The Film Experience Year in Review: Best of 2007

Awards Page Index * OSCAR coverage here
2007 Year in Review
Introduction / Underappreciated & Honorable Mentions / Top Ten
by Nathaniel R January 6th, 2008

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All right, all right. I know what you're here for. The Lists!

Underappreciated Films
they didn't get enough love from audiences and/or critics

#5 Any film with subtitles. The highest grossing foreign language film this year (unless I missed something) was The Lives of Others which won an Oscar last February, beating 2006's top foreign grosser Pan's Labyrinth. It didn't beat it at the box office, though. The Lives of Others reached a low 8 figures stateside with $11 million. That's as close to a "blockbuster" as foreign films saw this year. Amelies, Il Postinos and Crouching Tigers seem rarer than before. It's easy to imagine Pan's Labyrinth doing bigger numbers a few years back, too. I'm not sure what the problem is exactly. In this shrinking world you'd think that different tongues and storytelling styles wouldn't scare audiences away anymore. You'd also think that fear of subtitles would've gone the way of the dinosaur. After all, subtitles appear regularly on hit television shows (Lost, Heroes, etcetera) now. So where are the crossovers?

I'm not sure what the problem is --or why my own attention drifted this year --but I hope it changes. Moviegoers (and I include myself here since I'm still playing catch up) missed out on some pretty entertaining films this year as a result. Other than Diving Bell and Butterfly and 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days (which basically just started their runs) my five favorites were: Black Book, The Host, Lady Chatterley, Lust Caution (more on that one later) and Ten Canoes. Together they made only $12 million in the US combined or less than the first day gross of Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider. No matter what language you speak, you don't need subtitles to understand my tears. Seriously, America. What the hell?

#4 Speaking of that ever widening box office gap between quality and making bank... At the risk of simplifying I think the problem boils down to this: a lack of moviegoer curiousity. We flock to movies we've seen the entire plot of (They've done studies on those spoiling trailers. They sell). We support increasingly artless franchises.

Playful experiments like Grindhouse and I'm Not There (an odd pairing I know) are dead in the water in this climate of "don't surprise me!" moviegoing. It's a crying shame. I only loved half of Grindhouse (Planet Terror half) and I didn't totally connect to the Haynes/Dylan picture but individual reactions are beside the point. Which is: Anyway you slice it, these were must see pictures. Where were the audiences?

#3 The fine Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier made her first English language picture Things We Lost in the Fire and proved once again that she is aces with actors, often directing them to sensitive and in some cases best-ever work. She has an unfortunate eyeball fetish (what's with those macro closeups?) but it comes from a good place: she wants you to look deep inside the damaged souls she aims her cameras at. But damaged souls who don't carry heavy artillery are of little interest to moviegoers these days.

#2 I've been back and forth on writer/actor / director Mike White (Chuck & Buck and The Good Girl) but the uncomfortably funny and deeper than you'd expect Year of the Dog is the kind of movie more filmmakers should make: individual, idiosyncratic and sneakily demanding of its audience, right up to and especially during the ending. Kudos to Molly Shannon for that frozen grin of many colors.

#1 Speaking of not what people were expecting: Bug came buzzing at audiences with a loud, entirely misleading ad campaign. Oh, it's a horror film all right but horror of the soul is generally quieter than the garden variety sort... even when all (internal) hell breaks loose. It's after more than throwaway seat jumping. Bug is based on one of my favorite plays by Tracy Lets whose latest theatrical endeavor August: Osage County (ModFab's rapturous review) is further cementing his rep as one of the best playwrights in the world. It still works best on stage but William Friedkin did an admirable job guiding Ashley 'super mother bug' Judd and Michael Shannon (the original infested Off Broadway stranger) through the paranoid hysteria.

It's well worth a rental. Watch it naked with the lights out. But more importantly, if you ever have the opportunity to see this thing live on stage: do yourself the unforgettable favor.

Special Citations
Undistributed. And Why's That?

Here's the trouble with film festivals: No matter how exhilarating the experience, no matter how moving or fascinating a particular movie can prove, the aftertaste can be bitter and hard to swallow. You mean THIS movie can't get distribution with new crap stinking up the multiplex each and every week of the year? You mean I can tell people over and over how awesome this picture is and they still won't be able to see it?

"Aren't movies meant to be seen?," He cried.

So, due to my Oscar-like rules and regulations (no qualifying Oscar runs... and still no sign of a release date) none of the following three pictures are eligible for this year's FiLM BiTCH Awards or my own Top Ten list I chose these three because they're the ones that would have certainly snagged a nomination here in one category or another had they been eligible.

Das Fraulein was the best picture I saw at the Indianapolis International Film Festival this past spring. The great Mirjana Karanovic plays a strict business woman navigating her own emotional loosening in the presence of a mysterious young girl she takes in on a whim. The plot isn't The trio of female actresses featured are all terrific and their triangulated relationship is superbly drawn. (prev thoughts)

Secret Sunshine -I'm less enamored of this brutal abusive drama set in South Korea (a foreign film Oscar submission) than some cinephiles but there's no denying the trascendent and complicated central performance from Do-Yeon Jeon (she won Best Actress @ Cannes) and if this movie had found US release she would have surely been one of the Best Actress medalists right here. (prev thoughts)

A Girl Cut In Two -Here in America critics were going crazy for 83 year-old Sidney Lumet's energetic work on Before the Devil Knows You're Dead but if we're talking 'bout old time directors who are still unruly devils behind the camera, I really must speak up for 77 year-old Claude Chabrol whose latest nasty French comedy (?) is about the struggle between two rich infamous men over a beautiful young rising television star. I had a ball watching it. It's beautifully shot by Eduardo Serra (Girl with a Pearl Earring, Blood Diamond) and amusingly costumed by Mic Cheminal (The Flower of Evil). I love the eye candy, don'cha know. And speaking of... Ludivine Sagnier (8 Women, Swimming Pool) is even more delicious than usual and a better actress now, too. But the scene stealer here is the equally drool-worthy Benoît Magimel (The Piano Teacher) who attacks his pampered rich boy role with such delight that his joy is infectious. I would've thrown him a bone right here. By way of a nomination, I mean.

discuss on the blog

continue to
The Top Ten List
in progress

#5 Any film with subtitles. The highest grossing foreign language film this year (unless I missed something) was The Lives of Others which won an Oscar last February, beating 2006's top foreign grosser Pan's Labyrinth. It didn't beat it at the box office, though. The Lives of Others reached a low 8 figures stateside with $11 million. That's as close to a "blockbuster" as foreign films saw this year. Amelies, Il Postinos and Crouching Tigers seem rarer than before. It's easy to imagine Pan's Labyrinth doing bigger numbers a few years back, too. I'm not sure what the problem is exactly. In this shrinking world you'd think that different tongues and storytelling styles wouldn't scare audiences away anymore. You'd also think that fear of subtitles would've gone the way of the dinosaur. After all, subtitles appear regularly on hit television shows (Lost, Heroes, etcetera) now. So where are the crossovers? I'm not sure what the problem is --or why my own attention drifted this year --but I hope it changes. Moviegoers (and I include myself here since I'm still playing catch up) missed out on some pretty entertaining films this year as a result. Other than Diving Bell and Butterfly and 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days (which basically just started their runs) my five favorites were: Black Book, The Host, Lady Chatterley, Lust Caution (more on that one later) and Ten Canoes. Together they made only $12 million in the US combined or less than the first day gross of Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider. No matter what language you speak, you don't need subtitles to understand my tears. Seriously, America. What the hell?
	#4 Speaking of that ever widening box office gap between quality and making bank... At the risk of simplifying I think the problem boils down to this: a lack of moviegoer curiousity. We flock to movies we've seen the entire plot of (They've done studies on those spoiling trailers. They sell). We support increasingly artless franchises. Playful experiments like Grindhouse and I'm Not There (an odd pairing I know) are dead in the water in this climate of "don't surprise me!" moviegoing. It's a crying shame. I only loved half of Grindhouse (Planet Terror half) and I didn't totally connect to the Haynes/Dylan picture but individual reactions are beside the point. Which is: Anyway you slice it, these were must see pictures. Where were the audiences?
#3 The fine Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier made her first English language picture Things We Lost in the Fire and proved once again that she is aces with actors, often directing them to sensitive and in some cases best-ever work. She has an unfortunate eyeball fetish (what's with those macro closeups?) but it comes from a good place: she wants you to look deep inside the damaged souls she aims her cameras at. But damaged souls who don't carry heavy artillery are of little interest to moviegoers these days.
	#2 I've been back and forth on writer/actor / director Mike White (Chuck & Buck and The Good Girl) but the uncomfortably funny and deeper than you'd expect Year of the Dog is the kind of movie more filmmakers should make: individual, idiosyncratic and sneakily demanding of its audience, right up to and especially during the ending. Kudos to Molly Shannon for that frozen grin of many colors.
#1 Speaking of not what people were expecting: *Bug* came buzzing at audiences with a loud, entirely misleading ad campaign. Oh, it's a horror film all right but horror of the soul is generally quieter than the garden variety sort... even when all (internal) hell breaks loose. It's after more than throwaway seat jumping. Bug is based on one of my favorite plays by Tracy Lets whose latest theatrical endeavor August: Osage County (ModFab's rapturous review) is further cementing his rep as one of the best playwrights in the world. It still works best on stage but William Friedkin did an admirable job guiding Ashley 'super mother bug' Judd and Michael Shannon (the original infested Off Broadway stranger) through the paranoid hysteria. It's well worth a rental. Watch it naked with the lights out. But more importantly, if you ever have the opportunity to see this thing live on stage: do yourself the unforgettable favor.