Top 10 Movies of 2007

Here is my completely meaningless top 10 movies of 2007 list.

Top 10 Movies of 2007

1. Enchanted
2. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
3. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
4. The Bourne Ultimatum
5. No Country for Old Men
6. Catch and Release
7. Superbad
8. The Mist
9. Nancy Drew
10. Music & Lyrics

Comments: I still have not seen literally any movie that will contend for an Oscar except No Country For Old Men. I usually like a few of the Oscar contenders, so take this with a grain of salt. Basically if you are wondering where almost any movie on this list is, there's a pretty good chance I have not seen it.

Enchanted should be an extremely unsurprising number one. The more I think about it the more the ending bothers me, but it has to be at #1 in deference to my reaction to the film on watching it. This is the film romance that's affected me the most of any film romance in a while. I don't expect other people to have the same reaction to it that I did, but I'm going with my gut here.

Sweeney Todd is one of my favorite musicals and Tim Burton is one of my favorite directors. I think most of his cuts and changes benefited the movie, though it was too gory for me at parts. I just looked away. The King of Kong was the most compelling story of the year, and there are accusations that it has played a little loose with the facts but they don't bother me. An extremely fascinating character story, and whatever changes they made ramped up the drama and entertainment so good for them. The Bourne Ultimatum was a very skillfully made and plotted action movie.

No Country For Old Men is over-rated but still very good. I still think the last half hour or so was boring and silly. Catch and Release was a bit of a missed opportunity, but it was well acted and had a good love story and made me laugh so it ranks high anyways. Superbad was very funny and easily the best of the recent Apatow comedies, even though the humor was frequently a bit too vulgar for my tastes. I never got the feeling that the movie had no point, which was the feeling I couldn't shake all throughout Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin. The Mist was a well made thriller with a fun anti-fundamentalist Christian message. It built suspense very well and paid the suspense off with well-designed demon creatures. Nancy Drew was an Emma Roberts showcase and I loved it for that if nothing else (OK, I definitely loved it for that and nothing else). The mystery part wasn't very interesting. Music and Lyrics was a fun throwaway romantic comedy. I like leaving slots open for all style no substance movies that entertained me and this was the best of those this year (depending on how much substance you attribute to Enchanted).

Movie Review: Enchanted

The Movie: Enchanted
Starring: Amy Adams, James Marsden, Patrick Dempsey, Susan Sarandon

This review contains slight spoilers towards the end, please be warned.


Brief Plot Summary: A fairy tale (animated) princess, Giselle (Adams), meets the man of her dreams, Prince Edward (Marsden), and they are engaged to be married. Unfortunately, Prince Edward's evil step-mother (Sarandon) does not approve of the coupling and thrusts Giselle into the real, non-animated world. Edward follows to find her. While in the real world, Giselle searches for Prince Edward, and meets up with single father Robert. They start to click. I'll stop further so I don't spoil the UNBELIEVABLY SHOCKING TWIST ending.

Commentary: Enchanted falls into the same realm of family oriented holiday fare that gets released every year. For whatever reason, this film has been extremely widely critically praised, whereas similar films such as Sky High and Ella Enchanted were basically panned. I've even been reading that it's possible that Amy Adams could be nominated for an Oscar for best actress, a prospect that both delights and baffles me. I'd love to see it, but I'm not entirely sure why this one is a sure-fire Oscar contender while, say, Reese Witherspoon in Just Like Heaven is completely beneath that ceremony.

Oh wait, do I sound negative? Then let me state up front: Enchanted is quite possibly my favorite movie of the last several years. Sky High and Ella Enchanted are the two closest, most obvious, parallels to this movie in the last few years. And while I am a big fan of both of those films, I don't think there's really any doubt that Enchanted is substantially better than both of them. So what's the Enchanted difference?

First, the humor in the movie was frequently genuinely funny, thanks to the stellar comedic performances of Amy Adams and James Marsden. The scriptwriter for this is clearly well schooled in Disney films, and he satirizes the most ridiculous aspects of these movies excellently. Working purely as a vehicle for humor, this movie just blows away all of the other movies of this type. The costumes and production design in this movie are also pitch perfect and frequently beautiful. Amy Adams has been singled out for the most praise in this film, understandably. She is just incandescent in this role, and she really makes you love the character of Giselle. Not only is she funny, she hits the emotion in the movie really well, and just charms the hell out of you.

The movie toes the line between saying that the fairy tale romance & fantasies do exist and do come true and between showing the fallacy of these notions when transported to the real world. By believing in the supremacy of true love while at the same time acknowledging that true love is a deep emotion and requires significant work to achieve and maintain, the film has staked out a fairly unique place. It's a dangerous ground, as it could end up being pandering or self-contradictory, but I think it manages to get out a coherent and consistent message, and I think there's a lot of truth to the message it tells.

Further, the love story in this movie was so great. It's really one of the better love stories I've seen on film. There's a scene right towards the end where Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey dance with each other which is just heart-bustingly beautiful and perfect. It made me cry (tears continued intermittently through the part where Patrick wakes up Amy with the kiss), which was really embarrassing because I was watching the movie in the theater with my brother, mother, and sister-in-law (I hid my tears). My favorite movie scene of the year, I think.

So did I have any problems with this movie at all. Yes I did, and it's one that several other reviewers mention too: the ending. I guess I understand basically what they were trying to do, seeing as all of the movies of this time seem to end with a big action sequence. Since this parodies Disney movies, it makes sense to throw in a big action ending too, and try to subvert the conventions. Unfortunately, the execution takes you right out of the movie and doesn't feel right. Fortunately the sequence is fairly short and easily ignorable/forgettable.

I have no particular comment about the animation scenes. They were fairly well done, but seem to exist solely for the purpose of setting up the plot. Ditto the songs, which are basically necessary given the nature of the film. I was not notably impressed by any of the songs, which were generally not too good. The "That's How You Know" sequence was very funny.

So, back to the beginning. Why Enchanted and why Amy Adams with all the critical praise? The answer is that I don't know but it really warms my heart to see that when a movie of this type is executed this well the critics sit up and notice.

Final Grade/Comments: The fact that I wanted to watch the movie over again immediately after seeing it, despite the lack of a game-changing twist or complicated plot speaks to how much I enjoyed it. The young woman sitting behind me said to her companion, as the movie was ended, "Oh my God, that was like the best love story ever." OK, while I can't quite agree with that hyperbole, I do say this was the best movie of its type in a long, long while and it beats 99% of the Disney fare it's spoofing at their own game. The poorly conceived ending is not enough to sway this away from a 10/10 and my guess is I would have enjoyed the movie even more had the sound in the theater I was watching the movie at not kicked out for 10 minutes during what appeared to be a crucial scene.