THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY
After much scrutiny the moment has come to reveal our favorite cinematographic offerings of 2007. We have chosen 60 movies that, in our opinion, represent the best of a year in movies.
The first part (Top 60-41) after the jump:
60-TWO DAYS IN PARIS-Julie Delpy (Trailer)
After penning their roles in “Before Sunset”, both Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy succumbed to the writing bug. The former went to publish his first novel, whereas the French actress not only prepared a script, but also directed her full feature film. “Two days in Paris” recalled the style of Richard Linklater’s cult classic, narrating the misadventures of a couple, American man and French woman, while visiting her native city. Full of sharply well-observed dialogues, two thirds of it could easily rank among the best comedy for adults released this year.
59-SUPERBAD-Greg Mottola (Trailer)
Judd Apatow (again) produced this clever take on teen sex comedies like “Porky’s”, ubiquitious during the Seventies, in which two hormone fuelled, soon-to-graduate high school buddies go on an illegal booze hunting adventure in order to pull at a party. An excellent script with notable underlying moral tones helped making of “Superbad” a transatlantic success and turned Michael Cera and Jonah Hills into stars.
58-HOT FUZZ-Edward Wright (Trailer)
When an overzealous London policeman, who put his team to shame with his achievements, is demoted to a small village, he can hardly stomach the boredom, but soon his sense of duty gets him to discover the secrets of this community. The team behind “Shaun of the Dead” took the cop buddies format to the British countryside. The results were hysterically funny.
57-28 WEEKS LATER-Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Trailer)
A zombie flick with a difference: the Spanish director carry on Danny Boyle’s concept for this “28 Days later” sequel, widely improving on the original by adding rhythm, excellent effects and plausibility to its prequel’s uneven story.
56-AZUL OSCURO CASI NEGRO-Daniel Sánchez Arévalo
Tragicomic reality bits shaped the promising debut by Sánchez Arevalo, full of carefully portrayed characters in this touching history of personal superation against social, emotional and familiar obstacles faced by a young janitor, caretaker of his disabled father, whose situation gets more complicated after his brother gets released from jail.
55-3:10 TO YUMA-James Mangold (Trailer)
Solid, way above average traditional Western from the director of the Johnny Cash biopic “Walk The Line”. It shared with the former its attention to detail; a classic facture and offered excellent performances courtesy of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.
54-TALK TO ME-Kasi Lemmons (Trailer)
With an astonishingly colourful cinematography recreating the history of Black America from the late 60’s and a top of the range cast, from Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor to Cedric The Entertainer, the tale of an ex-con DJ who becomes a local radio celebrity and whose popularity grows to reach the doors of the Johnny Carson Show was one of the unexpected surprises of the year.
53-THE PAINTED VEIL-John Curran (Trailer)
Rejected from the batch of last year’s Oscar contenders, this period drama, an adaptation of a Somerset Maugham novel and second remake of the Greta Garbo-starred classic, had showy roles for Naomi Watts and Edward Norton; an exotic set in rural China; a lush atmosphere and everything else a movie normally needs to catch the Academy’s attention. Maybe it was too conventional, even for their standards.
52-THE NIGHT OF THE SUNFLOWERS-Jorge Sánchez Cabezudo (Trailer)
Spanish cinema gave promising signs of a much needed renovation with a number of interesting debuts. One of them was this rural thriller, skilfully structured in episodes, that updated Black Spain’s crime stereotypes (the ones coming from the mentality of a violent, pre-democratic and under-developed country). The story of a dramatic rape and the domino effect-like consecuences it provokes among the ones surrounding it, confidently driven by an excellent script based in faux-clues and fatal coincidences.
51-STILL LIFE-Jhia Zhangke (Trailer)
The new star in the rebirth of Chinese cinema took advantage of the ideologically more tolerant times his country is going through to reflect its current reality. Often compared with Italian Neorealism, Jia Khan-Ke conquered the Venice festival with a narration placed in the middle of the pharaonic Three Gorges hydraulic project in the Yangtze, showing the repercussions inflicted by the works in people and places. The history of a couple separated by the events, trying unsuccessfully to get together again, intertwined with the lives of the characters appearing their way. It only diminished its impact by the presence of confusing surreal elements.
50-THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP-Michael Gondry (Trailer)
As imaginative as all his previous work, only a bit more whimsical, the former videoclip director followed his much acclaimed “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind” with this attempt to recreate the imagination of his main character (A rather miscast Gael Garcia Bernal) with a sometimes funny and always witty way to reflect both the romance happening in his real life and the thoughts and feelings they were internally provoking.
49-FAST FOOD NATION-Richard Linklater (Trailer)
After the success of the “Supersize Me” documentary, this rough yet, effective best-seller adaptation denounced fast food chains’ shocking practices, shaped into a feature film by the always surprising Richard Linklater in another of his usual style twists. A plot, containing one of the boldest political statements seen on any recent movie, dealing with corporative interests; disgusting procedures; animal torture and sweatshop-like employment, served its purpose to make us think twice every time temptation, in the shape of a burger, came our way.
48-CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER-Zhang Yimou (Trailer)
The third installment in Zhang Yimou’s breathtaking kung-fu trilogy didn’t match the arresting visual beauty, nor the intricate storyline of the former two (“Hero” and “House Of Flying Daggers”) but carried on elevating the martial arts genre towards new heights and showcased the most baroque and extravagant production desing of them three. And Gong Li shone bright in the role of the empress.
47-DEATH AT A FUNERAL-Frank Oz (Trailer)
Frank Oz left behind decades of irregular output and returned to his best shape (“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”) with this low-budget dark comedy located in a British funeral where everything went wrong. His ability for instant gags was put into practice through a collection of extravagant characters, led by the diminutive and always impeccable Peter Dinklage.
46-SCOOP-Woody Allen (Trailer)
In the second of his London movies, Allen returned to comedy, in the company once more of his latest muse Scarlet Johansson, this time next to Hugh Jackman, on a tale of curious journalism student who, through an spectral apparition halfway through a magic show, finds out about the identity of a notorious serial killer. Woody kept on being below his usual levels of excellence, but at least got some of his legendary wit back.
45-SICKO-Michael Moore (Trailer)
The superstar of the new documentary carried on implementing the principle “the end justifies the means” in his attack against the shortcomings of U.S.A.’s health system. even when he clearly mastered the art of mass manipulation, this tragic comic documentary proved itself as genuine food for thought, comparing US’ insurance policy-led to the universal systems in Canada, UK, France and even Cuba; backed by a considerable number of heartbreaking individual experiences as the best support for his argumentation.
44-THE KITE RUNNER-Marc Foster (Trailer)
Somehow tamed by Hollywood after the success of “Monster Ball”, which won Halle Berry an Oscar; Marc Foster has softened his formerly rough indie edges since then, with big studios offering high profile projects with award potential; like this adaptation of the best-selling novel by Khaled Hosseini, narrating the betrayed friendship between two kids (sons of a master and his servant) in pre-Taliban Kabul; the former escaping from the country and coming back as a grown-up to placate his guilt by rescuing his old pal’s son from Afghanistan’s volatile situation. A spectacular production that didn’t abuse of sentimentalism to ease the crude reality of the events it depicted.
43-DEATH PROOF-Quentin Tarantino (Trailer)
Extracted for the European market out of his original concept as a double bill, “Death Proof” worked like an excellent style exercise, homage to b-movies, film’s copy scratches included, also as a girl power vindication with a funny foxy chicks’ squad against vicious killing driver. After Tarantino’s long hiatus, it simply left critics and audiences unimpressed.
42-AFTER THE WEDDING-Susanne Bier (Trailer)
The story of the keeper of an orphanage in India, coming back to his country in search of donations and finding extreme generosity from a millionaire who will set as condition for his contribution that he shall remain there and attend his daughter’s wedding, resulted in an accomplished drama that put the Danish director on the verge of international crossover, while earning her a nomination for best foreign language film at the Oscars.
41-THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY-John Pilger (Trailer at the beginning)
The latest work by the legendary Aussie leftwing journalist was one of his best, timely aiming to prove the US imperialist tactics in Latin America, both historical and current, against the development of true democratic states which were not in the orbit of their interests. A complete study of US hypocritical international politics and its many interventions in other states’ legitimate affairs, including a revealing interview with the controversial Hugo Chávez.
[…] TOP 60 MOVIES: 60-41 […]