Best Movies Of 2007

An astonishingly well-crafted descent into the darkest corners of paranoid minds, Bug may very well be a movie whose terrific impact will only be looked upon, say, at least ten years from now. Without giving us many answers, Bug raises distubing questions, such as what is bound to happen when a paranoid mind meets a lonely companion. Down the line, Bug is not a horror movie as much as what passes for real 'horror' these days, but a truly, deeply horrific tale. There also needs to be said that Judd and Shannon deliver perfectly unsettling performances that deserve to go in the books.

Tarantino and Rodriguez deserve absolute kudos for giving me my best theater experience ever. Grindhouse is the kind of film that cannot be described; it only has to be seen to be believed. It's an unstoppable and grotesque monster movie that immediately ranks as the best achievement of both the directors.

Screamingly Beautiful.

I'm Not There may very well be one of the best films of our generation : flying way past the biopic film and its tired conventions, its fragmentations of Bob Dylan's "character'' eventually end up building a touching hommage to personal freedom. It might just be about anyone who has ever experienced fame, then found themselves cornered by the expectations and paradigms of their own discipline. The result, in all of its schizoid poetry, is both joyful and sad all at once; Haynes takes full advantage of the two opposites and takes time hitting every note in-between. His multiple characters and their broken-down episodes are vibrant and alive-- for an exercise that might appear so intellectual, it is rather refreshingly emotional, and this is something quite hard to achieve.

So along with the powerful spiritual message, I'm Not There builds a magnificient style of its own, halfway between spontaneous experimentation and rigid calculation; it's also chock-full of gorgeous and symbolic images. Framed with precision, scored with unusually sexy and hurtful takes on some of Dylan's best songs and masterfully edited altogether, the inspiring imagery captured on celluloid confirms Haynes' taste for peculiarity and his disinterest for the immediate.

There is also quite a spellbinding acting show going on here. Franklin is a revelation; Blanchett deserved the Oscar; Gere tastefully wraps up the film; Ledger embraces the soul of his part with all the required pathos and charm; Whishaw has little to do but manages to impress with a constant stoicity; Bale is magnificent in an ambiguous one-two punch and Gainsbourg does get to shine brightly in a project where you would expect solely variations of Dylan to do so.

It's an exhausting experience-- but what an experience. I'm Not There is guaranteed to break viewers out of their comfort zone, and if some might insist on the fact that it could have used a little trimming, I feel like I could have taken three hours of Haynes' delirious and intoxicating approach to a genre that's not exactly prone to new ideas right now.

Put this on your shortlist, folks. It's a triumph from top to bottom.

Alright, it's a biggie : Juno is, to me, one of the most revelatory pictures about the teenage years, certainly on the same level as everything that's imagined by Gus Van Sant, and well-above what passes for teenage fodder these days. It's that good-- and that true.

Juno is blessed by a screenplay that hits no false notes-- that, and its wonderful gallery of believable characters, all properly fleshed out, skillfully avoiding the one-joke cardboard cutouts we're used to see by now. The common remark that every character is affected by annoying hipster dialogue is not surprising-- boy, is the wit dangerously high here-- but rather misplaced. This is not meant to be a reflexion of every pregnant teenager, her family, her friends, her corner store clerk and gynecologist. It's rather a personal portrayal of what it feels like to move on from teenage complications to adulthood responsabilities. The pregnancy, essentially, is a spot-on parallel, not a damn Point On Wheels. It is not a thesis, nor a trend film. For all its wisecrackings and hip sarcasm, it's entirely truthful about the most basic of human situations.

It manages to work simply because it passes its message with subtlety, humour and sincerity-- much, much of with is endlessly channeled through the cast. Of course, this is Page's show, and for the ones among us that eagerly anticipated her transition into A-list territory, well... it's showtiiiiiime! From fiery one-liners to tears of overwhelming vulnerability, her Juno is one of the most, if not THE most memorable teenager to grace the screen in at least a decade. Supported by equally exceptional co-stars, from Simmons to Garner.

To put it bluntly, Juno is a movie whose unstoppable charm can only convert more and more fans by the day. Its popularity is immensely understandable, which leads me to questionning myself about the 'too-cool-for-this' resistance some show towards it. I'm sorry if I like my films with a different, more offbeat take on human nature. I just like to cherish them instead of anything out of the bottomless pit of cash-grabbers.

Everything, hear me, everything in this film is breathtaking. Period. The scenes in No Country for Old Men are so flawlessly constructed that you want them to simply go on, and yet they create a fantastic emotional suction drawing you right to the next one. The flow is continuous, the dramatic tension is masterful, the themes resonate-- the Coens end up painting a compelling and dangerously corrosive portrait of Uncle Sam's country. And it's not a pretty one.

Be very afraid.

Let's get this off my chest. Yes, it's pure Oscar bait; a sweeping romantic tragedy set between world wars, a classily shot costume melodrama, you name it-- but it's such a breathtaking accomplishment on every aspect that you can't help but fall under the spell. But seriously, excellent score, poignant screenplay and terrific performances aside, the real star here is the cinematography : a chef-d'oeuvre so brilliant it deserves to be showered with awards again and again and again. Seamus McGarvey lenses Wright's compositions with a textured, nostalgic feel without falling into the usual 'ooh! ahh!' traps. It's something of a wonder, and while it feels very, very British, you're left to wonder when was the last time you've seen a big-scale film shot with so much passion.

McAvoy, Garai and Knightley offer strong, subtle performances, but Saoirse Ronan's astonishing portrayal of the young Briony Tallis is certainly the most memorable of all. In fact, the film embraces her psychology with such distinct care on all of her range of feelings-- jealousy, guilt, misunderstanding, sorrow-- that it goes way beyond the epic romance it is being marketed as. Atonement is a movie about the act of creation-- in writing books, essays and plays, you name it. It'll strike you hard some time after you've seen it... but its artistry is invested not into how Robbie & Cecilia's relationship develops, but into how Briony responds to the childish act that will prove to have unspeakable consequences later on. The treatment feels, exceptionally, both litterary and cinematic, and this is not something that should go unnoticed. To put it plainly, Atonement is among the strongest films of 2007.

The Tracey Fragments is fourty hits of acid storming into a troubled, broken-from-the-inside adolescence. It's a terrifying experience, an incredible assault of the senses and (yet another) tour-de-force performance by Ellen Page all at once. You've never seen anything like this before, and what seriously elevates this simple story above any frustrated teenager tale is Bruce McDonald's visionary directing/editing approach. What a fucking triumph of an achievement, I am telling you. Words do not do justice to this one...you *need* to see The Tracey Fragments.

Hot Fuzz is disarmingly witty and just plain hilarious. I'll leave it at that considering Pegg, Frost and Wright have already received their humoungous share of praise for their outstanding work both here and on Shaun Of the Dead, but let me tell you that every single positive comment in the press reviews you've read is absolutely right. A downright triumph for everyone involved.

Excellent. Sunshine is a very intense experience; one that's not quite pleasant to watch when you think of it, but is nevertheless extremely rich visually AND also heart-stoppingly exciting, despite a somewhat awkward narrative shift during the third reel. It's closer to poetry than it is to pure sci-fi-- and Boyle's approach is something that's rarely been seen before. Even the few 2001 recalls come across as relevant... (how great is that??)

Strikingly identical to life in all of its barebones humanity, Margot at the Wedding is a very good demonstration of Baumbach's terrific writing and directing skills. The man knows how to stage reality, from the abstraction of a musical score to the handheld camera that plunges us directly into the heart of the situations. Although somewhat heavy on the symbolism, his latest effort presents a wide gallery of fascinating (if dreadfully self-centered) characters in the midst of a disastrous family reunion. Which brings us back to the cast, whose performances here are sensational-- from the terrific three leads to the younger ones, no one feels out of place, and their touching spontaneity as they take part of this bittersweet dissection of the human behavior is nothing less than compelling.

A lot more visceral but thoroughly less meditative than Boyle's 2003 film, Juan Carlos Fresnadillos' 28 Weeks Later is a rare animal indeed-- a sequel that achieves the same level of greatness than its predecessor but in radically different ways. With a bigger set-pieces, bloodier attacks scenes, a helluva lot more ''gotcha!'' jolts but a weaker grip on its characters, the picture really succeeds in drawing the viewer straight into its nightmarish continuation of the original scenario. Surely to rank among the strongest horror offerings of the decade, right along with its first chapter.

In appearance a bland & stupid barf comedy, Superbad, pretty much like the equally excellent Knocked Up & 40-Year Old Virgin, reveals itself to be surprisingly mature. The deliciously spontaneous dialogue (which is also chock-full of profanity) trails along the quality of the observations on teenage friendship. The teen trio that is the heart (and penis, too) of this uproaringly funny comedy is so plain good that's it goes past the level of a simple 'comedic performance'. They breathe pure life into characters that every teenager who has once tasted the party lifestyle can fully relate to. Another triumph into Apatow and his team's hands...