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2007 Film List (1 Viewer)

Adam_S

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Pirates - 9 of 10

Arr! This was great, a fitting end to the story of Will and Elizabeth. Tremendously entertaining and wonderful scenes. Loved the spine tingling opening and the whole tone of the movie was more in the vein of the first film. And I think this movie makes the second movie better in many ways. The marraige ceremony was perhaps my favorite thing about the film. superb. Keira Knightly was unbelievably smoking hot in the entire film. Damn. I like Orlando Bloom a lot more in this film, and Jack as well.

If there was one thing I didn't like it was:
The continuation of the extra Jack's once they've left Davy Jones' locker. I felt those should have been left in perdition, rather than interfering with the story. :P
 

Greg Layton

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I saw Waitress yesterday. It was only the second movie I've seen this year to get 4 stars. Saw it with a packed house and everyone was really into it...

For example, the whole audience burst into applause when Kerri left Earl.

Andy Griffith was great too. :)
 

Holadem

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Added Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Flawed but enjoyable conclusion to the series. Some amazing action in the last hour.

:star::star:1/2/4.

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H
 

Holadem

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Added the utterly charming Waitress. Very short 07 list yet, but this is one of the highlights :emoji_thumbsup:.

:star::star::star:1/2 /4

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H
 

Joe Kamsan

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Added Spider-Man 3, 28 Weeks Later and Zodiac. None will make my year end Top 10, though Zodiac is the best out of that bunch.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Added Knocked Up (and linked to my review), which deserves to be the sleeper hit of the summer. Once again, Apatow has created great characters in a film full to the brim with laughs big and small. The end credits are particularly meaningful, too.:)
 

Greg Layton

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Saw two movies at the local theater this weekend:

Knocked Up :star::star::star: 1/2

I enjoyed this more than the other big comedy of the year, Hot Fuzz. It was consistently funny throughout, and you got a realistic and touching drama to boot. Good stuff.

Mr. Brooks :star::star:

This film started off strong and ran out of steam pretty quick. That being said, it would have garnered a higher rating with a more imaginative... ending. I hate it when movies resort to dreams/nightmares to advance the plot, and especially to end the movie. That's about as big of a cop out as you can possibly have, IMO.
 

Nick C.

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Caught three brilliant films this weekend, Once was a charming musical, Knocked Up surprised me in fulfilling months of critical praise, and Away From Her makes me want to have a 45 year old marriage
 

Adam_S

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Knocked up - 9 of 10

Excellent comedy/drama from Judd Apatow. personally I think universal should committ themselves now to a concerted push for Katherine Heigl for a leading actress nomination. She won't win, but she's definitely good enough, with a strong enough role, to deserve a nomination. It'd be a better than Blanchett sleepwalking through Golden Age doing the same old same old that she did in Elizabeth. But Blanchett will probably get the Universal push, and nobody will think of Heigl (because it's a comedy and therefore not 'awardworthy'), which is a fucking shame.

Wonderful movie that was outstanding from start to finish. It's not perfect but it's a damn brilliant piece of storytelling and I would even say it's the rare comedy that matters because it uses comedy to its full potential in the tradition of Wilder and Sturges rather than just eliciting sitcom puns and slapstick grossouts.
 

Seth Paxton

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I'm trying to get to Knocked Up but I have to wait on the wife for that one. That's about 1 word away from a joke right there. :)

Meanwhile I'm just trying to get back up to speed with things here. Since I was away from this thread:

Oceans 13 - 8.5
Wonderfully artful, plot still silly but Soderbergh and the cast make more of it

Spider-Man 3 - 8
At times this soars to 10 status, but creaky scenes and moments that just go on too long (sand in shoe joke great example of missing the beat) pull it back down. This needed to be 2 films and it needed tons of editing.

Pirates - 7.5
Visually great, characters still fun, but to me it's just not as tight as the first film still. It was better about not over doing the earlier actions scenes like the 2nd film did, but like #2 it did feature yet another odd "on the fly" opening and some pretty convoluted plotting. Fun, but not great.

Shrek 3 - 7.5
Sort of the same issues as Pirates. It's fun, I enjoy being with the characters again, but ultimately it feels a bit worn. Like Pirates, I'd go seen a 4th one but only at a matinee.

And from way back
300 - 7.5
At times I love the sleek and stylish over-the-top approach. At other times it just feels like a huge violence-fetish film (along with other fetishes to be honest). It looks better than it actually is, and while some dialog is enganging it's far more likely to induce groans at times.
 

Holadem

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Because I said so - zero

It is a rare film which gets a zero from me. Pretty simple really: There is nothing about Because I said so that doesn't suck. More, it sucks as a whole. It is altogether awful.

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H
 

Adam_S

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Bumping Pirates 3 down to an 8 after some reflection, a strong movie...

Bridge to Terabithia - 10 of 10

Perfect.

Waitress - 9 of 10

Outstanding.

Andy Griffith should earn a supporting actor nomination and Keri Russell deserves a best actress nom as well. Screenplay, editing, and the other supporting performances in this film were just wonderful.
 

Holadem

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Added Knocked Up, quite possibly the best comedy I have ever seen.

:star::star::star::star: / 4.

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H
 

ZacharyTait

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I'm going to organize my list by star rating (out of 4). If I could, I would see everything every weekend, but time and money prohibit me from doing that.

# of 2007 Films seen: 30

# indicates 1st viewing on DVD

4 Stars
American Gangster
Juno
Knocked Up
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Ratatouille
Superbad
Zodiac

3 1/2 Stars
300
Blades of Glory
Bourne Ultimatium
Bridge to Teribithia #
Charlie Wilson's War
Gone, Baby, Gone
Great Debaters
Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix
The Kingdom #
Ocean's 13
Simpsons Movie
Transformers
Waitress #

3 Stars
Dan in Real Life
Hot Fuzz #
Live Free or Die Hard #
Shoot 'Em Up #

2 1/2 Stars
Spiderman 3

2 Stars
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry #
License to Wed
Number 23 #

1 1/2 Stars


1 Star

1/2 Star

0 Stars
 

Holadem

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Once :star::star::star:

A bittersweet, sparse little romance flick that is bound to be overpraised (best movie of the year! rhaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!) by cynics and critics weary of the Summer of Sequels (97% RT :eek:), but can you blame them? I wasn't really feeling it like I wanted to (I was distracted by the belief that the one other patron 10 seats behind me was a serial killer) until that great recording session performance. The same song (which I intend to acquire) was played over a later montage, and is the best of the film. The rest is OK, I found some of the numbers (a generous expression) a bit too long, but Indie Rock fans should have an absolute blast.

Good performances, very low budget affair too, and the terrible theater where such movies end up in my neck of the woods makes it hard to know if the redish tone and somwehat blurry picture is a feature of the movie or the venue. Still, my theater certainly did not introduce the curious onlookers I found in a couple of scenes.

I did feel Once was too short. Probably because it ended not too long after it finally won me over, leaving me wanting for more. You will walk out with a smile on your face for sure.

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H
 

Adam_S

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Transformers - 8 of 10

The script is adequete, but not spectacular, but the film is tremendously entertaining and delivers that value in spades.

In some ways the script was too convoluted, going too many directions with the military, secdef, hackers and Libeouf, but I also appreciated the complexity of that as well, it was ambitous to not make something as tight and focused and unrealistic as many blockbusters are.

I do think some of the scenes were just silly, such as the Decepticons and autobots attempts to 'hide', but for the most part the film worked.

I was endlessly frustrated that Shia LeBeouf's character managed to miss every single fucking oppurtunity to kiss the girl that he got, and he got about fifteen of them, there at the end either before or after the run he should have got one, Cheesy, definitely, but it's the sort of moment I was expecting and wanting to happen.

The best fight, was Optimus Prime when he cut the Depticon's head off on the freeway interchange, because it was the most clear fight. Starscream's battle with the fighter jets was pretty amazing as well. Also the showdown to bring down the 'tank' decepticon.

I really appreciated the voice used for Optimus Prime, as I wasn't expecting to hear that.

Some of it was fairly ridiculous to talk about though, the Cube and the All Spark, Decepticons and Autobots, these are all very silly terms that is hard to overcome.

But at the same time they did a brilliant job of respecting the original source and making it work within and for the film while doing their own thing with the material.

Shia was actually an excellent lead, and did a great job of anchoring the film, he's definitely got the chops to be more of a superstar but that's still iffy.

I did not expect to really enjoy the film much, but I was stunned at how good it was and how much fun I had. There are a lot of problems with it. Logic holes in terms of location and travelling time, but most all of that is relatively forgiveable.
 

Holadem

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Added the mostly generic Live Free or Die Hard (:star::star:1/2 ) and the riotously entertaining Transformers (:star::star::star:1/2 ).

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H
 

Seth Paxton

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Live Free or Die Hard
8 of 10
This despite some over the top action (esp. the jet stuff). It's right on track with the classic DH formula and plays it pretty well. Doesn't hurt that Willis is actually a really strong actor in my opinion.

Ratatouille
10 of 10
Brilliant animation, dead-on track with Bird's style in Iron Giant and Incredibles in how he directs scenes and likes characters to move and look. Same sense of humor in all 3 films. Great physical comedy combined with some wonderful character moments. O'Toole especially has an outstanding role to work with.


1408
8 of 10
It has a few moments of King being too corny for my taste but mostly it stays tight and true to one premise, a room making Cusak crazy. In that regard it's in the park of the Shining in terms of chills and tension. Cusak plays it well which helps a great deal. It's a nice combo of tension and dread spiced with a few jump scares. I crawled around the seat a few times and I really, really wanted him to get out of that room.


From DVD
Black Snake Moan
8.5 of 10
Much like Hustle and Flow Brewer manages to hide character depth and good-heartedness underneath a top layer of depravity and sexuality. He sneaks in a wholesome story under the guise of pure voyerism. Awesome effort by Ricci, right on par with Monster. Hard to imagine many other actresses able to make this work so well.

It's fanciful in a folk-tale manner (intentional according to the extras) and cannot be taken 100% literally. That leads it to come off as a little silly or sappy from time to time, thus only getting the 8.5. But a very solid effort.


Ghost Rider
5.5
I suppose the film is worse than this, but I just enjoyed the FX and art direction of the character so much that I overlooked the schlock I suppose. Really it's on par with his Daredevil and Elektra efforts, but the Ghost Rider effects and the character itself made it a lot more interesting to me. By the end of the film I was ready to spend more time following Ghost Rider around, in spite of Johnson's cheap looking and hamfisted direction.

Put this troubled character into the hands of a serious director ala Nolan/Batman and you could really knock it out of the park. I expected the GR effects to be the weak link, not the strong point.
 

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