Every Movie I See in 2007

Regular readers know that last year I maintained a blog entry that included every movie I watched in 2006 in the theatre–all 63 of them.

It’s a new year, and time to start a new list:

Little Children – 7/10 – Movies portray the suburbs in one of two ways. If it’s a movie about teenagers–from American Graffiti to Brick, then they’re a boring wasteland where nothing happens. If it’s a movie about adults, then the suburbs are rife with secret freaks. Little Children is in the latter category, and it’s cleverly written and superbly acted. Unfortunately, in plot and theme, it covers much of the same territory of Sam Mendes’s superior American Beauty. So much so that I can’t imagine why director Todd Field bothered to make this film.

Children of Men – 9/10 – It’s based on P. D. James’s book, who normally writes crime novels. It’s no shock, then, that this film is tense, pacey and consistently surprising. Clive Owen and Michael Caine offer great performances, and I really dug the way direct Alfonso Cuarón subjugates the sci-fi for the story. There’s an incredibly moving scene near the end of this film which, if handled less deftly, could have been hilariously goofy.

Pan’s Labrynth (Laberinto del Fauno, El) – 9.5/10 – Why do the Spanish do magic realism better than anybody else? I don’t know, but I fell in love with this film’s tone and humility. It tells a small but deeply creative story, and was gloriously unpredictable. 13-year-old Ivana Baquero was far more deserving of an Oscar nomination than Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin.

Eragon – 3.5/10 – I already wrote about how utterly derivative this movie is. There’s not a single original notion in this by-the-numbers sword and sorcery affair, and the acting is pretty dubious. John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons ought to know better, and the rest of the cast looks lost in the subpar CG. Just watch Star Wars again instead.