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THE BEST FILMS OF 2007: A RETROSPECTIVE

Zodiac was the first "great" film of 2007 but it was only the beginning...

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By Chris Shappley

2007, in my opinion, was a great year for film. Great films were scattered all throughout the year with Zodiac opening in early March all the way to There Will Be Blood ending out the year. And with 2007 now being over, it’s time to take a (speedy) look back on the films that made the year so wonderful for film filmgoers.

Like I said, Zodiac was the first great film of 2007. Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo gave outstanding performances in the crime thriller. Zodiac is the story of an actual serial killer, but the film was made on a low-key scale and didn’t resort to cheap thrills or scares. Several weeks later the highly hyped Grindhouse was released to disappointing box-office numbers, which were mostly due to the fact that most people didn’t know what a Grindhouse was. But, director Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez presented a very thrilling, very exciting and very visual feast for B movie junkies with their films Death Proof and Planet Terror. Yes, it required that you sit in a theater for 3 hours, but the people that saw it had the time of their lives.

May is the month when most of the summer blockbusters begin showing up across the country, but two films defied the stereotype that only big budget films can open when it’s warm. The first one was Waitress. Waitress was an extremely charming film about a woman who is down on her luck with love. Keri Russell was great in the leading role, and Cheryl Hines lightened the mood of the film with her witty remarks. The other film was the infectious Once. It’s the story of a poor musician in Dublin who finds a friend whom he begins recording songs with. It was a low budget film that made up for its lack of money with well-written dialogue and inspiring acting.

The rest of the summer’s great films included a rat that could cook; a guy who got a girl pregnant on the first date; a couple of foul-mouthed, sex obsessed high school seniors; and John Travolta in drag. But, it was finally time for Oscar season to heat up, and with the first half of 2007 being as great as it was, the rest of the year was sure to be unforgettable.

The Oscar season was kicked into high gear with Sean Penn’s adaptation of Into the Wild. Sean Penn proved that his directing was just as good as his acting and Emile Hirsch gave a star-making performance in the lead role. Next, Michael Clayton seemed to come out of a nowhere and was quickly one of the best-reviewed films of the year. Philip Seymour Hoffman showed us again, as he would two other times this year with The Savages and Charlie Wilson’s War, how brilliant of an actor he really is with his demonic turn in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. American Gangster became the film that hit home both with audiences and critics. Two A-list performers giving solid performances in an A-list director’s film was sure to be a hit. And with it grossing $130 million dollars, it was.

Next on the Oscar calendar was the mesmerizing No Country for Old Men. Immediately critics fell in love with this film marking it as the critics’ darling of 2007. There wasn’t a bad frame in the entire film, and Javier Bardem became a character that was far scarier than Hannibal Lecter. Amy Adams and Cate Blanchett showed us once again their wide acting ranges in Enchanted and I’m Not There, respectively. The Oscar season continued with Juno, which was being called this year’s Little Miss Sunshine, but upon its release it proved to be a little bit more. Ellen Page steals the warm-hearted film with her amazing turn as Juno, a pregnant high school student who tries to give her baby to a struggling, married couple.

It was now time for the highly hyped Atonement to be released, and while not every critic across the country fell in live with it, most did. Atonement had the best camera work of the year, which was accompanied by some wonderful acting and an awe-inspiring score. Both Keira Knightley and James MacAvoy gave their best performances to date as the war-torn lovers. 2007 ended with Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. Some critics are hailing Daniel Day-Lewis as giving one of the best performances of the last several years. In its first weekend alone it had a very strong $93,000 per screen average. It should do very well as it opens wider over the next few weeks.

Well, there you have it. It is only a splattering of what 2007 had offer in cinematic art, but if you saw most of these films then you have a good grasp of what movies had to say last year. It was wonderful not having to wait for Oscar season to roll around before seeing some of the best work of the year, it was a year where every film was different from the next, and it gives 2008 a whole lot to live up to.

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