The Best Films of 2007. Can't fix HTML.

Taking all of the films I've seen at the cinema in 2007 together, I've spent over 8 days straight sitting in a dark room with strangers, looking at a screen.
So let's find out what was the best.
Note: by '2007', I mean anything put on general release in the UK this year, and by 'best', I mean favourite. Also, I haven't yet seen The Lives of Others.

In reverse order:

Michael Clayton - In which George Clooney once again proves that he's the best thing to happen to Hollywood since The Monkees. Writer-director Tony Gilroy takes a scenario that might come from one of the Bourne films (which he wrote), and places it in a much more familiar universe, populated by characters suffocating under a deadening corporate presence. The cast are excellent - Tom Wilkinson desperate and haywire, Tilda Swinton almost unwillingly ruthless - and the minimalist score by James Newton Howard doesn't let you forget that even people talking can be thrilling. Throughout the film, Clooney's Clayton is worn down more and more by all kinds of guilt, physically sagging and not once cracking a smile until the hackneyed, uncomfortably snug ending. Surprisingly watchable stuff.

The Science of Sleep – Following up his massively accomplished Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry delivered this surreal autobiographical tale of unrequited love. Initially, I was distracted by how the film suffers in comparison to Eternal Sunshine without Charlie Kaufman’s exquisite writing. Indeed, the writing isn’t as well characterised as Kaufman’s, but this lends the film a sense of liberation rarely seen in the mainstream. Gondry mixes his trademark lo-fi manipulation of the mise-en-scène with the freewheeling, character driven traditions of new wave cinema. It’s chaotic, absurdly tragic, desperately serious and over-crammed with ideas. As such, it captures reality more accurately than 95% of films.

The Bourne Ultimatum - Spider-man, Pirates, Rush Hour, Ocean's - too many trilogies lost their way this year. Paul Greengrass apparently saw this coming when he watched The Bourne Identity. He saw a lot of potential, and so gave us a taster in The Bourne Supremacy. We were excited. Then, he unleashed all of that potential by taking exactly what made the other films so good, and making it bigger, faster and more punchy. Starting with a probably-legendary chase in Waterloo Station, the film briskly whips all around the globe, to an enthralling, unforgettable action scene in Tangiers. This is proper action, without gimmicks or fighter jets, that moves so fast, you should really wear a helmet.

Bridge to Terabithia – There were so many reasons this film shouldn’t have worked. It’s a Disney film, but Pixar aren’t involved. The protagonists are kids, but they’re not saying anything rude or ironic. Robert Patrick is in it, but he’s not kicking any ass. Worst of all, it was marketed as The Chronicles of Narnia: Even more lame this time. Luckily, director and Rugrats co-creator Gapor Csupo handles it with remarkable sensitivity and vitality. Like with Rugrats, Csupo displays a remarkable ability to reflect the worldview of children, and explores the subject matter with a surprisingly hefty emotional punch. The most grown-up kids’ film of the year.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – Two successful westerns were released this year, which got some people hopeful for a genre revival. The first, 3:10 to Yuma, was a rollicking, guns-n-horses tale of fatherly love and redemption. The second, Jesse James, is almost the polar opposite – a grim, weighty and subtly tense tragedy. Brad Pitt gives the best performance of his life as James, who he portrays as a paranoid psychopath who is struggling to live with his own myth. The scenes between him and Casey Affleck as Ford are alive with nervous energy, the ominous and inevitable threat always present. Everything is shot through glass; truths are distorted, features are exaggerated to the point of burden and America is a melancholy wasteland healing from a terrible war. Yuma was received more readily, with some critics complaining that Jesse James is ‘just too long and too slow’. Stupid, stupid, stupid critics.

Atonement – This blew apart all of my prejudices against English period dramas. Passionate as a romance, devastating as a war film, enthralling as a thriller and authentic as a period piece. Not a frame is wasted; every part of the film feels entirely complete, and utterly polished. Director Joe Wright perfectly paces the shifting, deceptive tone of the plot, and brings to life the vital issues within it, Seamus McGarvey provides some of the best cinematography of the best ten years, and James McAvoy reminds us why Shameless isn’t very good anymore – because he’s not in it. Made with intrigue, beauty and a fierce passion, this is everything I thought this kind of film wasn’t.

This is England - I wasn't alive in the early 80s. I've never hung out on a council estate in Nottingham. My only interaction with skinhead culture is avoiding eye contact. But even with all that I just know that This is England captured all of those things very authentically. Shane Meadow's knowledge and love for his subject is felt in every shot, from the detail of the ska-punk culture as embraced by the characters to the actors' hugely naturalistic banter. The first act of the film is the most joyfully satisfying of the year, meaning that of course the final act is the most tragic and miserable. 11-year-old Thomas Turgoose gained much of the critics' attention, but the rest of the cast are just as impressive. Stephen Graham, he of Snatch fame, portrays the scary thug Combo with a raw sensitivity, a living embodiment of all the contradictions of skinhead culture.

Goodbye Brokeback...

Pirated trailer online.
First six minutes before IMAX 'I Am Legend' screenings.
Heath Ledger finally giving The Joker worthy treatment.
People, this will rock. Hard.

Day Off

Let's establish one thing first of all: I love Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Out of the ever-decreasing memories of my childhood, reading those books stays firm and strong. If the Lord of the Rings films were my generation's Star Wars, then His Dark Materials are my generation's Lord of the Rings books. Which would make the His Dark Materials films the next generation's - never mind. The point is, I was always cautious approaching the film adaptation, The Golden Compass. Especially when I found out that New Line Cinema had forced the filmmakers to tone down the overtly atheist themes of the book. Ultimately, though, I just decided that the film was never going to do justice to the books anyway, or at least my memory of them, so went in blind. The result is a pretty firm 'all right'. The dæmons are incoporated well into the visuals, with some obvious but pretty CGI. Also, when Lyra is shown a bustling, retro-futuristic city (more CGI), it's a steampunk wonderland. I totally believed in this universe, I just didn't care about it very much. As with that other fantasy literary franchise, Harry Potter, the films can't fit in all the of the book's complex ideas without wandering out of family-friendly running times. This means that sub-plots are only glimpsed, histories are only suggested and the excellent supporting cast (Eva Green, Daniel Craig, Sam Elliot) are given around ten lines between them.

Still, the fast pace keeps things entertaining, and means that the filmmakers have to find more original ways to introduce Pullman's ker-azy ideas. As for the God business, the film is, if not anti-religion then certainly anti-religious authority; an idea that should have been explored further. But, as with the books, the sub-text will always make you insist that it's not aimed purely at children, and the distributors won't listen. Although the film didn't really stay with me once it ended, there's one thing I learned: polar bears are awesome. Seriously, if I had a talking polar bear to kick ass and take names then just about all of my problems would be over.



From a gun emplacement on the coast of Santa Monica, Justin Timberlake gives a brief alternate history (and future) of the United States government. He then flicks through a bible and focuses his huge rifle on the beach, before informing us that he's about to tell the story of 'the way the world ends'. And so begins Southland Tales, the new film from Richard 'Donnie Darko' Kelly, and the second half of a saga started in graphic novel form. As far as ambition is concerned, it's up there with the Big Bang. Take a deep breath, here's the basic premise: it's 2008, and the Republican government control the internet while engaging in World War 3. Boxer Santaros, a movie star with amnesia, has written a film-within-the-film with porn star-turned-entrepeneur, Krysta Now, which fortells the end of the world. In order to research his role, Boxer is following police officer Ronald Taverner (who is actually working for a Neo-Marxist cell, posing as his twin brother Roland). Meanwhile, Boxer's mother-in-law watches everything through surveillance-within-surveillance that seems to encompass everything. Oh, and there's an eccentric billionaire who has created a way to remotely power everything on earth from a machine that harnesses the ocean's waves.

Kelly seems to be attempting to set himself up as a new David Lynch, one who's hip to the jazz. Nothing feels real, probably in an attempt to emphasis the act of watching, which in turn highlights the prominent theme of surveillance and information streaming. The only thing to really save the film from being completely self-involved is the heavy presence of references - to the Bible, to pop culture, to Donnie Darko, and to itself. But if Donnie Darko's weirdness was off-set by the genuine human drama, the oddball characters in Southland Tales only serve to feed the many layers of strangeness (especially when the cast is comprised of a series of jokey cameos). This film is fascinated with itself - and that's not entirely a bad thing, it makes you want to know what all the fuss is about. Although it's very messy, and much of the humour falls flat, I have to salute Southland Tales for sheer gall and originality. Any film that explores an apocalypse that isn't caused by asteroids or maniacal villains is all right by me.