Hello Everything: 2008

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Films of 2007

it's a rainy Sunday afternoon and I just thought I'd round up my 2007 film thoughts... here's a link to my Films of 2006.

Bridge To Terabithia

I've never read the book so I had no particular expectations about this film, which we watched in Christchurch one rainy weekend last March. It effortlessly drew me in with its 70s childhood whimsy and then, when I was softened up, opened up my chest with an ice-pick, and nearly had me blubbing. Sad enough to traumatise a whole generation, but probably not in a bad way. More like the way Lois Lane dies when her car is buried in earthquake debris in the Superman movie, but without Superman to fly around the Earth backwards and bring her back to life. I never understood how that was meant to work.

A Mighty Heart

I was keen to see this but I found it quite boring. It was amazing to see the vibrant street life of contemporary Pakistan on film, but the way the narrative was told didn't engage me in the least. Angelina Jolie, who I've previously only ever seen as Lara Croft in the first Tomb Raider movie, seemed to be missing in action throughout. Slow and uneventful does not necessarily = realistic or interesting. It seems amazing that such a boring film could be made about something so inherently dramatic and topical.

The Simpsons Movie

I guess I don't watch it so much these days but I, like everyone else, am a Simpsons fan. So I thought this might be good. And it was. But not much more than good - and certainly not great. It was about as funny as an average episode, and I think suffered in particular from the strange decision to focus almost entirely on the Simpsons family and a newly invented character. This meant that the rest of the regular characters were really pushed into the background. Surely Mr Burns should have been the main villain of the piece?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

This looked great, the best yet visually, and in other respects was another solid addition to the series. I do like the way they're doing Voldemort. The actress playing Hermione can't act though. This is a problem.

The Lives of Others

This strange but affecting drama about life in East Germany is very successful. Where it succeeds most is in placing you in the middle of a very complicated world of suspicion and danger in which you, like the characters, aren't really sure what the best thing to do is. Despite a few weaker moments, this is one of my favourite films of recent years.

Hot Fuzz

First Spaced, then Shaun of the Dead, and now Hot Fuzz. It's not quite as good as the former two efforts, but it is very funny nonetheless. It may not so much be that it is any less funny, but that it is referencing films I'm not that much of a fan of compared to zombie movies? Thanks to some sort of Myspace promotion, Judith and I saw the New Zealand premiere for free, which was also attended and introduced by Peter Jackson, Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, and Nick Frost. Blimey!

Ratatouille

I was somehow not quite won over by this. Although it was nicely animated and all good fun, I think I ultimately found the story a little slight. It was really very predictable and safe. It made me think about Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, which had more of a point - by comparison Ratatouile is completely inconsequential with its off-the-shelf "Believe in yourself and your dreams really will come true!" plot.

Juno

So I'd heard this was 'good' but you never know what that means. In this case, it meant it was wonderful. It's hard to explain why without hyperbole, but I guess what I liked was that it was both intelligent and hopeful. Also very funny. Probably my favourite film of the year.

Atonement

We saw this in a (self-programmed) double-bill with Ratatouille, which made for an interesting contrast. I much preferred this. I haven't read the book and tend to avoid Keira Knightley as I would bubonic plague, so I was apprehensive at best, but I found myself really moved by the film. I didn't think the final sequence quite worked, but it didn't matter. This may be in a tie with Juno...

No Country for Old Men

This we saw in another odd double-bill, this time with Juno. I suppose it was pretty much perfectly acted, scripted, and shot, but I found it unengaging. I certainly wasn't bored, but when it ended my enduring impression was - "So what?". On reflection, I felt it was rather old-fashioned and reactionary, maybe even racist. It seemed to be a sort of Western (as in Wild West) version of Heart of Darkness. I don't know what I'm meant to feel about White Men's nihilism. "Get over it?"

The Golden Compass

This was very disappointing. I read the books specially, and while they are good, the film adaption is basically abysmal. Everything was wrong, and the special effects looked second rate. Even Ian McKellan's Polar Bear couldn't lift it out of utter mediocrity. The weakest points are probably the way the Gyptians and Witches are realised, and the complete failure to visually portray the relationship between humans and their daemons in a way that captured the way it is described in thebooks. At which point not much is left.