits not giving you the full meal deal, but they gave you enough to satisfy your needs. We got a basic but necessary overview of the US relationship with Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom was essentially trying to deliver the same message as Syriana, but delievering in such a way that a mainstream audiences would be able to connect.

Yes, sometimes this means flaws. It does sometimes come across as a really expensive version of a really good tv show (it doesn't help that Jennfier Garner, Jason Bateman and Jeremy Piven all star). But it had enough action and enough suspense I felt to at least keep us interested while it worked to get to the real point, which flawed or not, did not come until the last 5 seconds of the film. Was it a waste of time to deliever the message. I don't think so. It was one of the moments where you kind of want to role your eyes and say "Obviously, like i didn't see THAT coming" and some may even shrug this off as mindless and pretentious in some ways. But the truth is, that is the reality. That is the problem.

Syriana wanted us to understand that the US is just as much a part of terrorism as their middle eastern counterparts. That because of our dependency on their country we will always maintain this toxic and unhealthy relationship no matter how potentially devestating the concequences. It wanted us to understand that even when bad things happen to their own people, they aren't really that interested is solving it or making it better, but about covering it up. The Kingdom said all the same things, they just did it with Jamie Fox, some dumb laughs, lots of guns and shittier dialogue. But ultimately, we walk away with that same message, but sadly or not, we are more willing to accept it and understand it with the guns and shitty dialogue.

The Kingdom is flawed, but it made efforts to cinematically be creative with handheld camera and zoom on the fly to make an attempt to put us into the action instead of being a bystander, with I thought was really a great choice, as the theme seemed to be we can't be satisfied with being a bystander when our brothers are in trouble, we need to get dirty to make a difference. I thought that while the performances were generic and recycled, they worked within the context of the film and enviroment in which they were thrust. And I'm glad that it didn;t want to focus so heavily on the politics because that's where the film would have died as it was not the right mix of talent ot deliver that message effectively.

You could go see Feast of Love this weekend....think about that.

3.5 out of five

Feast of Love

Remember in the 40's when composers and lyricists would get together and right a dozen or so good songs and then sit there and say - "How do we turn this into a musical"

What happens here is a writer, who clearly thinks he is more profound and prophetic than he really is, wrote down a dozen or so Hallmark lines and then must have said to himself "How do I make a movie out of this"

I have to admit the premise sounded interesting enough. A crop of people, seemingly connected to one another, each stronger to find love and identity within love and we'd have God himself commentating on the action and even offering advice to these lonely hearts.

Yup, that might have made a good movie.

What we have instead is a group of dumb, glorified losers who can't learn from their mistakes regardless of how many opportunities they are given.

It's hard to feel anything for characters who are so unrealistic and who you want to slap over the head to many times.

Performances were wasted all over the place. Selma Blair, who I think is desperately lookingfor respect in diveristy is an absolutely pointless character, simply there to propel Greg Kinnear's character. Kinnear himself might as well have done is blindfolded (a gag wouldn't have hurt either). Kinnear is a respectable actor who has made some great choices of late, but it seems he was looking for another Little MIss Sunshine but missed the bullseye (I think he may have actually missed the board). The rest of the cast is made of of your typical starts of direct to DVD fare with the exception of Morgan Freeman, who actually turns in a reasonable performance in an impossibly mundane and contrived role.

The biggest problem was that this film made every attempt to be a little bit of everything and failed miserably at every turn. It wanted to be poignant, it wanted to be bold, it wanted to be quirky and it wanted to have a message. It was none of those things and the message was "be careful when you green light a crap script". It's an impossible task to have your audience feel anything when you don't devote enough time to any character or any story and then are forced to wrap it up in such a contrived way simply to wrap it up. It tells the audiences that you believe they are stupid enough to buy into it and it's offenisve enough to completely turn us off your film. Oh, and boobs won't fix those problems either.

I've certainly seen worse movies in the past year, but this one is different because it left me jaded. The other movies were bad, and knew it and tried to make the best of it. This movie tried to trick me into liking it. Didn' work.

1.5 out of 5