Finally, here are the best of the best movies from 2007.
In 2007, The Top Five Movies stood apart from the rest of the bunch. I'll again type a few paragraphs about each which is why you might be reading this in March. In reverse order...
5.) Once
When I was 13, my childhood epilepsy returned for one isolated incident while I was away at summer camp. Chasing down the theory that I had the seizure because of a lack of sleep and exhaustation, I stayed up with my dad overnight the night before I had a CT scan. We watched two movies, "Terminator 2" and, more importantly, "The Commitments". It was the beginning of a family tradition of non-traditional musicals.
Now, more than half my life later, the guitar player from The Commitments is the male lead in a quaint, non-traditional musical. It's a romance through music but not in the way "Moulin Rouge" is, more the way it actually happens in real life. The circumstances aren't ideal. There are things which hold you back. But in the end you find a way to be with that person. "Once" is about what you love in its many forms.
4.) Lars and the Real Girl
"Lars and the Real Girl" is also about love in the real world. It's just about not knowing what you want yet. Though Ryan Gosling's character takes the road otherwise untraveled, it's a different shade of the journey most of us take to find the person for us. In a roundabout way, it's about chasing after the ideal person.
However anyone who has been on the journey knows it's really about finding out what is lovable about you. This movie could've been a freak show about a guy who has a relationship with a RealDoll. It's more about a man out-growing his damaged past and into a full and heathy adult. For him, the journey is about finding where and how he fits in the world.
3.) Hot Fuzz
The best satire comes from deep admiration. When Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg made "Shaun of the Dead" in 2004, it was from a place having seen and loved the old masters of the genre. It was spot on as a zombie movie eventhough, as a comedy, it was meant to also expose the quirks of the genre. It is a case of using the tools of the master to lovingly deconstruct the masters' house.
Then they returned last year to take on a genre even more ripe for satire, American action movies. Yet they took a different tack to lampooning the largest of Hollywood's movies. They made them very small. It's comedy is the comedy of inversion instead of adoption. By scaling down (but not toning down) the violence, the absurd hilarity was increased exponentially.
2.) Michael Clayton
I've been a fan of George Clooney for a long time. My admiration springs from his willingness to do projects which are difficult and on the fringe. Compare to his close friends. Could you see Brad Pitt in "O Brother Where Art Thou"? Or Matt Damon directing "Good Night and Good Luck"? Clooney has attained a level of being able to do the projects he wants and follows through on doing them.
"Michael Clayton" is another project with some teeth. It's part Grisham-esque legal thriller (without the courtroom) and part morality quest for the titular character. What sets the movie apart is the ending. I don't want to give it away. I will say that it was one of the rare times where the ending was set-up well throughout the movie to conclude at a point instead of just ending.
1.) Knocked Up
One year, two excellent movies about unwed pregnancy and in both cases they keep the baby. Hollywood has a liberal bias? Like the other movies I was drawn to this year, I enjoyed this movie because it was a reflection of the contemporary world. There are people who get pregnant out of wedlock and DON'T have their lives descend into ruin (despite what health class teaches us).
I also really like both Seth Rogan and Katherine Heigl. One of my constants of romantic comedies (even of the Apatow variety) is I have to like the girl and see myself in the guy. Now I don't see myself as an adrift stoner trying to set up a celebrity nudity site. But there is something about getting to a point in your life when you have to decide to switch from being someone's child to being an adult. For some people that's when they have a child of their own and, instead of being angsty and mourning their childhood, growing up a lot in a short time.
Finally, as I mentioned, it was an Apatow comedy. As a fan of "Anchorman" and "Forty Year Old Virgin", I'm glad to see the dual success of "Knocked Up" and "Superbad" solidifying the place for movies like this in the market. As I mentioned in my "Hot Rod" blurb, there's a different paradigm in movie comedies now. Ten years ago a comedy was based around a funny concept. You took a swinging 1960s superspy, put him in the post-AIDS 1990s and all of the jokes flowed from the "fish out of water" situation. Now it's sped up, more YouTube-ized where the what matters isn't a concept which can grow stale and wear thin quickly. You have to bring the jokes. This style where the plot is a starting point, not a teether, means there are no throwaway jokes. It's all in there because it's all funny.
2 comments:
Of the top four films you posted, sadly I've only seen "Knocked Up." While I enjoyed the film immensely, I found myself somewhat baffled by oh-so-timely fashion in which Seth Rogan's character was able to find a day job and pull his life together, therefore rendering himself capable of fatherhood (in the traditional sense). Perhaps I'm overlooking his indisputable, technological know-how, but wasn't he an alien? Quick fixes like this annoy me to all hell...
Good point, Mark. I hadn't thought of that. My guess is the key lies in his Dad already being in the States. ("Hey, Dad. Fly down from Vancouver to have lunch with me. I have something to tell you which I can't over the phone.) Now that moment in the movie will kind of have a puncture.
Post a Comment