There were a few surprises to the year.  Mainly I'm surprised to find that two of my most anticipated films didn't end up on my best list.  No Country for Old Men was a film that I expected to love.  I liked it, but felt that it was far from the Coen brothers at their peak.  Apparently, I'm alone in that assessment.  Inland Empire was an event film for me.  I LOVE David Lynch's work, so you can imagine my pain when I realized that his three-hour fever dream was one of the most mind-numbingly boring movies I've ever seen.

But enough with the disclaimers and my blabbering, here it is, in no particular order, the best and worst films (that I managed to see) of 2007.

BEST

Behind the Mask:  The Rise of Leslie Vernon

I don't know that I saw a more clever or subversively funny movie this year.  Scott Glosserman's sly deconstruction of the slasher film was given a pitiful one-week release back in March.  I know that most of you didn't see it, hell most of you probably have never heard of it, but find it on DVD and treasure it.  It's funny, creepy and never short of purely entertaining.  More comedy and horror directors could learn a thing or two from watching this one. 

Zodiac

I know, I know.  It's too long.  It goes into too many details about the case.  It moves too slowly.  I heard all of those criticisms and more.  And you know what?  I didn't care, because this was an enthralling portrait of self-destructive obsession that kept me constantly amazed.  Of course, kudos to David Fincher and screenwriter James Vanderbilt for assuming the audience was smart enough to keep up.  But special recognition has to be paid to cinematographer Harris Savides.  This was a beautiful picture that was atmospheric and flawlessly recreated the look of all those great 70's conspiracy films.  It also frustrates me to no end that so many people would ignore a smart, complex film with a great cast.  Come on people!  You can have all the Adam Sandler films you want, but please just check out something that exercises your brain every now and again.  You might like it.

Ratatouille

From now on, all animated films should be written and directed by Brad Bird.  Even if the story hadn't been sweet and funny, this would have been a great film on a purely visual level.  The artists at Pixar really stepped it up a notch on this one to create a perfectly realized world that made me feel like I was in the movie, not only watching it.  The great script was just icing on the cake. 

The Mist

Best Stephen King adaptation ever.  Maybe that sounds like I'm damning it with faint praise, but I'm not.  This little B-movie is ferocious in its intensity and dedication to character.  Sure, it gets a little preachy with some of the dialogue and the monsters don't always look that great, but both those flaws are easily over-looked.  This film never gives you a break and features an ending that's the exact opposite of most Hollywood cop-out denouements.  This is genre filmmaking at its finest.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Sidney Lumet's best film since the days of Network and Dog Day Afternoon.  Darkly funny, suspenseful and ultimately heartbreaking, this is what it looks like when a master director is at work.  Of course, a lot of credit goes to the amazing performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman.  It might be the best performance of his career, which is saying something.  A great actor for a great director in a great film.

Waitress

You have to love any movie that features a woman writing a letter to her unborn child that begins with the words, "Dear, Damn Baby."  Writer-director-costar Adrienne Shelly has created a funny and touching fairy tale that is always generous to its characters but never lets them take the easy way out of the problems they create for themselves.  Keri Russell was the perfect mixture of adorable and prickly in the title role and Nathan Fillion displayed a knack for romantic comedy that I never knew he possessed.

Juno

What can I say that hasn't already been said about this little gem of a movie?  Pretty much everything you've heard is true.  The script by Diablo Cody, while overly wordy and full of quips never rings a false note and the cast is probably the best ensemble of the year.  After her amazing work in Hard Candy and this film, Ellen Page seals her status as the great actress of her generation.  She lets the audience see the vulnerability beneath her sarcastic exterior with nothing more than a subtle look.  Holding his own, Michael Cera continues to show himself a master of the deadpan performance.  His stillness is the perfect counterpoint to Page's rapid-fire delivery.  This was probably my favorite theater experience of the year.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

I know that this documentary about two men struggling to be the greatest Donkey Kong player in the world sounds like a Christopher Guest film.  And it is funny and outrageous at times, but it's also a moving portrait of one man driven to be the best at anything.  It was easily the best David vs. Goliath story put to film in 2007 and I'm not embarrassed to say that when the final credits rolled and the theater lights came up, I had tears in my eyes.  Go ahead, mock me, but I dare you to watch this and not feel a flood of emotion at the end.

Knocked Up

Perhaps the real talent to Judd Apatow is his ability to surround himself with truly talented people.  Like he did with The 40-Year-Old Virgin, he successfully uses the natural charm of his leading man (in this case, Seth Rogen who's primed for stardom) and surrounds him with his usual stock company of comic talents.  While Paul Rudd displays his dry wit and Katherine Heigl shows she can play something other than a hot doctor (hot E! reporter), it's Leslie Mann who steals every scene she's in.  Blowing through this film like a hurricane of pent-up frustrations, she takes what could have been an annoying shrew of a character and turns her into a funny and emotionally vulnerable woman who gets off some of the more foul-mouthed one-liners in the script.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters

Nobody is more surprised than me that this made my list.  I'm a casual fan of the show, and have always enjoyed it when I've caught it.  But I've always assumed that it worked best in that 11-minute format.  Any more of its anarchic humor would eventually lose its impact and become a dull, headache-inducing mess.  Boy, was I wrong.  Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro take the adventures of Frylock, Master Shake, Meatwad and Carl to surprising comic heights, never once losing momentum and keeping the one-liners, comic violence and sheer absurdity at a pedal to the metal pace.  One of the funniest movies I saw this year.

Hot Fuzz

Not quite as good as Shaun of the Dead, but that still doesn't keep this one off the list.  Simon Pegg and Nick Frost deliver as expected, but it's the supporting cast (made up of seemingly every living British character actor) that steals the show.  Director Edgar Wright accurately captures the silly, yet bloodthirsty style of the American action film, creating a spoof that's not afraid to wallow in the same self-indulgence as the movies that it's sending up.

Fay Grim

I think I was the only person in the world to give this a good review.  And I still say that I'm right and everyone else is wrong.  While not quite as good as Henry Fool, Hal Hartley's sequel to his masterpiece is a hip, funny star vehicle for Parker Posey to show us why she was the indie "it girl" of the nineties.  Personally, I can't wait for Simon Grim to get his own movie and finish off the story.

Joshua

This should have been subtitled: Portrait of a Budding Sociopath.  What could have been an unwatchable exercise in nihilism was turned into a slow-burn thriller as the titular child puts the wheels in motion to get rid of the family that he sees as holding him back.  Jacob Kogan is eerily deadpan as Joshua, Vera Farmiga gets to go nuts (again) and Sam Rockwell waltzes away with the movie as an ineffectual father and husband who sees what his child is, but is much too late to stop him.

HONORABLE MENTION 

30 Days of Night                              Charlie Wilson's War

Bug                                                       Superbad

Grindhouse                                        Death at a Funeral

Shoot ÔEm Up                                   Eastern Promises

The Darjeeling Limited

I Know Who Killed Me (Scoff if you must, I thought it was good, sleazy fun.)

Spider-Man 3 (Just ignore the "bad" Peter Parker stuff and it's a fun ride.)

FILMS I MISSED (BUT I SWEAR I'LL CATCH THEM IN THE NEW YEAR) THAT MIGHT HAVE CHANGED THE LOOK OF MY BEST LIST

Atonement                                        Gone Baby Gone                  The Host 

The Lookout                                      Reign Over Me                         Breach   

Away From Her                               There Will Be Blood                 Once

Sweeney Todd                                  1408                                          Michael Clayton 

Rescue Dawn                                   The Savages                          Talk to Me

Persepolis                                         Sunshine

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

I don't see a movie unless it interests me at least a little bit.  I'm telling you this to explain why my worst list is so short.  I'm sure there were worse films than the following released this year, but these are the films that piqued my interest, only to prove disappointing.

WORST

Reno 911!: Miami

All you have to do to realize there is nothing funnier than bleeped profanity and blurred nudity is look to the late, great Arrested Development.  As a TV show, Reno 911 also uses these devices to usually entertaining comic effect.  That's why it was such a disappointment to see the usually talented cast of regulars and celebrity cameo players stop trying to be funny and rely on the overuse of the word "fuck."  I'm not trying to be a prude and I probably wouldn't have noticed the gratuitousness of this particular choice if the movie had managed to generate a fair amount of laughs.  Unfortunately, this lazy production settled for recycling old bits from the show and running gags that were lame at best.

Wind Chill

I hate to kick a horror film that tried to favor atmosphere over cheap shocks and gore, but this effort was just a lazy rehash of old clichŽs.  The first act felt like being trapped in a car with two very unlikable peopleÉoh wait, that was the first act of this film.  Once the supernatural events kick in, things just gets worse.  A few cheap jump scares and an ending that makes next to no sense wrapped up the reason this saw such a limited release.

Civic Duty

This wanted to be a throwback to the gritty paranoia thrillers of the seventies, but came across as the hack final of a pretentious film student.  It's a damn shame, because this wasted a great cast that really tried to make the pathetic script work.

Southland Tales

Like Juno, just about everything you read about this film is true.  Unlike Juno, it never engages the audience and serves up one-dimensional sketches of characters instead of living, breathing human beings that the audience can care about.  Looking back on my review of this utter train-wreck of a movie, I think I held back in my criticism due to my love for Donnie Darko.  Well, shame on me for pulling my punches, but a big raspberry to Richard Kelly for unleashing such an utterly hopeless mess on the world.

Underdog

I went into this with the attitude that if I could just forget about the cartoon series that I loved so much as a six-year-old, it might not be a bad film for the kids.  Of course, they lead off the film with about a minute's worth of wonderfully goofy footage from the series.  The rest of the movie never stands a chance.  While Peter Dinklage and Patrick Warburton give it everything they've got, they're no match for this insipid dumbing down of an already simple concept.

Hatchet

The filmmakers behind this indie-horror film proudly wear their love of old school slasher flicks like Madman or the myriad Friday the 13^th sequels on their sleeves.  And they do a pretty good job of replicating that type of movie.  The problem is, those movies are terrible.  I've spent the better part of my adult life trying to forget the obnoxious, one-note characters of those films and in less than 90 minutes, this putrid excuse for a horror film brought all of those memories back.  This was easily the dumbest and most excruciatingly annoying film I saw last year.

Hostel: Part II

You know, I liked the first Hostel.  Sure, it was juvenile and the entire third act was so far beyond ridiculous that I needed a compass to find my way back to reality, but there was an element of subversive satire at work.  With the follow-up, Eli Roth destroyed all of the good will he had gained with me and delivered a by the numbers sequel that was sickening in its misogynistic overtones.  I'm not trying to be Mr. Political Correctness here, but there's a lot less fun to be had with a movie about women being mercilessly slaughtered than watching a couple of chauvinistic frat guys get their somewhat deserved comeuppance.  Even worse, this movie was flat-out boring with dismal acting and a laughable attempt at giving depth to the villains.

Inland Empire

This one really hurts.  Nearly three hours in length, this sucker just rambles from one boring scene to the next.  Every hour or so, Lynch pulls off a truly disturbing visual to tease the audience that the film might come to life, but it never does.  Even worse than the meandering, sleep-inducing pace was the DV photography.  Apparently Lynch feels that this muddy, blurry look is the future of cinema.  Maybe he's right or maybe he just needs a stronger prescription in his glasses.  I still love the bulk of David Lynch's films.  I still think he's a genius and geniuses are allowed to take chances and fail miserably.  I just hope that the next time that happens, he keeps the running time down to 90 minutes or so.

FILMS I (THANKFULLY) MISSED THAT MIGHT HAVE CHANGED THE LOOK OF MY WORST LIST

 

Delta Farce                          Good Luck Chuck                          License to Wed

Norbit                                  Captivity                                       Daddy Day Camp         

The Invasion                       The Game Plan                             The Brothers Solomon

The Hitcher                         Mr. Woodcock                               Epic Movie                         

The Comebacks                  Wild Hogs                                     Alvin and the Chipmunks