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THE BEAUTIES

*As when Miss California, Miss North Carolina, Miss Texas, Miss New York and Miss Hawaii are announced as the five finalists in the Miss USA Pageant, these finalists for Miss Picture of the Year are listed in no particular order. **Movie studios like to release about 40 Oscar contenders between December 15^th and the 31^st. So, these movies represent the Top Ten of 2007 at press time.

Zodiac (Paramount)

Director David Fincher proves once again that he’s the master of the psychological thriller. While Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. shine in this intense study of how the Zodiac killer terrorized the San Francisco Valley, it’s John Carroll Lynch who steals the show as creepy prime suspect Arthur Leigh Allen. His performance is the most frightening portrayal of a killer since Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.

Grindhouse (Dimension Films)

Oddly enough, the most innovative and original movie of the year is the one that borrows from others the most. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino team up to bring us a Grindhouse double feature. Rodriguez opens the show with Planet Terror, a grotesque, yet laugh-out-loud spoof of the 70’s zombie thriller. Tarantino closes with Death Proof, a sex-charged predator thriller that sports the most exhilarating car chase I have ever seen.

Sicko (Lionsgate)

If Michael Moore ever shows up at your place of business wielding a camera, somebody’s ass is grass. Here he pops on a latex glove, lubes up a finger and points it at our nation’s largest health insurance companies. As always, Moore is hysterical, educational and argumentative. Like him or not, Moore will make you consider the horrifying possibility that the insurance companies we pay to keep us healthy are actually in the business of killing us all. 

Hairspray (New Line Cinema)

If you’re ever going to huff an aerosol, this is the one! Nikki Blonsky gives the breakout performance of the year as Tracy Turnblad, a hefty high-schooler with dreams of bustin’ a move on The Corny Collins Show. Hairspray may be my favorite movie musical of all-time. Director Adam Shankman manages to make you forget you’re watching this musical on screen by capturing the energy and excitement of the stage.

Once (Fox Searchlight)

The simplest movie of the year is also one of the best. Glen Hansard (from the band The Frames) and his real-life girlfriend Marketa Irglova star, respectively, as a street musician/vacuum repairman and street peddler who share a love for music. Hansard’s singing voice is wrought with anger and pain. Conversely, Irglova’s voice is soft and laced with innocence and hope. When the two venture into a music store, sit at a piano and begin to make music together, you’ll be stunned and moved to tears.

3:10 To Yuma (Lionsgate)

Walk the Line director James Mangold follows up his Academy Award-nominated effort with a remake of the 1957 Western classic. Mangold paces his version of 3:10 To Yuma like a serial killer thriller. Christian Bale stars as struggling rancher Dan Evans, who finds himself charged with delivering a ruthless outlaw named Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to the train depot. The mission is deadly and Evans and crew are tracked and hunted down mercilessly every minute. This is what Westerns should be . . . gritty, dusty, sweaty and exhilarating.

In The Valley Of Elah (Warner Independent)

Know this. If Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) writes and directs a movie, he’s going to make a bold and powerful statement. Here, he takes aim at the War in Iraq and, specifically, what it’s doing to the young men and women we have sent to fight it. Tommy Lee Jones gives the performance of his career as Hank Deerfield, a man whose son disappears from Fort Rudd soon after returning home from his tour of duty. As riveting as this movie is from start to finish, nothing prepared me for the galvanizing final frame of the film. Haggis makes the ballsiest in-your-face political statement I have ever witnessed on screen. It’s an image I will never forget and one you absolutely must see for yourself.

Michael Clayton (Warner Brothers)

The National Board of Review has already named George Clooney “Best Actor” for his portrayal of Michael Clayton, a fixer for the law firm of Kenner, Bach and Ledeen, the firm representing the defendant in a multi-billion dollar lawsuit. That defendant is U/North, an agricultural company accused of mass marketing a toxic and deadly weed killer. Michael Clayton is sent in by the firm when his good friend Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson) makes the costly mistake of abandoning ship and jumping sides in the case. Michael Clayton is a modern-day morality play that sports one of the most satisfying showdowns between good and evil in recent memory. Watch Clooney’s Michael Clayton take down Tilda Swinton’s Karen Crowder. That scene is proof that good guys can still win.

Gone Baby Gone (Miramax)

Ben Affleck absolutely cannot act, but he sure can direct. In this, his directorial debut, Affleck tells the story of young Amanda McCready, a 4-year-old Boston girl who goes missing one night when her drug-addicted mother (the glorious Amy Ryan) is off getting high at a local bar. Affleck so deftly captures the provincial flavor of the Boston streets that no extra seems like an extra. He seems to present authentic slices of Boston life and real eye-witness accounts of the crime. Nothing here seems staged, rehearsed or acted. This is superb movie-making and I have been carrying the experience of this film with me since I saw it. Warning: Don’t go into Gone Baby Gone expecting a Hollywood ending. I walked out of this movie infuriated and cussing (that made for some fun stares in the lobby). It’s uncompromising, disappointing, disturbing and terrific. 

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Warner Brothers)

If you’re cinematographer Roger Deakins you need to go ahead and clear a space on your mantle. You are going to win an Oscar this year for this movie. Deakins (who, already this year, has been given the Career Achievement Award in Cinematography by The National Board of Review) brilliantly uses light, shadows and fades-to-black to tell this story of Jesse James. Historically, James was the outlaw who couldn’t be captured. He could emerge into the light from the fog and shadows in an instant, then, just as swiftly, disappear right back into the darkness. Deakins skillfully creates that man and that legend with the way he lights this film. His work does as much to set the mood and tell this story as the screenplay, the performances and the direction. The Assassination of Jesse James is a compelling character study that sports a rare, great performance by Brad Pitt and a star-making performance by Casey Affleck. In the instant you meet Bob Ford, Affleck allows you to fully understand his insecurities, his failures, his attractions to Jesse James and Jesse’s legend, and Bob’s desire to be something greater than he actually is. It’s a tremendous performance that anchors a tremendous film.

THE BEASTS

THE WORST FILM OF 2007

Bug (Lionsgate)

This movie couldn’t have been more unpleasant if they had named it Crabs! There was a time when William Friedkin was a viable and important filmmaker. After all, he won an Academy Award for directing 1971’s The French Connection and he was nominated shortly thereafter for helming the scariest movie ever made, 1973’s The Exorcist. Well, in 2007, he gave us one of the worst movies ever made . . . Crabs! Wait, I mean, Bug. Ashley Judd stars as Aggie, this stupid loser-of-a-woman who lives in a stupid loser-of-a-motel. She’s in hiding from her abusive ex-boyfriend/husband/who cares (cue laugh track because he‘s played Harry Connick Jr.). One night, while working at the local lesbian bar, Aggie defies all the laws of the universe and meets a man named Peter (who writes this sh*t?). Well, Peter is a paranoid lunatic who thinks his body is being overrun with bugs. He tries to convince Aggie that the aphids are attacking her too and, because she’s a blithering idiot, she believes him. So, they wrap their entire motel room in aluminum foil, take off their clothes, coat themselves in gasoline, fire up the Scripto and charcoal their skulls like Ghost Rider. I usually don’t applaud when people are on fire, but when these two went up in flames I grabbed a skewer and a bag of marshmallows.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS- (In no particular order because, no matter how they swirl, all turds eventually make their way down the bowl and into the sewer!)

Dead Silence, Are We Done Yet?, In The Land Of Women, The Invisible, I Know Who Killed Me, Hot Rod, Balls of Fury, The Heartbreak Kid and 30 Days of Night.

MISCELLANEOUS AWARDS

Spiderman 3, The Brave One, The Invasion, Evening and Rendition. Special note: Those last two movies starred Meryl Streep. Someone needs to consult a Nostradamus text. I think the end is near! It’s time to start collecting bottled water and burying canned goods in the Rubbermaid totes.

THE BIGGEST SURPRISES OF THE YEAR

Disturbia, The Last Mimzy and Enchanted

THE MOST OVERRATED FILMS OF THE YEAR

I’m Not There, American Gangster, Into The Wild, Rescue Dawn and Waitress

THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF THE YEAR

Beowulf

THE “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” AWARD

I’m Not There and Stardust

THE “HAVEN’T WE SUFFERED ENOUGH?” AWARD