A year onscreen

>> Our picks for 2007’s onscreen highs and lows

COEN COMEBACK: No Country for Old Men

Mark Slutsky’s
Top 10

A rely, really good year.

Three-way tie for first: This year was dominated by three brilliant films that, while telling very different stories, had enough in common to make them feel almost like a trilogy of variations on a theme. They all featured driven heroes destroyed by their obsessions; gorgeous and bleak imaginings of American landscapes; curious, meticulous observation of physical activity and a masterful use of film music. The films are, of course, David Fincher’s masterpiece Zodiac, the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men and P.T. Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, which will be hitting Montreal screens soon.

AMERICAN OBSESSION: Zodiac

4. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Julian Schnabel’s adaptation of the seemingly-unfilmable memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby, who lost all use of his body save for one eyelid, is generous, beautiful and moving, a true accomplishment.

DRIVEN AND DESTRUCTIVE: There Will Be Blood

5. (tie) Knocked Up and Superbad Comedy-wise, this was definitely Judd Apatow’s year, and the writer-producer-director deserves it after years of critical, but not commercial, acclaim. Rightfully acknowledged for their gentle mixture of sweetness and raunchiness, these two comedies were the most likable films of the year, and by miles the funniest.

6. The Bourne Ultimatum The year’s best action movie, hands down. Paul Greengrass’s shaky-camera aesthetic reaches an apotheosis of sorts here; the film’s three major set pieces are practically genius. Total thrills.

7. Control Photographer Anton Corbijn’s surprisingly quiet evocation of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis’s life is no standard rock biopic (though it’s not entirely free of the genre’s affectations). What it is, is a sensitive and touching story of depression and loss, anchored by a great performance by newcomer Sam Riley.

8. Paprika Director Satoshi Kon’s animated adventure is a visually spectacular fusion of dreaming and filmmaking, in a world of constant metamorphosis and movement. A very strange, very funny and consistently surprising film with a logic far more composed than it seems at first.

9. Election The first of Johnny To’s two-part saga of politicking and betrayal in the world of Hong Kong triads is one of the year’s most tightly plotted and satisfying thrillers. The sequel, also released this year, isn’t quite as good, but it’s worth a shout-out too.

10. Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle Maybe the world’s first feature-length soccer art film. Filmmakers Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno train their dozens of cameras entirely on the French player of the title and the movie follows him through one game, in real time, with a swelling score by Mogwai. Hypnotic and utterly gorgeous.

EVOCATIVE EXPRESSIONISM: Killer of Sheep

Honourable mentions: Though made 30 years ago, Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, released this year, is a magnificent dream of a film; I’m Not There re-imagines the lives of Bob Dylan with playfulness and inspired creativity; Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a crackling return to form for an American master; Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book is a characteristically, hilariously dark story of resistance and betrayal in WWII Netherlands; Korean monster movie The Host is audaciously e ntertaining; The Lives of Others, from first-timer Florian Henckel von Donn ersmarck, is a beautifully crafted melodrama of life in Eastern Germany; Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphanage are a pair of bittersweet Spanish fantasies of love, childhood and loss; Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone is an impressive directing debut from the actor; Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg is a completely brilliant documentary on his beloved hometown.

Bottom 5

Number 23 If the sight of a tattooed Jim Carrey in a muscle shirt wailing on the saxophone doesn’t dissuade you from seeing Joel Schumacher’s latest, maybe you deserve the punishment.

Perfect Stranger An absurdly dumb hacker thriller with a surprisingly A-list cast (Halle Berry, Bruce Willis). Still blows though.

The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising This soulless adaptation of the Susan Cooper novel is more like The Sucker: The Dark Is Sucking.

Rush Hour 3 Roman Polanski gives our heroes a rectal exam—literally! He literally sticks his hand up their asses!—in this listless, hysterical sequel.

Catch and Release Jennifer Garner learns, laughs, loves and cries with best pal Kevin Smith (?) in this misguided weeper.

Matthew Hays’s
Top 10

1. Eastern Promises Cronenberg managed a sturdy follow-up to his A History of Violence, the best film of its year. And Viggo Mortensen actually pulls off a Russian gangster. Dig the tats.

2. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days A gruelling film to watch, it is nonetheless one of the best and undoubtedly a contender for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

3. Away From Her Director Sarah Polley proves she’s much, much more than a serious actor, getting delicate, intricate performances in this Alice Munro adaptation.

4. No Country for Old Men The Coen brothers are back in form with this taut suspense movie, one that consistently toys with audience expectations. Just brilliant—don’t let anyone tell you about it, just see it.

5. God Grew Tired of Us This doc is as remarkable for what it tells us about the plight of refugees as for what it says about Western society. Beautiful and at times devastating.

6. Rendition There were several studio films that attempted to deal with post-9/11 Bush administration insanity, but this was by far the best. A composite fiction—based in part on the case of Maher Arar—this movie shows us the devastating impact of the clandestine policy of extraordinary rendition, and of the dubious results of information gathered through torture.

7. Sicko Some argued Michael Moore phoned this movie in—while collecting a whopping $25-million paycheque from the Weinsteins—but Sicko is a powerful film, and an important one given that 40 million Americans have no health care insurance. Here, Moore shows what life is like even for those who have insurance.

8. Zoo Okay, so for those readers too dim to figure it out: because I liked this clever, thoughtful documentary, does not mean I’m condoning bestiality. The filmmakers aren’t even condoning it, for Christ’s sake! The directors take an untouchable subject—people who have sex with horses—and attempt, without judgment, to illuminate it. A gutsy, intelligent and expressionistic documentary.

9. Up the Yangtze Yung Chang’s examination of the effects of China’s burgeoning economic growth, as told through the microcosm of two Chinese teenagers who find work on board a tourist cruise ship.

10. The Lives of Others This won an Oscar and technically came out last year, but only opened in Montreal in ’07, so it qualifies. A brutal film about writers trying to cope with life in a dictatorship.

Honourable mentions: Sean Penn again proved his directorial mettle with Into the Wild, while Ben Affleck staged a non-acting comeback with Gone Baby Gone. This year turned out to be the return of the semi-respectable sequel, with 28 Weeks Later continuing to turn up the infectious chills, The Bourne Ultimatum putting the franchise back on its feet and Live Free or Die Hard offering the best of the series. (Clearly, the screenwriters behind Die Hard 4 had read Postmodernity for Dummies.)

Bottom 5

Evan Almighty Steve Carell is hilarious on a, but there’s a spot in hell awaiting him for saying yes to this humourless bit of crap. I want that two hours of my life back!

BIBLICALLY BAD: Evan Almighty

Halloween The original was a brilliant exercise in minimalism: the teens, the shrink, the killer. Rob Zombie tries to explain the whole thing as some kind ofJerry Springer nightmare. What a mistake.

30 Days of Night How they dropped the ball on this premise—nocturnal monsters show up in the land of the midnight sun—but they did, and badly.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry The obvious yuks in this thing make it a serious bore. Will Adam Sandler ever make another good movie? (So far he’s made one: Punch-Drunk Love.)

American Venus Not that it needs much time, but this strange film will ferment perfectly into Showgirls-style camp. Rebecca De Mornay plays a psychotic mother—clearly trading on her The Hand That Rocks the Cradle turn—who stalks her own daughter and covets her firearm. Strangely ludicrous and, in its own way, beautifully nutty.

Malcolm Fraser’s
Top 10

1. Killer of Sheep To cite an until-now-unreleased film from 1977 as the best film of 2007 might come off like an attempt to be obscure or just plain difficult, but if you like the expressionistic side of cinema, Charles Burnett’s evocation of L.A. ghetto life is one of the top films of all time—no exaggeration. Don’t sleep on it.

2. Eastern Promises Forget about all the qualifiers (Canadian, genre, subversive, etc.)—Cronenberg is one of the world’s top filmmakers period, and his newest film finds him at the top of his game and still able to surprise.

FROM RUSSIA WITH BLOOD: Eastern Promises

3. Margot at the Wedding Noah Baumbach’s latest family drama is so dysfunctional, it makes his last film, The Squid and the Whale, look like Leave It to Beaver. But the Cassavetes-like atmosphere, natural lighting and uniformly excellent cast elevate it to the feel-bad film of the year.

4. The Host Joon-Ho Bong’s monster movie is a brilliant synthesis of old-school horror thrills, understated political satire, and unexpectedly touching family drama.

5. No End in Sight The reasons for the failure of the Iraq post-invasion plan are explained, with appropriate outrage but without shrill preaching or glib cynicism, in this eye-opening documentary. An essential starting point for anyone trying to get a handle on the biggest geopolitical mess in recent history.

6. Paprika Satoshi Kon combines thought-provoking themes with arresting imagery in this memorable anime thriller centred around a device that gives the ability to invade other people’s dreams.

7. No Country for Old Men The Coens bounce back from a long period of inertia with a poetic thriller that’s thoroughly engaging and full of top-notch performances.

8. Superbad This comedy not only has more laughs and heart than the overrated Knocked Up, but boasts a great soundtrack and excellent cinematography to boot. If Michael Cera keeps it up, he could be his generation’s Woody Allen. An invaluable resource for anyone who’s ever tried to understand teenage boys, and a bittersweet kick for anyone who ever was one.

9. After the Wedding Susanne Bier’s understated drama features a great performance from Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen, along with suspense, genuine pathos and Bergmanesque moral agony.

10. Grindhouse Worth a place on the list for sheer chutzpah alone, Tarantino and Rodriguez’s noble, doomed experiment in retro-exploitation firmly plants their cinematic reputation in the gutter, but demonstrates their ability to deliver lowest-common-denominator thrills much more effectively than their hapless big-budget Hollywood counterparts.

Honourable mentions: Nicolas Roeg swung back into form with Puffball, a bizarre supernatural thriller featuring what may be the weirdest sex scenes ever. Local director Stéphane Lafleur made a promising debut with Continental: un film sans fusil. Hungary reared its cinematic head with the extremely gross, but cinematically brilliant Taxidermia and the highly original animated ghetto/time travel/hip hop musical The District. Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There turned out to be maddeningly uneven, but has moments of genius and an amazing turn by Cate Blanchett. Lars von Trier showed that he can do something other than grandiose themes and audience torture with the low-key but tremendously enjoyable The Boss of It All. And Black Snake Moan could have just been a bizarre piece of questionable trash, but Christina Ricci’s unforgettably feral performance kicked it up to a whole new level of guilty pleasure.

Bottom 5

TOO MUCH COOK: Good Luck Chuck

1. Good Luck Chuck If I had to choose between rewatching this brutal comedy and dying, I’d have to give the decision serious thought. Dane Cook is the Antichrist.

2. Transformers Michael Bay is hopelessly irredeemable. In a just society, he would be permanently banned from filmmaking, but the world’s legions of arrested adolescent males keep him afloat on waves of cash.

3. Perfume Squirming through this horribly misguided pile of crapola, you can’t help but wonder if director Tom Tykwer ever really had anything to offer, and don’t know whether to laugh or cry at how low Dustin Hoffman can sink.

4. Rise: Blood Hunter Lucy Liu screams for a career intervention in this incoherent and pointless vampire flick.

5. Smokin’ Aces Just when you thought the post-Tarantino era had mercifully died off, the evil that Pulp Fiction hath wrought continues unabated in this morass of nihilism, testosterone and schoolyard-bully humour.