Electric Dreamstate

This list is fairly mutable. Next week I might rank another movie in a different slot based on my mood. I also haven't seen the following movies: Gone Baby Gone, The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford, Into the Wild and Knocked Up. Any of these might end up slotted in somewhere. Additionally, I walked out of the room about halfway into my room mate watching Hairspray.


Honourable Mention 4 - Beowulf
I'm not sure that I would put this on a "top" list, but it hangs together fairly well and the final fight between the dragon and Beowulf was the best spectacle scene in a year of spectacle. I don't know how this will look without the big screen and 3D though.

Honourable Mention 3 - Juno
The movie just seems to be a bit to pleased with itself to really slot into a top spot, but I did enjoy the movie for all the reasons that everyone else did. The film is already being hurt by its own success and it has already become cool to dislike it for its forced quirkiness. I might also just be putting it here just because my list below is so dude-centric.

Honourable Mention 2 - Wristcutters: A Love Story
You know how much money IMDB says Wristcutters made after it was "released" in theatres in November? $231,551. It was getting good reviews coming out of Sundance. In 2006. I have no idea why this quirky comedy about love after suicide couldn't find its way on the indie scene, and I wish it luck on the DVD circuit.

Honourable Mention 1 - Charlie Wilson's War
This breezy (in a good way) movie is about a real senator who was integral in getting the US to supply the mujahadin against the Soviets. It stars Tom Hanks, was directed by Mike Nichols and was written by Aaron Sorkin. It was also a good ending away from being my top film of 2007. As it is it's not quite good enough to get into my top five.

5 - The Bourne Ultimatum
The best threequel in a year of threequels, the third Bourne movie still somehow maintains the series's trademark of tense action and intelligent thought. Personally, I liked the fact that almost two movies later, Bourne is still messed up by his girlfriend getting killed. The thing does lose a bit of the realistic mayhem that the previous movies got so right (it ended up being quasi-realistic mayhem), but I think that's okay as the series built to its conclusion.

4 - Hot Fuzz
About two-thirds of the way into Hot Fuzz I didn't know if I was sold on it. It seemed less like a parody of a cop/buddy movie and more of a weird quasi-comic remake of The Wicker Man. Then everything paid off in one of the most hilarious and over-the-top sequences I've seen in years. I want to see it again right now.

3 - There Will Be Blood
There are problems with There Will Be Blood (the final few scenes with the son seemed a bit off to me), but the movie is relentless. This is mostly because of the central performance by Daniel Day Lewis as a man who's obsession with succeeding over all others feeds his seething hatred of humanity.

2 - Zodiac
This is the only movie that I can remember seeing on home video where I was captivated as if I was watching it on the big screen. It's a weird movie that stands between a fictionalized account and a straight-up reenactment of events. It's long and meanders, but damn if I didn't get absolutely caught up in the slice of history presented here. It's too bad this came out in March and no one saw it.

1 - No Country for Old Men
The first note of music in No Country for Old Men comes quietly and ominously as the end credits begin to roll, and it feels like the movie is finally allowing you to let out the breath that you've been holding in for the whole two hour running time. The Coen Brothers' last couple movies have been disappointments, but the filmmaking here is so confident and outright perfect that it's almost impossible not to become enraptured by it. Some people have poo-pooed the ending of No Country, but the more that I thought about it the more that I couldn't see it any other way.

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