The "Jeremy Irons in Dungeon and Dragons Award" for giving it your best shot even though you probably shouldn't have: Will Smith in I Am Legend (runner-up: John Turturro, who maintained a certain dignity while getting pissed on by an Autobot in Transformers)
Future Films That Time Forgot: Resurrecting the Champ, The Martian Child, Premonition
Acceptable sequels: Spiderman 3, The Bourne Ultimatum, Live Free or Die Hard, Hostel Part II
Most improved sequels: 28 Weeks Later, Resident Evil: Extinction, Ocean's 13
Unacceptable sequels: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Shrek the Third, Hannibal Rising, Evan Almighty, Daddy Day Camp, Saw IV (it's a trap!), The Hills Have Eyes 2, Mr. Bean's Vacation, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a Van Damme-less Rush Hour 3, Belle toujours
Sequels to dread: A Mightier Heart, An Even Hotter State, Wild Hogs Can't Be Broken, 400: 4 Furious
Most unfortunate title: Bonded Parallels
Movie that has every chance of being as bad as its title: The Astronaut Farmer
Title most likely to also be a Pat Benetar song: We Own the Night
Much better than it deserved to be: I was expecting a Producers-like grotesquerie, or at best an excessive milking of John Waters' tongue-in-cheek original, but there's something about Adam Shankman's adaptation of the Hairspray musical that's damn infectious. Whether it's Michelle Pfeiffer and Allison Janney's over-the-top elitism, Christopher Walken's surprisingly subdued charm, the dimpled likablity of Amanda Bynes, the fun cameo by Waters as the flasher next door or the enthusiastic abandon with which Nikki Blonsky throws herself into Shankman's spinning, lollipop-sweet streets of Baltimore, the movie commits itself and doesn't slow down for two hours, at the end of which it launches into a vertiginous 20-minute final number. I'm not saying anyone should run out right now and pick it up, but Hairspray is successful at just being what it is - except of course when John Travolta, whose ineffective wax nightmare of a drag hag must have made Divine vomit in his coffin, is on screen.
Biggest surprise of the year: I'm no fan of The Squid and the Whale so it's bizarre that I really liked Margot at the Wedding, which shares a lot of the same problems. Noah Baumbach's mash-up of Eric Rohmer, JD Salinger and Persona seemed a doomed undertaking but actually plays fresh. Baumbach's not really perceptive or subtle. He's better at scenarios than he is overall story, which is why the little moments of Squid didn't amount to much beyond its neglectful parents, sibling rivalry, blunt sex talk and sex-based insults, characters with stuffy literary pretensions and a son's incestuous crush on his mother. For some reason these risky inclusions felt at home in Margot, which isn't hurt by great performances all around. Yes even Nicole Kidman, who gives an actual performance as a woman who's been manipulating others for so long she's managed to fool herself into thinking she's still in control when she's no good at it anymore. I'm actually surprised this one wasn't the runaway hit Squid was: it's a tremendous leap forward, which (again) doesn't feel like anything's been improved, just that it's been polished. Other surprises: Cassandra's Dream, a sort of Woody-ized Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, by far the best of his "London Trilogy" despite a sloppy third act (based on this and In Bruges Colin Farrell should always play a manchild wrecked with guilt over a murder.) And Richard Shepard, who's quickly becoming the king of scenes with two dudes sitting in a hotel room drinking, scored another passable entertainment with The Hunting Party, his Bosnian-reporters-on-the-make follow-up to The Matador (which was also a good follow-up for Richard Gere after 2006's above-average The Hoax, which I also saw and liked this year.)Movie I'm outright appalled to admit I actually liked: Beowulf, even though I kept waiting for the dialogue to stop so I could play my turn.
Biggest disappointment: I guess I'm not sure what I was expecting from a three-hour Bob Dylan movie, and while I'm Not There is far from terrible it plays like The Best of Todd Haynes versus The Worst of Todd Haynes. The stuff closest to a straight-up bio of the singer himself - the Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett sequences - aren't so good, and the stuff further removed - the Ledger/Gainsbourg romance and Richard Gere western scenes - are entrancing, but feel like they belong in another movie (weirdly, that's the exact opposite of what I was expecting.) Most of the time I felt like I was wading through Haynes' trash can looking for the really good stuff he threw away, and a magical moment or two does surface (I'm thinking of the whale under the bridge and the haunting rendition of "Going to Alcapulco" during the weird post-flood funeral.) It's too Velvet Goldmine and not enough Superstar. I'm also miffed that Haynes neglected to include the Masked and Anonymous-era Dylan. Still, not terrible just...conflicted.Other disappointments: American Gangster, Broken English, Superbad, Angel-A, The Ten, Who's Your Caddy?
I wish there were no more attempts to find "the next Harry Potter": The Golden Compass, The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, Bridge to Terabithia, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep and the upcoming Spiderwick Chronicles
I wish there were some way these movies could be boats that would drown and kill everyone on board: The Ex with Zach Braff and Amanda Plummer, Good Luck Chuck with Dane Cook and Jessica Alba, The Nanny Diaries with Sco-Jo and Paul Giamatti
I wish there was a cookbook for life: No Reservations
Best ending: "No, it's for me" (The Lives of Others - RIP Ulrich Mühe)
Worst ending: "I drink your milkshake!" (There Will Be Blood)
Best villain (5-way tie): Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men), Anton Ego (Ratatouille), Semyon (Easten Promises), Simon Skinner (Hot Fuzz) and Billy Mitchell (The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters)
Most offensive theft: Richard Kelly's use of Mulholland Drive chanteuse Rebekah Del Rio like she was his discovery. She sings the "Star Spangled Banner," because Southland Tales is about politics and shit - don't you get it man?
Still not entirely sure this movie wasn't a joke: National Treasure: Book of Secrets (and yes I saw it, it was very real)
Best character name: P.I. Staker, Hot Fuzz
Worst character name: Topsy Kretts, The Number 23
Worst case of Futro in a movie: Space garden, a'la Silent Running, in Sunshine
Best two reasons to sit through a movie: Marisa Tomei in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Who knew?
Best death: (tie) The kid getting his throat slit amidst the oblivious parade of football fans in Eastern Promises and the ultra-meticulous corporate whack on Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton
Worst death: Quentin Tarantino in Planet Terror, whose testicle-melting and wood splinter through the eye still wasn't nearly as painful as having to sit through Death Proof.
Most shocking death: I'd say No Country for Old Men but I'd already read the book, so I'll go with either the surprisingly successful hit on Kevin Bacon's family in Death Sentence or the non-wuss out ending of The Mist.
Standout joke of the year: "Give him a minute, son. Dewey Cox needs to think about his entire life before he plays." Tim Meadows sticks it to Walk the Line in Walk Hard
Standout lame joke of the year: Dane Cook's repulsion over fucking a fat chick in Good Luck Chuck. As long as he's making movies, he'll own this category.
Definitely not the worst movie of the year: Though far from great, I Know Who Killed Me certainly didn't deserve the record Razzie wins, Lohan-bashing and unfair categorization with the so-called "torture porn" titles. With its noir-ish neon blues*, seedy surreralism, amputated body parts and twin stigmata, this surprisingly engaging dark fairy tale walks down David Lynch alley with a stop in Dario Argento's backyard. The unseasoned Chris Sivertson may make the occasional bad director's choice, but keeps first-time screenwriter Jeff Hammond's script intriguingly oblique. Had the movie been made by John Dahl and featured a more interesting young actress like Anna Paquin or Shannyn Sossamon, it might have been a classic. Sure it never really rises beyond its twisty cable movie-leanings, but it never bites off more than it can chew. Seriously everyone, go pick on Georgia Rule instead.*It's well-shot by John R Leonetti, who lends his DP skills when he's not busy directing straight to video classics like Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and The Butterfly Effect 2
Just in case I needed a reminder that Curtis Hanson is no auteur: Lucky You
Standout performances: Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Gone Baby Gone), Tadanobu Asano (Sad Vacation), the cast of No Country for Old Men except Beth Grant, Dany Boon (My Best Friend), Vincent Cassel (Eastern Promises), Chris Cooper (Breach), Kate Dickie (Red Road), Albert Finney (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, The Bourne Ultimatum), Romola Garai (Angel), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Lookout), Angelica Huston (The Darjeeling Limited), Ana Katz (The Stray Girlfriend), Patton Oswalt and Peter O'Toole (Ratatouille), Maria Pankratz (Silent Light), Ryan Reynolds (The Nines), Molly Shannon (The Year of the Dog), Imelda Staunton and Evanna Lynch (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)
Performance of the year: Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone
Breakout performance of the year: Michael Shannon in Bug
Most surprising performance: Nicole Kidman, who actually acts in Margot at the Wedding instead of just getting into a car accident on set
Most Jamie Lee Curtis-esque performance: Vera Farmiga in Joshua
The Robert Mitchum-in-Backfire Award for Most "So It's Come to This" Performance: Robert De Niro as a closet cross-dressing sky pirate in Stardust
Runner-up: Michael Caine, who has apparently accepted and approved Jude Law contractually replacing him in all his old movies, appearing next to him in the Laurence Olivier role of Kenneth Branagh's Sleuth remake, almost as bad as his appearing in Stallone's Get Carter
Worst performances of the year: Halle Berry (Perfect Strangers, Things We Lost in the Fire), Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen (The Number 23), John Cusack (1408), Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), Ben Foster (30 Days of Night, Alpha Dog), Jake Gyllenhaal (Rendition, Zodiac), Shia LaBeouf (Disturbia, Transformers), Ellen Page (Juno, The Tracey Fragments), Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo (Reservation Road), John Travolta (Hairspray, Lonely Hearts), Frank Whaley (Vacancy), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Death Defying Acts)
Stinkiest performance: Sharon Stone in a fat suit in Alpha Dog, a truly hard blow to acting in film
Most disappointing performance: Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl
Most overrated performance: Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
Genius most in need of Josh Brolin's agent: Jeffery Wright, who seemed to have things going on a few years back but now he's Mr. Exposition in the fucking Invaders? And when's Little Scarlet happening?
Best cameo: Peter Jackson as Santa and Cate Blanchett in Hot Fuzz (special mention: Bruce Campbell as Chicken Bittle in Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters)
Weirdest cameo: Luke Wilson as yet another guy with bad teeth in 3:10 to Yuma. Maybe he's gone into hiding after The Wendell Baker Story.
Headscratcher of the year: Julie Delpy directing a film and casting ADAM GOLDBERG as her boyfriend. WTF??
Filmmaker of the year: Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Filmfucker of the year: Jason Reitman, Juno
Great moments in film 2008
The determined dog in No Country for Old Men
The flying dog in Son of Rambow
Cat fight in hospital hallway (Import/Export)
Both of the less-than-spectacular heists in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Eli Roth and Edgar Wright's respective Grindhouse trailers
The Hotel Chevalier
Peter Parker gets dark, goes emo (Spiderman 3)
Anna Faris philosophizes on President Garfield (Smiley Face)
Michelangelo hangs up his turtle head (TMNT)
Shizuka's dance of grief (Sukiyaki Western Django)
Jonah Hill's Ghostbusters lunchbox of penis drawings (Superbad)
Jason Scott Lee translating for the Dragon in Balls of Fury
The Sandford police department enjoys a slice of Black Forest gateau in Hot Fuzz
Ben Wade sings "Arizona Killer" in 3:10 to Yuma
Glen and Marketa sing "Falling Slowly" in Once
Marjane sings "Eye of the Tiger" in Persepolis
Justin Timberlake lip-syncs "All These Things That I've Done" in Southland Tales
"It was a goof!" Ken Marino in The Ten
"No, Spiderman, don't do it!" Kid warns Spidey not to plant one on Gwen Stacy in front of Mary Jane (Spiderman 3)
"Your wife did not die, she left you because you were fooling around with other women - confess!" Werner Herzog improvising in Mister Lonely
"And if I don't like his attitude I will slit that phildoodle so deep he will flop on the floor like a fish!" Brad Pitt's freak-out in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Ruby Dee tells Denzel "You don't kill cops," in American Gangster
Chris Cooper tells feds "Guns won't be necessary," in Breach
"Please say hello to me" - a surprising moment of humanity in the otherwise horrible CG monstrosity I Am Legend
The Saeko Search Party completes its mission (Sad Vacation)
Crackhouse raid, Gone Baby Gone
American feds Heat up Saudi Arabia: the final balls-out daytime chase and gun fight of The Kingdom
The intense nighttime car ambush in the rain, We Own the Night
The Mennonite ice cream shop in Silent Light
Anton Ego tastes the Ratatouille
Benoît Magimel's jog up onto the stage in La Fille coupee en deux
The look Elias Koteas gives Jake Gyllenhaal as he pounds on the glass at the Vallejo station late at night (Zodiac)
Ben Kingsley gives corpse an enthusiastic thumbs-up after scoring a date with Tea Leoni (You Kill Me)
McClane shoots through his wound to get the bad guy (Live Free or Die Hard)
Denzel chases a perp...who's IN THE PAST! (Déjà vu)
Carrot fu in Shoot 'Em Up
Jet Li's twin packages at the end of War
Tony Todd - and Jack Cracker - in Hatchet
Harold Perrineau Jr. uses his helicopter blade to carve up a horde of infected (28 Weeks Later)
Philip Seymour Hoffman's pathetic, methodical wrecking of his apartment in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Best scene of the year: Bare bathhouse brouhaha (Eastern Promises)
Top 10 DVDs
1. The Charles Burnett Collection
2. Berlin Alexanderplatz (criterion)
3. O Lucky Man!
4. Army of Shadows (criterion)
5. Blade Runner: 25th Anniversary limited suitcase edition
6. Sans Soleil/La Jetee (criterion)
7. if… (criterion)
8. The Films of Kenneth Anger Vol 1 & 2
9. Cruising
10. The Monster Squad
Notable DVD extra: The amusing "Jennifer Tilly" outtakes on I Know Who Killed Me
Things to look forward to in 2007:
No more Mumblecore movies
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Some possibly great comic book movies: Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Louis Leterrier's Hulk, Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky
Claire Denis' White Material
X-Files sequel (I want to believe!)
Rob Cohen's Mummy sequel
Bad Biology (allegedly 90% finished!)
"What I have are a very particular set of skills. I will look for you. I will find you. I will kill you." Liam Neeson in Taken
On the fence:
The American Funny Games
David Ayers' Street Kings
The Coens' Burn After Reading
Steven Soderbergh's The Argentine
Greg McIean's Wolf Creek follow-up Rogue ("How fast can you swim?")
WALL-E (Pixar's Short Circuit?)
My Blueberry Nights - written by Lawrence Block, directed by Wong Kar-Wait…starring Jude Law and Natalie Portman
Gus Van Sant's been on such a hot streak I kind of cringe at the idea of him helming the latest "bringing-the-Sean-Penn" biopic. Really? Penn as Harvey Milk?
Things to dread in 2008:
More Mumblecore movies
Another goddamn Saw
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Part Deux
Pang Brothers' American remake of Bangkok Dangerous
M Night Shyamalan's Happening (yeah, maybe in 1999!)
Tony Scott in general (allegedly remaking Taking of Pelham 123 and The Warriors)
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