1. Juno
Juno warms your soul. It touches you on a deeper level than a film should be allowed, or even capable. It’s about a teen who gets pregnant and decides, all on her own and with the approval of her understanding parents, to give the baby up for adoption. The girl is Juno and she’s played by Ellen Page, an actress who crawls inside the precocious teen and radiates from within. Her vocabulary proves she’s intelligent, but also a darling little deviant, one of those kids you avoided in high school because they dressed strange and knew it. The choices Juno makes and the colorful ways she makes them provide a wonderfully rewarding experience in writer Diablo Cody’s first screenplay. Director Jason Reitman, son of the great Ivan Reitman, understands his main character and gives her room to breath, or cartwheel. Page is surrounded on all sides by electric performers — Jennifer Garner, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney, Michael Cera — who understand her on every level that she operates, from wiry foul-mouthed teen to sincere and mature adult who talks on a hamburger phone. If you take anything out of the movie year of 2007, make it Juno and its lovable star.__________________________________
2. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a punishing movie, one told using one family’s vast library of violence and resentment. Two brothers, both strapped for cash, go in on a robbery together. They botch the job and the consequences of their mistakes seep into the lives of their wives, children and their kind parents, who spend most of the movie utterly confused until a single scene of enlightenment (and the response it provokes). The sons are played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke, the dad by Albert Finney, and one of the wives by Marisa Tomei. You will not find more gripping performances this year. The film is edited into snippets of sequences resembling cause and effect, and then sometimes effect and cause — the editing is intense. The picture is directed by Sydney Lumet, one of film’s treasured directors. Lumet was 83 when he captained this and its one of his many masterpieces. Not even time could wear the man down.__________________________________
3. No Country For Old Men
Not much is actually said in No Country For Old Men, so when it does speak you know it has something important to say. If you’ve seen the film you’re probably nodding your head in agreement while pondering the character of Anton Chigurh, who is so cold and evil that when he speaks his words seem to stop time. I’m more thinking of the Ed Tom Bell character, the sheriff tasked with stopping Chigurh, a name that was written unpronounceable by author Cormac McCarthy for a reason. Every word that Sheriff Bell speaks is important. Just listen to the way he says them, the way his body contains these words before they’re said, the way he mumbles the consonants and strings entire syllables into a mush of a Texas drawl. There’s a rhythm to the dialogue and not one letter could be rearranged without interrupting the pulse that resides beneath the surface. Sheriff Bell is played by Tommy Lee Jones, who appears to have lived the character before actually playing him. The plot concerns a hunter (Josh Brolin) who finds a case of money and plans his retirement. Then Chigurh shows up as ominous as Death himself. Chigurh is played by Javier Bardem, who will most likely win an Oscar for his role. Bardem’s character, with his pageboy haircut and polyester suit, has redefined villains. They will never be the same.__________________________________
4. Atonement
Adults are given too much power in movies. In Atonement, a child is the source of all the power and also all the destruction. The child is Briony. She thinks she witnesses a rape, or was she subconsciously persuaded to see the rapist? She accuses Robbie (James McAvoy) and unknowingly ruins a romance not long after its first kiss. Robbie loves Briony’s sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightley), who never quite forgives her little sister, even as they both serve as nurses four years later at the beginning of the Nazi invasion of Europe. Woven together with beautiful and technically challenging cinematography, editing that reveals interesting perspectives and heartbreaking performances, Atonement is one of those British pictures mainstream movie fans refuse to see and then call “boring.” This is an important picture and there’s not a boring second in it.__________________________________
5. Grindhouse
How often do we experience movies? Listen to that word again: experience. Grindhouse tries its damndest to inject some life into that screen, to give us something more than a movie. In it, directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez offer a modern-day interpretation of the now-deceased grindhouse cinema, which was basically low-quality exploitation flicks shown in dive theaters. QT and RR insert pops and hisses into their soundtrack, they omit entire reels, offer snack bar commercials and then reel up faux trailers, all inside a double feature. Rodriguez dives head first into zombie ooze with Planet Terror while Tarantino revs up his beefy car chase with Death Proof. They are acted well — Rose McGowan is a gun-legged stripper; Kurt Russell is mass murderer Stuntman Mike — but the real seller is the clever format with its self-aware grittiness and stylish exploitation.__________________________________
6. The Darjeeling Limited
Wes Anderson’s movies are written like great literature, but photographed like great film. He stages his actors in busy, spectacular frames and then he gives them interesting things to say. I have this theory that his works will survive longer than any other director of his time, including Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. The Darjeeling Limited is Anderson’s most mature, focused work. It’s not his funniest, but it is his wisest. It stars Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman as brothers traveling through India on a train that allows them opportunities for self-discovery. In terms of action, not much happens — they buy a cobra at a bazaar — but the way they communicate with one other and the world is action enough. These are fierce people and Anderson gives them room to perform.__________________________________
7. Starting Out in the Evening
Starting Out in the Evening is about fresh starts. It begins with an old creaky author (Frank Langella) whose book has been “in production” for nearly a decade. A beautiful young college student pesters and pleads with him to allow her entrance into his life so she can write her thesis on him and his four previous works, all of which are important, yet out-of-print, novels. They differ in age by about 50 years but they fall in love, and although they dangerously approach sex, their relationship is entirely non-sexual. They care for each other, and compassion and understanding exists between them. The girl is played charmingly by Lauren Ambrose, who seems well-read and intelligent in a character that is never “that vapid college chick” and never plays to convention. And what will happen when that book is done? The movie had me guessing and I found the ending appropriate for these well-written characters.__________________________________
8. Ratatouille
Pixar Animation Studios is staffed by geniuses and prodigies, I’m sure of it. Its films are flawless. Magical. Tender. In many ways, perfect. The fact that the star of Ratatouille is a rat goes to show you how good Pixar is — if they can make you care about a rat then they’re doing their job very well. The rat is Rémy and he desires to be a great chef. Not a chef in the rat world, where his brothers and sisters nibble the corners of boxes and munch trash, but a chef in the human world, where fine cuisine flaunts its delicate scents and flavors. Rémy joins up with Linguini, a human with no cooking expertise whatsoever, and the two concoct delicious French food. The movie looks amazing, the voice acting is marvelous and the dialogue is clever, but the highlight is the food. The movie will make your taste buds dance.__________________________________
9. Knocked Up/Superbad
Let 2007 be the year that Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell fell from grace in the comedy world. Taking their place is Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, Judd Apatow, Michael Cera, Bill Hader and many, many more. Knocked Up, about a one-night-stand between Rogan and Katherine Heigl that leads to an unplanned pregnancy, came out first and wowed audiences with its honesty and uncompromising vulgarity. Superbad, the story of two teens’ (Hill and Cera) sad quest to attend a high school party, was a brutal pummeling of curse words and even more uncompromising vulgarity. Both were hilarious to the nth degree. I hope this is the direction comedy goes in from now on.__________________________________
10. 3:10 to Yuma
Curious things happen in 3:10 to Yuma. The hero and the villain, bound by fate and going against dozens of movie rules, tread a barrage of bullets together for reasons neither of them can ever really figure out. The hero is Dan Evans (Christian Bale), a rancher who offers to escort a dangerous outlaw to a train depot in a post-Civil War Arizona. The villain is the dangerous outlaw, Ben Wade (Russell Crowe), whose pistol is so feared it’s called the Hand of God. Ben Wade is very dangerous, his gang even more so, but he isn’t without principles, which is maybe why he allows Dan to escort him to a train that will surely take him to his execution. These are super performances, and they’re written very carefully. By the time the end comes, you’ll know that it could not have ended any other way, but, for once in a movie, it was not the way it was intended to end for the hero and the villain.__________________________________
The Others ...
Here are some distinguished runner-ups. They’re written in alphabetical order because they all are worthy to be on this list: 300, American Gangster, A Mighty Heart, Bug, Reign Over Me, Eastern Promises, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, The Kite Runner, The Lookout, Michael Clayton, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Talk to Me, There Will Be Blood, Waitress__________________________________
***This Volume feature originally ran in the West Valley View Dec. 31, 2007.***
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