Entertainment, Movies - Marine Corps Times

Top 10 of ’07

The year just past was a curiously tepid one. Although the movie industry looks like it will end up with a healthy box-office gross, the number of movies that caused measurable, sustained excitement seemed low, especially in the summer season.

Still, a smattering of gems can always be found in the slag. Here are 10 films that go into the books as my favorites of 2007, along with a few notable bombs.

1. 300 — Yes, it took liberties with the actual record. So what? Burnished with the rich, computer-generated hues of the graphic novel from which it was born, this testosterone-soaked account of the 300 Spartans who held off a massive Persian army in 480 B.C. at Thermopylae flat-out rocked. “This … is … SPARTAAAA!”

2. American Gangster — Denzel Washington is my odds-on Oscar favorite for his nuanced portrayal of a homegrown archetype: Frank Lucas, ruler of a Harlem heroin empire in the early 1970s, the kind of outlaw who Americans hate to love — but do anyway.

3. I Am Legend — Will Smith is the last human left alive after a cataclysmic plague, save for a few million vampirelike ghouls bent on hunting him down and having him for lunch. Shocks that make you jump out of your seat.

4. No Country for Old Men — The Coen Brothers put their imprint on Cormac McCarthy’s lean, powerful examination of the inexorably rising tide of violence in America. Josh Brolin finds his breakout role, and Javier Bardem makes the best screen psycho since Anthony Hopkins.

5. Eastern Promises — Viggo Mortensen, who has never given an uninteresting performance, turns in a beauty in this moody, intriguing film as a soldier for a London-based Russian mafia outfit who is not what he seems.

6. 3:10 to Yuma — Christian Bale and Russell Crowe are like two pieces of flint striking sparks in this powerful remake of the classic 1957 Western. Crowe is a murderous outlaw and Bale is the rancher who tries to escort him to jail. The rare remake that improves on the original.

7. Michael Clayton — George Clooney reminds us of how well he can act when not loafing in smirk mode, as a law-firm “fixer” sucked into a multibillion-dollar legal battle over a chemical company’s deadly cover-up. The climactic confrontation is a killer.

8. The Simpsons Movie — The model American family finally hits the big screen, as Homer destroys, then saves, his hometown. With the year’s most memorable cameo, by Spider-Pig.

9. Hot Fuzz — “Die Hard” meets “Monty Python” in this wry Brit comedy about a superstar London cop (Simon Pegg) involuntarily reassigned to a sleepy rural village and partnered with a slovenly goofball (Nick Frost).

10. Hairspray — John Waters’ slyly offbeat plea for tolerance, set in early-’60s Baltimore, finds a fresh groove on the big screen, with irresistible Nikki Blonsky leading the charge against the uptight older generation. If any movie in 2007 could be described as “feel-good,” this is it.

Honorable mentions — “Live Free or Die Hard”; “In the Valley of Elah”; “The Bourne Ultimatum”; “Gone Baby Gone”; “Superbad”; “28 Weeks Later.”

Bombs

Of course, every year has its share of stink bombs. Three that made me gag in 2007:

Norbit — It’s getting harder and harder to remember when Eddie Murphy was funny. I couldn’t take 15 minutes of this ghastly mess — even watching it for free on cable.

Because I Said So — Diane Keaton turns in the most manic, screeching, irritating work of her career, and that’s saying something. A jaw-dropping train wreck from start to finish.

Sleuth — Michael Caine and Jude Law waste their talents in this psychological glop, which had the most incomprehensible and unsatisfying ending of the year.

Shout-outs

Favorite line: “Why does everything I whip leave me?” — Homer Simpson, “The Simpsons Movie.”

Favorite fight scene: A naked Viggo Mortensen battling two fully clothed, knife-wielding thugs in a Russian bathhouse in “Eastern Promises.”

Favorite sighting of national treasure Christopher Walken: The arch-fiend Feng in the loopy “Balls of Fury.”

Favorite guilty pleasure: Milla Jovovich in “Resident Evil: Extinction.”

Franchises that should be put out of their misery: “Saw IV”; “Shrek the Third”; “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem”; “Rush Hour 3”; “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.”

Favorite stunt: “Live Free or Die Hard.” Launching a cop car into the air to take out a low-flying chopper? Yes, that was pretty freakin’ cool.

DISCUSS: Your picks and pans