Top Movies of 2007 - TTLG Forums

Aerothorn on 5/1/2008 at 16:28

I'm shocked that nobody has mentioned The Darjeeling Limited yet. I saw three movies in theatres this year (probably a record for me). The Darjeeling Limited was great, No Country was good, Juno was a mixed bag.

2007 (and 2006, since many of those came out on DVD in 2007) movies I liked:

Bender's Big Score - exceeded my expectations. 4 out of 5.

Live Free or Die - Charming indie New Hampshire comedy reminiscent of Bottle Rocket. 4.5 out of 5.

The Big Bad Swim - Not a great movie, not entirely original, but it has a lot of heart and some very good acting. 3.5 out of 5.

Breach - I pretty much never like thriller like this, but Chris Cooper is so ridiculously good that it elevates the film to great heights. 4 out of 5.

The Lost Room - A good Sci-Fi original miniseries? Indeed, it is!

American Dreamz - Cute and amusing.

This Film is Not Yet Rated - One of the best documentaries I've ever seen.

I also heard that Delirium was really good, but I missed it in theatres and it's not out in DVD yet.

Rug Burn Junky on 5/1/2008 at 16:47

Quote Posted by AR Master

All his scripts seem to be the same fucking thing: 1) Sassy black saying "motherfucker" a lot, 2) "action" that lasts a minute or so and 3) pages upon pages upon pages of useless, meaningless, characterless banter while a camera circles them

Don't forget the requisite Quentixican stand-off, where at least three characters stand around threatening each other with raised pistols and witty banter (see Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Pulp Fiction)

Scots Taffer on 6/1/2008 at 00:29

Quote Posted by Aerothorn

Juno is on my must-see list, as is There Will Be Blood, but as for The Darjeeling Limited I've found that in all his movies since Rushmore Wes Anderson has been unable to recapture to the same brilliant extent the similar themes that run through all his movies. Both Tenenbaums and Life Aquatic were exercises in tedium for the most part, some solid acting but a distinct lack of direction (ironic or not) leaves the whole thing floundering and the trailer for Darjeeling seemed to paint the same picture as those, a dysfunctional group put together for a reason that forces them to take long stares into the camera while 60s light rock plays in the background and they all take stock of their lives.

I forgot about Breach. I saw that on my flight from the UK to AU, very solid movie pretty much held above water by the as always spectacular Chris Cooper.

Scots Taffer on 7/1/2008 at 04:13

Caught a few more from '07 in the past weekend -

American Gangster: As good as it can be, I reckon, which is to say that my initial assessment based off the trailer that it would be A-B-C criminal versus cop story with minor operatic stylings was bang-on. Denzels' treading thin ice now though, his last few roles have been portrayed incredibly similar and everytime he said MAH MAN I heard MAH NIGGAH. He needs to mix it up a bit, I think. Russell was predictably top notch. A solid, watchable movie.

1408: I can't remember the short story much but this movie definitely took liberties, that much I'm sure of. The plot is stretched out and it's just a little too thin for a near 2hr movie, so there's basically a pseudo-ending after an hour that sucks about 15m out of the running time that's basically a big waste of time. I'll need to reread the story now to see what happened at the end too, because I don't think it was what happened in the film. Essentially, not much doing by the end, the first hour is extremely well paced and is quite tense, after that it sort of unravels.

Edit: Tonight I finally got around to The Bourne Ultimatum and I'm glad I wasn't put off by those who suggested it had the same extent of shakey-cam that I feel plagued the second offering, Supremacy. Instead of near-constant shakey-cam in Ultimatum they more or less restrict it to the close-quarters fight scenes, even resisting to use it for much of the chases and so on, which really impressed me. They must have taken the criticisms of the second movie quite seriously, as it probably lowered the movie from being solid to sub-par for me, purely based on the shakey-cam use. A solid rounding to the trilogy, I especially liked the conclusion (even if Bourne surviving the car crash and then influencing a hardened operative to not shoot on sight were stretching credibility a little far, I am willing to give them that much as everything else was pretty solid - except maybe the cellphone monitoring network and the CIA using Norton AntiVirus lol).
In terms of how they run as a trilogy, I like how Ultimatum gave the soul and meaning that Supremacy lacked and that Identity initiated. As action movies I probably rate Ultimatum ever so slightly higher than Identity and Supremacy lagging way, way behind. The introduction to Bourne's abilities and the ensuing structure of the movie was so brilliantly stripped down and elegantly effective. The second movie was basically a carbon copy of the first in terms of structure but motivation and plot were nearly meaningless. The third had a brilliant driving force in terms of plot and they honed the structure down the perrenial chase movie punctuated by excellently choreographed action setpieces.

No sign of The Mist in cinemas or Michael Clayton on DVD yet.

Koki on 7/1/2008 at 11:09

You guys watch a lot of movies.

I don't understand the argument that 300 was all about combat, because my main argument against it is that it didn't have enough combat. Not only there was too much politics, it was also thrown in between the fights which is like getting teleported between rollercoaster and middle of a forest every twenty minutes. That, and it kept too close to the comic in places.

Sunshine was worth watching just for the scene where [spoiler]Capa decouples the payload section and must run away, when he simply trips in this bulky space suit.[/spoiler]

Scots Taffer on 14/1/2008 at 14:03

3:10 To Yuma was an excellent thought-provoking bit of Western that I'm glad to say didn't emulate Deadwood even though I love the show, I'm glad it wasn't just a movie cash-in. Crowe and Bale are a brilliant acting partnership, they both brought the requisite nuances to the characters and despite the ending being a little on the airy-fairy side, still a very enjoyable film.

BrokenArts on 14/1/2008 at 15:30

Spider Pig!
Spider Pig!
Does whatever a spider pig does!
can he swing from a web?

No he can't
He's a pig!
Lookooooooooooooooout!
Here comes the spider pig!!

Yeah baby, best part in the best movie of 2007. /end.

icemann on 14/1/2008 at 15:47

What the, no`one mentioned "Goodluck Chuck". That movie was easily one of the funniest comedies I`ve seen in ages. Easily one of my fav movies of 07. Also the "The Game plan" was one I expected to completely hate before seeing, but then really enjoyed it.

Plus it has Jessica Alba in it which automatically earns it 10 points ;). The bed scene alone *drool*.

Scots Taffer on 15/1/2008 at 01:27

...oh, I'm sorry, this thread is about the good movies, the worst movies thread is further down the page.

As an addendum, my revised 07 list looks a little different now (with no 06ers in it):

1. No Country For Old Men
2. Hot Fuzz
3. Ratatouille
4. Eastern Promises
5. The Bourne Ultimatum
6. Knocked Up
7. 3:10 To Yuma
8. Superbad
9. American Gangster
10. The Simpsons Movie

Probably due to even more change after Zodiac, Michael Clayton and The Mist.

henke on 11/2/2008 at 21:00

Persepolis
This is beautiful, educational, gripping, horrifying and absolutely hilarious at times. It's a French animated movie about an Iranian girl who flees the Iran-Iraq war and everyone who is over the age of 10 and can be bothered reading subtitles needs to watch it.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYRBwRkZuwU&feature=related) Trailer

There will be Blood
Let me say first that Magnolia is one of my favourite films of all time and I've never seen a PT Anderson movie that I didn't re-watch at least twice. There will be Blood starts out exciting although the fact that noone says a word during the first ten minutes or so of the movie comes of more as a gimmick than... whatever it's supposed to come of as. I loved Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York and he does a great job in this movie as well. He's greedy and cold-blooded but without being over-the-top.

Actually, the less I say about this movie the better, just watch it (if you wanna see something unrelentingly depressing and humorless). I'm too tired to write anything coherent about it anyway.

I also saw Killer of Sheep yesterday. Apparently it's one of the (http://www.metacritic.com/film/awards/) film's of the year (despite being originaly released in '77) but I didn't like it. Did absolutely nothing for me.

Revised 2007 list:
1. Persepolis
2. Hot Fuzz
3. No Country for Old Men
4. There will be Blood
5. He was a Quiet Man

still wanna see: Juno, Rescue Dawn, 3:10 to Yuma, The Butterfly and The Diving Bell