2007 Movies I Liked
by Roger Baldwin
1. The Wire (Season 4—released on DVD 2007/HBO 2006)
Think of it as a 13-hour serialized film. Nothing on screens big or small matches the sociological precision, deeply-inhabited linguistic authenticity and cumulative, humanistic power of this densely- textured, empathetically-realized microcosm of urban violence and decay. Perhaps nothing ever will. Watch seasons 1-3 first, allow it space to build and connect.
This movie will get few best-picture nominations but no movie this year made me happier. It tracks two star-crossed lovers across a busy, helter-skelter backdrop of 1960s hallucinogens, race riots, student protests and Vietnam War. The period images are overly familiar, and the romantic story anticlimactic, it works best as a series of Beatles' covers music videos. But director Julie Taymor's visual ideas are always inventive, sometimes ingenious, and the overall effect is, four decades later, idealistic and thrilling and euphoric. Baby-boomer nostalgia as a wake-up call.
3. Juno
A very ingratiating and very funny small story that gives indie and low-budget a proud name, about a high school junior who gets pregnant and, without remorse or second thoughts, chooses to bear the child and gift it to a worthy couple. It mines teenage patois better than any movie since Clueless, and updates it, and gives us a family of modest means which is also quirky and functional (the harshest language they use is a refreshing "go fly a kite!"). It's sentimental, contemporary Capra, but sharp and edgy.
The brothers Coen, working wisely for a change from an outside source, Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name. Javier Bardem begins the story as a resourceful and relentless hit man and ends it as a mythic and metaphorical embodiment of ubiquitous evil, fate versus chance, and inevitable death. I'm not sure the existential themes really cohere, but they are suggestive, and the visual story-telling is tight and whip-smart, a testament to the maturing sensibilities of two of the most talented smart-asses in the business.
Paul Thomas Anderson's engrossing and eccentric, big-canvas study in ruthless frontier capitalism and sort-of Citizen Kane in the oil fields of early 20th-century California. Daniel Day-Lewis as the driven, coming-from-nothing driller Daniel Plainview achieves great wealth, sacrifices his soul and lapses, finally, into monstrosity. His work here rivals that of My Left Foot and Gangs of New York to confirm him as annihilator-in-chief of boundaries between expertly acting the character and becoming the person. Although the story seems more cautionary lesson than complex character portrait; the moral degeneration by movie's end (or alternately, the unfolding expression of his pathology)—from seemingly reasonable, paternalistic entrepreneur and doting father to full-blown drunken, son-disowning, megalomaniac misanthrope—happens so precipitously it's disorienting. The early, wordless, dangerous scenes of digging in a hole are illuminating.
David Cronenberg's film noir-crime thriller treatment of a Russian émigré mob and sex slavery in contemporary, multicultural London. This genre story has many recognizable and conventional elements, but Cronenberg's superlative, stately-paced skills and cinematogropher Peter Suschitzky's rich, muted, sinister colors plunge you vividly and intensely into most every moment of tragedy, compassion and violent betrayal. Viggo Mortensen's ambiguous, tightly-controlled performance upstages the perfectly-inverted triangle of his head and hairdo.
7. Zodiac
About the serial killer who stalked L.A, in 1969. There are two effectively frightening sequences early on, then the story settles into one of journalistic obsession, of tracking down a menace which remains intractably elusive. It's investigation as refracted through a stack of Kennedy-assassination conspiracy books.
The fractured and kinetic directing and editing and up-close photography both superspeed the action and enhance the brooding and confused identity-searching theme to showcase that Hollywood product, with a big budget, can sometimes do big and cool things.
A documentary about the blindly-misguided and shockingly-mismanaged early stages of the Iraq war. Many of these projects are dishonest and distorted polemics. This one is responsible and persuasive journalism, with talking heads who know what they are talking about. All along the way it's forehead-smackingly frustrating, but also along the way you understand why. I've heard the arguments before, this gives them clarity and cohesion.
10. Superbad
A male-bonding, high-school graduation movie, produced by Judd Apatow. It's not as funny as his 40-Year-Old Virgin, better than his overrated Knocked Up. Most strikingly, it revels and glories in the sensitive and earnest dimensions of filthy, teen-boy vernacular.
11. Waitress
This movie gets sympathy points because Adrienne Shelly, its writer and director, was murdered between completion and release, leaving behind a three-year-old daughter. But it stands on its own. It sometimes strains too hard to be cute and small-town genuine, and every scene with the odious, baby-bully husband is an ordeal to watch; but this small, sweet, indie fairy tale has an endearing heart, likable female bonding, and a gratifying, aesthetic love of pie. The young Keri Russell is quite convincing as the marital victim with a hard layer of independence. This may also be the final opportunity to see Andy Griffith in public. The girl in the end scene—Sophia—belonged to Shelly.
Based on a true story. In this generous telling the US, at the initiative of a rascal Texas congressman, drives the Russians out of 1980s Afghanistan. The screenplay is by West Wing wunderkind Aaron Sorkin, and it combines some of the same clever wit, insider knowledge, pragmatic liberal aspirations and fast-forward dialogue. But more profanity. Philip Seymour Hoffman, particularly in the early scenes, is more than a hoot.
13. 3:10 to Yuma
A traditional rather than revisionist Western, and quite bloody. The magnificent performances of Ben Foster, Christian Bale and Russell Crowe as a charismatic, smooth-talking sociopath made the movie well worth my time. The message seems to be, you gotta have a moral code, even if it makes no sense and gets you killed.
Also-Rans: Michael Clayton; Rescue Dawn; Into the Wild; 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; The Savages; Breach; Jimmy Carter, Man From Plains; The Namesake; Ratatouille; Paprika; Grindhouse.
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