My Favorite Movies I Just Happened to See in 2007

When you look at my list of favorite screenings this year, you may well conclude that Miss Susie doesn't get out much. All but one film I've listed is from another year gone by.

I'm not lazy or disinterested in current cinema: it's just that most NEW films I saw the past twelve months, plain stunk-- or were oddly unfinished.

Michael Clayton, Into the Wild, No Country for Old Men, The Simpsons' Movie, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead-- I went into all of them with such high hopes.

But then something would fall off the picture like an old hubcap. Did someone lose their completion funds? Strangle the screenwriter in a fit of pique? 

Meanwhile, the physical experience of theater attendance continues to go the way of the dodo bird and the tolerable Coach flight.

I am so happy to eat chocolate bread pudding, sprawled on my sofa in a lace slip with a White Russian on the side-- bathing in the ambient light of my Epson projector lighting our pull-down screen. It takes an Act of Zeus to drag myself to the pits that pass for film theaters in this town.

I will recommend a couple exceptions, in case you're ever in Santa Cruz. The Del Mar art-deco theater is a 1930s restored palace, which is heaven to sit in, while enjoying your Black China Cupcakes with an excellent cup of coffee. Still no hash bar, though.

The same owner screens great movies at the Nickelodeon, around the corner, but you need back pillows to make it through a 80 minute flick.

Our fantastic drive-in and swap meet site, the fifty-eight-year-old SkyView just closed down last weekend, forever. I watched one final terrible movie on Saturday, in the back of my van, stuffed in a double sleeping bag. It was still swoon-worthy. I don't recommend "Fred Claus," that's for sure-- but I sob over the demise of this joint. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the last drive-in I have the privilege of making out in.

I am determined to see, in a theater, before the New Year: American Gangster, Enchanted, Gone Baby Gone, Darjeeling Ltd., This is England, Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, and Juno. Please advise me if I am making a terrible mistake!

What have been your favorite movies you've see this year, regardless of when they first came out?

And now...  the very, very best of my 2007 Netflix Queue:

Killer of Sheep: I bought this DVD after reading the many critics who fainted in rhapsodies with their accolades. Michael Tolkin wrote, "If Killer of Sheep were an Italian film from 1953, we would have every scene memorized." Could he be exxagerating? After one spellbound evening, I'm afraid I agree with him.

The storyline takes place in Watts in the early 1970s, when the neighborhood was actually semi-rural. The title is based on the lead character's occupation: he works in a local slaughterhouse.

In those days, even as late as the early 70s, you could order a chicken at the butcher shop, and they'd kill and pluck it right there on the spot. The South was still so much alive in the older generation. In one scene, one of the "grownups" stares mystified at a plastic-wrapped set of drumsticks from the supermarket.

The filmmaker, Charles Burnett, was a student at UCLA with no money, influenced by French and Italian New Wave. He was also a Southerner who'd moved to South Central, as a kid, like many of the characters in his film. The adults in the movie are exactly as I remember the parents of my friends from the same era.

When you first  watch this "day-in-the-llfe" picture, you first think to yourself, "Hmm... never see movies about black life in America like this."

Then you realize you never see American movies about ANYONE'S life like this-- so poignant, so attentive to the unconscious little moments that move throughout our day. There's one scene with the director's little girl ... she looks about four... who's playing with her doll and half-singing Earth Wind & Fire's "Reasons" to her "baby," in company to a scratchy record. It slayed me. This man says more with his camera in one minute than most people say all day.

There's no plot to speak of. It's a series of haunting vignettes. The dance between the husband and his wife, who longs for his touch, is the most memorable erotic heartbreak I've seen in a long, long while.

Prime Suspect 7

I waited, bracing my  tears, for the final installment of Helen Mirren's genre-changing police mystery drama.This time Jane is nearing her retirement date, drinking herself into a stupor, yet determined to catch one more sick killer if it takes every last onery nail in her body. This is the best script about a passionate woman in chauvinists' territory that's ever made the big screen.  If you've sneered at police dramas all your life, this show will take you by surprise. You have to start with Season 1, fall in love, and then let Mirren take you to the fifth circle of hells' bells. One day I'm going to get the flu, crawl in bed,  and watch the whole thing all over again.

3:10 to Yuma

The most satisfying "Bang!" of the year. It's the only new big-budget feature I saw that I Loved Without Reservation.

I wanted to watch nothing but Westerns for weeks afterward, trying in vain to capture the thrilll one more time. Come back Shane!

The story by Elmore Leonore pulls you right into the grave. Acting by Christian Bale, Russell Crowe, and Peter Fonda would make John Huston proud. Ben Foster is the nastiest homosexual villain in cowboy chaps... since I don't when. I spilled a scalding coffee in my lap right in the middle of the second act, and just whimpered through my pain so I wouldn't miss a minute.

Casino Royale

CANDY! Talk about living up to the hype. Bond has never been tastier. I could watch the parkour chase scene that opens this film every morning before breakfast. Daniel Craig is my lover, Daniel Craig is my lover, but I wouldn't throw Sebastien Foucan out of bed either. He's the free-running star who plays Bond's initial nemesis. After my opening brunch, I'd like to skip right to the sadistic whipping scene... which blew me away when I found out it was taken verbatim  from Ian Fleming's original story. Verged on Pasolini-esque. It certainly was the "sex" of the film, notwithstanding Eva Green's beautiful face and decolletage.

The Lives of Others

So often the Foreign Language Oscar goes to a film that outclasses anything in the English-speaking "Best Picture" category.  This was one of those mouth-droppers. The story is about the consequences of  unrelenting spying into people's lives that went on in Eastern Germany during the Soviet years.

It's rivieting on two counts: a), it feels like the United States, NOW, and b), the mesmerizing performance by the chief "spy" turns out to be played by the late actor Ulrich Mühe, who  himself was betrayed by his wife to the Stasi when he was a young actor.

Mühe knew the power of the state to destroy one's life, firsthand, and then turned it around to play one of its most conflicted villains, who inexplicably finds redemption. The ending is so perfect, you'll curl in a ball like a potato bug.

The Machinist

I didn't see this film for the longest time, because I am a wuss--€” and I was spooked by the reports that Christian Bale starved himself to play the psycho guy/lead role, a man who hasn't slept in a year.

But this wasn't a horror film, not in any conventional sense. It's Bunuel meets Dostoyevsky with a dash of Memento.

It's so beautifully photographed, I could've stop every frame and sighed with bitter pleasure. Bale is devastating as a young man whose consciousness has lost its way, due to an event he can barely recall. The machine shop, itself, where our antihero works, is pitch perfect-- reminded me of the auto plant scenes in Paul Schrader's Blue Collar.

Together

Finally, a HOWLING satire of what it's like to live in a politically correct, Marxist, lesbian-feminist, polyamorous, beyond-vegan, commune with a real bad case of no one minding their own business. --In Sweden!

Yes, this movie, which everyone in the US keeps saying they're going to make-- but never does-- is brought to belly-shaking life in the icy urban landscapes of Swedish socialism. If you have ever had even a five-minute left-wing episode in your life, you must see this movie and be healed with hysterics.

Deadwood's Last Season

I'm one of the stunned creatures who wandered around saying, "Why did HBO kill this?" I love these characters. I'm ready to move in as a full-time slut into Al Swearengen's saloon, or carry Calamity Jane's knife and flask into battle. I'm making a hat with veil to honor Madam Joanie Stubbs. It's maddening to watch the screen and whisper back the beautiful dialog in your mouth, only to remember some TV know-nothing pulled the plug. Still, I wouldn't have missed one cocksucking Shakespearean syllable.

Factotum

Here's another film I avoided for years, because I'm such a snob! It's based on Charles Bukowski's novel of the same name, plus glimmers of his other short stories.  I loved those tales so much that I couldn't imagine Matt Dillon, who I think of as pretty boy, doing them justice. I am a prick! Dillon pulled it off-- there's moments littered from beginning to end where you feel the scotch pour right off the typewriter. Just to hear my favorite lines out loud was such a pleasure. Lili Taylor, who plays Hank's drinking partner and lover, is incredible. The way they capture Bukwoski's patented attitue toward the innate absurdity of holding a job, when all you want to do is get laid and get high.. is priceless.

The Last King of Scotland

Wow. Again, I was late to the party, because I thought, "How am I going to endure a pic about the bloody raptures of Idi Amin?" Well, it's because this story is off the hook, and even if you know the history, you are caught up in one surprise after the next. A young white dilettante, who doesn't know what he's doing in Africa, ends up as Amin's personal doctor, and grows up: REAL FAST. Forest Whittaker chews up everything in sight, with power to spare. Of course, last year, I wanted Peter O'Toole to win the Best Actor award for Venus, because he was superb, and he's dying... but you can see why this role, for Whitaker, took the cake.

Sherrybaby

Films with great women's point-of-view have been slim to nothing this year. This state of affairs has gone from cliche to snuff-like tragedy.

Have you heard of the "Mo Criteria" for finding authentic female characters to watch in the movies? As my beloved Alas! blog describes:

[Mo Movie Measure] is an idea from Alison Bechdel's brilliant comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. The character in the strip explains that she only watches movies in which:

1) there are at least two named female characters, who:

2) talk to each other about:

3) something other than a man.

It’s appalling how few movies can pass the Mo Movie Measure.

Sherrybaby was my own personal "MMM Winner" on my Netflix queue. Why didn't Maggie Gyllenhaal win EVERYTHING for this? She plays a young woman who's just gotten out of prison on a drug conviction, and imagines she's going to swoop in with a  big stuffed animal to take over caring for her little daughter, who's been raised the past three years by her brother and his wife.

Riveting.

A unique pairing: Notes on a Scandal and The Killing of Sister George

Well, if you're going to do sick, caustic  lesbians tearing each other to bits, you'd better get it right. Notes on a Scandal is superb, but then you have to get out the black and white source, 1968's notorious Killing of Sister George, which in a fascinating historical note, features the first live footage of life inside a British dyke pub. Beryl Reid and Judi Dench, bulldaggers on rampage... how I'd love to see them together.

Quinceanera

I lived in Echo Park in the 1970s and this movie gave me such sweet nostalgia. It's about a knocked-up teen who really is a virgin, and her gay brother (decidedly not) trying to survive their family's outrage, plus their confrontation with some of the more damning consequences of gentrification in their neighborhood. It's packed with new and non-actors who are so fresh you could spread butter on them and watch it melt. Best coming of age anything I've seen in ages.

The Very First Episode of the Larry Sanders Show

The Larry Sanders Show, finally came out on DVD. I enjoyed very minute, cackling at every rerun as if they were old "I Love Lucy" episodes.

It's the very first show, however, "The Garden Weasel," that tickles me with infinite viewings. My delight is the corporate bitch from "the network, " Melanie Parish, who comes to close to ruining Larry's show forever, with her inane advertising campaigns. In her epic battle with Larry's producer, (embodied by Rip Torn), he screams at her, "I killed a man like you once, in Korea." Mano a mano, baby!

I find myself repeating this line everywhere from the post office line to Apple's Technical Support representatives.

Comments

[Janet Hardy]

Strongly suggest you add "Lars and the Real Girl" to your list!

Other than that, "Ratatouille" was my favorite new film this year. I TA'ed a class on '70s film and had the chance to revisit some favorites ("Chinatown," "Harold and Maude," "Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More") and discover a couple that I've missed for the last 40 years ("Apocalypse Now"). Also, I just watched "Badlands" for the first time and loved it. And as long as you're including TV series, what about "Weeds"? -- it even passes the Mo Criteria.

(From a former Rio Theater employee from back in the Old Days)

[Susie Bright]

What is it about this Ratatouille "cartoon"-- I know I'm being mean, but that's what hangs me up-- that is so good? I'm sure I'm missing something. When I see the ads, it reminds me of innumerable Disney flicks I took my kids to when they were young. I was so glad when that era ended. Little dancing animals... I couldn't take it anymore.

I enjoy satiric and political animation... but I haven't heard yet what I will like about the Rat! Enlighten me!

Lars and the Real Girl... yes, I've been hearing about that too.

[Christian Mann]

I too am in arrears on movie viewing. Of all the ones you listed, I only saw "The Lives of Others" and "Notes on a Scandal".

I love Cate and Dame Judith, but I didn't love "Notes...". It was just OK in my opinion. It's possible that the movie was ruined for me by the trailer which I saw earlier.

"The Lives of Others" on the other hand was arguably one of the best I've seen regardless of country of origin. You are correct: the big brother effect was so real knowing that we have now become an intrusive state here at home. The villain redemption felt real, which is usually not the case. The film showed us the gray areas instead of only the black & white. Agreed.

I urge you to go see Sean Penn's "Into The Wild". I went as a favor to Claire. I didn't want to like it. I imagined Penn and Eddie Vedder who did the soundtrack trying to out self-righteous each while vying for the "socially angriest petulant artiste" award. The fact is the movie was great, the story (by Jon Krakauer based on a true story) engaging, the cinematography dead-on, and the soundtrack haunting. Penn and Vedder have each earned a pass to be dickheads for another year. See this film. I never read "Into Thin Air", but I will now.

Thanks for sharing your cinema comments.

[David Maclaine]

Thanks so much for alerting me to the DVD availability of "Together." I saw it during its short theatrical release and have been waiting(and waiting)to own it. It is, you say, very funny, but also sweet, capturing the dream underneath the ways inept idealists fuck things up. Something about the ending pushed all my buttons to make me teary, not that I can explain without the context what was so touching about the sight of a family playing soccer on the lawn in the snow.
I was disappointed to see that the Larry Sanders Show remains hard to track down; I fell in love with it during a short, much-bleeped broadcast syndication run and have been frustrated at not being able to watch the whole series with language intact. Tambor and Torn are both just awesome in this show. Your "Deadwood" and "Prime Suspect" references also remind me of my belief that the 1990s were the real golden age of television, when writer/director/producers such as Joss Whedon and David Milch figured out how to make the medium more creative than the modern motion picture. Reality TV soon swept all that away; Prime Suspect on BBC and Milch's sadly-truncated masterpiece were among the few that carried on into our current bleak millenium.

[Megan]

I am a real film nut and don't have time right now to list all the great things I have seen this year or would love to watch over again. But I did want to alert you to a film that is not yet out in wide release. My teenage daughter and I got to see it at a preview screening and it was just wonderful. JUNO is a movie that is so full of humor, angst, reality, love...the young actress that carries the film is nothing short of superb (reminds me of a young Natalie Portman in Beautiful Girls with her fearless, direct delivery).

I could wax on about this and many other films but maybe later.

PS Totally agree about Prime Suspect (huge fan)

[Lise Menn]

I guess "Miss L." is going to redo her Netflix queue. Your reviews are so juicy and compelling, they - um, what is the visual equivalent of 'make my mouth water'? The best I can come up with is 'make me all hot to see them', which is pretty lame.
Anyhow, thanks for the tips!
As ever,
Miss L.

[Linda Rowland-Jones]

Don't forget, The Golden Compass is out this Friday. I hope it's not a stinker! It doesn't look like it, so far. Daniel Craig (yum) as Lord Asriel...At their web-site you can find out what and who your daemon is, very cool. (goldencompassmovie.com) Away from Her was my best theater experience (the Nickelodeon!) so far this year, I just love crying in public... I've added Factotum to my list of all time favorites, just for that pole dance scene with the magnificent poem at the end. Also loved Venus, and Ratatouille. Still, nothing can touch Vertigo. I could watch (and listen) to that one, over and over and over. Also saw Double Indemnity and Out of the Past for the first time this year, wow.
big hugs, Linda

[Frank Richards]

Couldn't agree more about "Killer of Sheep". Very moving- i kept waiting for the film to go somewhere, in the conventional sense. Ultimately it did- just not in the way i expected it to. Burnett let his subjects tell their own stories in their own ways with his camera and sensibility as the medium. He made another film called "To Sleep With Anger" which was also very good.
I had some nostalgia for a fifties film myself after viewing KOS but not an Italian one- rather the American proto new wave " The Little Fugitive".
Its a wonderful love letter to working class urban life of that era as seen through the eyes of a child exploring Coney Island.

[ondi lingenfelter]

I LOVED The Lives of Others. But did you say that the star of the film is dead? I am devastated. He was so amazing in a quiet deeply felt way. My other favorites this year: 1) "Still Life", Jia Zhangke's feature set in the river towns about to be flooded by the Yangzi dam project. A beautiful, moving, elegaic film about displacement, betrayal and loss. 2) "Lust, Caution." It may take a certain amount of cultural and historical background to appreciate this film. It seems to have been totally lost (dare I say wasted?) on some high profile US critics (like NYT's Dargis); but I think it's a masterpiece, at least if you know how to read it. Profoundly disturbing and somewhat subversive, it haunted me and most of my Chinese friends for weeks. Ang Li challenges the received history of the anti-Japanese resistance while making a case for female agency even when all paths are dead-ends. And Tony Leung is easy on the eyes! 3) Hal Ashby's ca. 1970 film "The Landlord". Just saw this in Seattle at an art house. A very good film about the complexity of race relations in the US, with a few broad slaps at the ruling class. very very funny, with surprisingly beautiful cinematography. 4) "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema" by Sophie Fiennes. Slavoj Zizek takes Fiennes on a trip through some of his favorite films. Funny, thought-provoking. I'm allergic the theory, but I was riveted!

[Janet Hardy]

Here's what I wrote about _Ratatouille_ at the time: http://tencartrain.com/?p=128#more-128 . FWIW, my spouse E (you may remember him; he's the E who used to run the Links parties) wasn't as jazzed by it as I was... but then again, he's not a hardcore foodie.

[tallie]

i, personally, CANNOT WAIT for "Be Kind, Rewind". google the trailer. CANNOT WAIT. i'm going to marry mos def.

and i have to say, ever since i left the big SC, i've been itching for a good Del Mar movie. it always made me feel like i was really going out.

[C.S. Lewiston]

The only new movie which I've seen in a theater of late was the Ian Curtis biopic, Control. I'm not that big a Joy Division fan, but I am a fan of Anton Corbijn's photography. He shot the movie in black-and-white and did a pretty good job of it. Even though like all pictures of this kind, it exaggerated things about peoples' personalities or got certain traits dead wrong (The British paper The Guardian ran a brief interview with Curtis' widow Deborah and his daughter Natalie), it did the job. The "art house" in which it played was a bit dingy and laid out funny (it's in a cineplex built inside an old supermarket), but at least the refreshments were reasonable; there were no $5.00 cokes or $12.00 buckets of popcorn.

Apart from that, I watched Atomic Cafe, the Cold-War documentary, on DVD. I tried to get the hip-hop documentary Style Wars from Netflix, but it kept getting bounced to the bottom of my queue. Turned out Netflix had "phased it out". Guess I'll be switching to Green Cine or something like it. And while I'd recommend Michael Moore's Sicko to anyone in a heartbeat, I cannot watch it. I've seen too many instances of people getting shafted by the health insurance industry and their bought-off bitches in Congress to be able to enjoy it.

[Natty Soltesz]

Michael Powell's "Black Narcissus"...okay, I saw it in December of last year, but no movie has left such an impression on me since. Nuns in the Himalayas, trying to create a convent/missionary on the site of an old king's harem...sexual repression in billowing curtains and constant wind, color to die for, incredible characterization. It was everything I could ever want in a movie.

This year, I've spend my free time watching the entire series of "The Sopranos." I'm on the sixth season now, and just tonight I watched Vito get outed. I'm fucking dying. This show is incredible.

[Susie Bright]

Oh, you've got me clicking and queueing like mad now. Thank you so much for these suggestions.

Yes, ondi, the star of the lives of others died just before the academy awards... natural causes, but so young. Isn't that devastating? Somehow you feel like the past must have aged him so much.

[Elizabeth]

Go see Darjeeling Limited - it deserves the big screen at least once before you watch it at home on the little screen. There are so many layers to it. Excellent film.

[Laurie D. T. Mann]

My favorite movie this year was I'm Not There. It's the movie about the pseudo-Dylanesque character played by six different people, including the great Cate Blanchett. It's like one long, well-acted experimental movie. The more you know about Bob Dylan, the more you'll probably get out of the movie. I had no clue what was going on with the "Billy the Kid" segment until I got home and read IMDB's write-up on Dylan.

I really liked Eastern Promises. While a little violent, it's a fascinating study of the Russian mafia in London, with great performances by Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts.

I loved The Lives of Others, but that came out last year and won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. A brilliant piece of work.

I liked Michael Clayton quite a bit, and don't think the writer or director was killed along the way. Ditto American Gangster, but I can listen to Denzel Washington read the phone book. The most upsetting stuff in that movie, to me anyway, was the close-up shots of people shooting heroin. The murders bothered me a little less.

Enchanted is fun; not brilliant but sharper than typical Disney. The rodents cleaning the New York apartment is worth the price of admission!

I'd like to see Gone Baby Gone (I do love movies about Boston where the characters actually sound like they're from Boston) and Grace is Gone. Grace is Gone is about a guy (John Cusack) struggling with how to tell his young daughters that their mother was killed in Iraq. The trailer has no voice-over, and the music isn't particularly manipulative. Still, I was weeping before the trailer was over.

For fun, the Water Horse is a kid's book turned into a movie that's due out early next year. It's a very clever retelling of Loch Ness and the effects look very good.

[Dtilsen]

How can leave out Across the Universe!!!

[Ondi Lingenfelter]

So sad about Ulrich Mühe. I suppose it's some consolation that he leaves behind such a beautiful and moving performance. But still sad.

[Cat Vincent]

If you haven't see The Fountain, I think you'd enjoy it. It's gorgeous, complex, Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman have never looked prettier and the soundtrack (Kronos Quartet, Mogwai, Clint Mansell) is pure sex.

[Peter Throckmorton]

I haven't been to the theater that much myself this year, although girlfriend and I do enjoy going.

I primarily dip into the DVD collection, which is around 400 strong and outgrowing the Ikea shelves.

Tonight was the beautifully done and very transgressive Kissed, with the luminescent Molly Parker. A few days ago we watched Pale Rider, and last week West Side Story.

I guess I like watching movies where I have ready access to IMDB.

[The Dark Avenger]

A good 80s' flick is Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins with the unlikely combination of Fred Ward, Joel Grey,
and Wilford Brimley in
a martial arts/comedy flick that is as good as anything that came out of Hong Kong.

Best line:

You move like a pregnant yak!

Best movie I've seen which came out recently is _I'm_Not_There_. Less recent movie which a lot of people hate and I like very much: _Tideland_. I have been trying to figure out what puts people off so much and I think it may be the erotic temperature of the star.

[Tsaurah Litzky]

HI Susie,
I can't count how many times the movies have saved my life.
I'm with you on all your faves especially Killer of Sheep, The Lives Of Others, Prime Suspect 7 and Factotum.

I strongly recommend Cronenberg's Eastern Promises,
the exquisite Edith Piaf biopic
La Vie En Rose with Madeline Cottard's(I don't think I have her name quite right)extraordinary performance and the just out Julian Schnabel
masterpiece The Diving Bell And The Butterfly.

[gerdy]

where is stringer bell?

[thinga]

If you liked Together, you may also really like his other movie Show Me Love.
About a teenage lesbian in a small town.

[Kiana]

I know I'm coming into this conversation a little late but did anyone else love the movie Once? The music moved me to tears - as if I had written the words, standing on the sidewalk, singing and playing my heart out.

[Dia]

What a great list! I was wondering what to watch for Christmas but I think I know now.
Of the whole list I only saw three:

The Live of Others (Das Leben des Anderen)

- wasn't that scary? I had a pen pal in East Germany (DDR) in the 60's and I was there on a youth tour in 1970, I thought it was Western propaganda that said all letters were read,

Together

-not as much fun as F&*cking Amal

Casino Royal

- I love James Bond always have. The parkour scene was the best.

[sfmike]

I'm not an animation fan, and "Ratatouille" was definitely not on my list, but it turned out to be my favorite film of the year. The final redemption of The Critic, voiced by Peter O'Toole, was wise, complex and touching, and the rats weren't cute, singing little critters, but instead looked like rats. Putting them together with food was an interestingly subversive gesture. Do check it out.

My other favorite DVDs this year were the first two seasons of the Fox rural idiots comedy, "My Name Is Earl." Season Two in particular is one of the best written things I've ever seen (I'll put it up there with "Deadwood"), and the acting/comedy ensemble is priceless.

And thanks for the "3:10 to Yuma" tip.