2007 - The Year in Film, Part 1

Since the year is over, by default it's time for my column about my favorite movies of the last year. (Happy New Year by the way and sorry for not posting in December.) I saw 55 different movies this year which is a prodigious number and still 30% fewer than I saw in 2006. Maybe the less I say about 2006 from now on the better.

First are the special categories.

The Worst Movie of the Year - 30 Days of Night

It was tough being the worst movie this year with films like "The Darjeeling Limited", "Across the Universe", "Transformers" and "The Invasion" all finding their ways into multiplexes. But somehow "30 Days of Night" eclipsed them all.

It took an interesting twist on vampire movies by isolating their victims in the endless night above the Arctic Circle and then wrapping a flaccid plot around it. There really is no reason to see this movie if you think the concept is novel because it's the only redeeming quality of the film. Once you grasp its uniqueness, the movie you imagine will be much better than the one which made it onto the screen. In that regard, it's this year's "Hellboy" (even down to being based on an independent comic book).

The Best Movie from Last Year That I Saw This Year - Ehhhh...

There weren't a lot of movies I didn't see last year that I ended up seeing this year. Based on what CJ and Elaine tell me, "Air Guitar Nation" would've been that movie if it had ever been at the video store when Susie and I went to rent a movie. So instead I'll use this space to talk about my growing interest in the Harry Potter movies.

First, let me qualify a little bit. I read about 100 pages into the first Potter book and decided, "No thanks. Not for me." So I did give them a try and, like I said, it wasn't for me. Second, I'd always heard from people who had read the books, "Oh, you have to get to the third book and then it picks up." As though I want to plow through 600 pages and then find out if it really does pick up. But the last two movies, "Goblet of Fire" from two years ago and "Order of the Phoenix" from this year, caught my fancy as Susie (the real reason I ended up seeing them) will watch them at home.

I like "Goblet" and "Phoenix" because they have Voldemort in it. The world construction and character introduction and the behaviors and rituals of the world J.K. Rowling is imagining isn't really that interesting to me. I'm not into that kind of stuff and thus that rules out 95% of fantasy novels for me. Yet these two movies (and, I guess, novels) are when things start to go bad. The fit is hitting the shan, people are freaking out and there's actually something at stake.

Without that apocalyptic presence of Voldemort, the stories are too sitcom-esque for me. If you just wait 90 minutes, the world will be okay and everyone one can go one living their happy lives. At the end of "Goblet" and "Phoenix", the world is much worse off after 90 minutes and not everyone even made it out alive. It follows the "end times" archetype perfectly and it breathed something into the Harry Potter franchise which was never there for me before. Perhaps that's what people meant about waiting until the third book.

The "14 Year Old Boy Inside Me" Award - 300

This award goes each year to the movie I guilty enjoyed because it had all of the things someone half my age wants in a movie. I was going to give this to the Rob Zombie "Halloween" remake because of the amount of nakedness in the movie. However I didn't want to encourage anyone to actually see the Rob Zombie "Halloween" remake.

Instead I'll give this award over to "300" without hesitation. The movie was instantly quotable, the action sequences were the best of the year, there was a solid enough plot to the movie to pull it all together and it didn't skimp on the testosterone. Hey, there's even some well-placed nakedness in this movie too.

So eventhough the contemporary Mike liked "300" for different reasons (see my following entry), I'm sure the Mike who is half his age would've really dug it too.