Film & BooksIssue: Taurus 08
The Best Films of 2007
April and May are notoriously bad months to go to the movies. The Academy Award hopefuls of 2008 won't be released until the fall, and the summer blockbusters won't be out for a few months. So what is a film reviewer to do when all the movies in the theaters are lame? This reviewer is going to suggest that you catch up on the best movies of 2007!
Thankfully, Film Comment, the Film Society of Lincoln Center's renowned cinematic journal, has published their extended readers' poll list of the top 50 films of 2007. There are films on the list that I haven't seen yet, so I can't vouch for them all. However, of the films on the list that I have seen, my favorites are:
Michael Clayton
It is my opinion that "Michael Clayton" was the best film of 2007. The screenplay was extremely good, the characters were well developed, the acting was superb, and the subject matter was timely. Is there a single one of us that hasn't betrayed our own integrity to please others or to get ahead? I found this story to be a very profound one.
Ratatouille
Even if you don’t have kids, see “Ratatouille,” the latest animated film from Pixar. Totally entertaining and visually transporting, this movie is a winning combination of fantastic writing and flawless animation. If you do have kids, all of you will be transfixed.
Into the Wild
After seeing this film, I cried for a week, literally. Not because this true story was so tragic, but because the main character, ChrisMcCandless, reminded me of myself and many of my friends from college. His utopian vision of "how things should be" and the crushing reality of "how things really are" broke his heart and sent him on a journey to find peace. Perhaps this a coming of age story about those unique characters in the world who cannot quite make it over that hump.
Film & Books Archives (total entries: 28)
Sagittarius 08 & Honest Self Expression
Scorpio 08 - The Money Issue
Honestly, I have never been one for self-help books, but what I liked most about "How We Choose to Be Happy" is that it celebrates the wisdom of a variety of literary greats balanced by the stories of ordinary people.
This book won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction for good reason. I started the “The Great Man” on Saturday morning and had to finish it by lunch the next day. When it started to rain I traded my lawn chair for the couch and kept on reading. This novel is fabulously funny, mischievous, and easy to read.
A quirky look at boyhood and film-making in the 1980s, “Son of Rambow” is a welcome diversion from the current deluge of blockbuster remakes and super hero epics in theaters this summer. Written and directed by Garth Jennings and produced by Nick Goldsmith, I like the way this film spins a standard, winning movie formula at a slightly awkward angle.
Although “The Maytrees” by Annie Dillard is marketed as a novel, it reads from beginning to end as a poem. Like body surfing, the poetry will move emotions in directions that the mind may not understand. When this wave brought me to shore, I needed air and I wasn’t quite certain where I had been or where I had landed, but I was, in the truest sense of the word, in awe of the experience I just had.
After an unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, Greg Mortenson stumbled into the village of Korphe in Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya region. The generosity and hospitality of the Korphe villagers inspired Mortenson to establish the Central Asia Institute (CAI). Since the establishment of CAI ten years ago, the organization has built 55 schools serving Pakistan and Afghanistan’s poorest children, especially girls.
Based on Marjane Satrapi's books, the film “Persepolis” tells the poignant story of a young girl coming of age in Iran in the midst of revolution and war.
This book grabs the reality of life with two hands and shakes it upside down. Those who appear to be physically beautiful and those whose eloquence is often over-beautified, are the most repulsive characters. “On Beauty” is about being real, about dealing with life, and about the need to reexamine what “living” really means.
