Year end roundup

I meant to do this...well...before the new year, but I wasn't exactly sure what to write about- so I'm a little late. As it is, I'm completely making this up as I go along.

I guess standard would be to talk about the best and worst of the year. Now, there are still a number of movies I haven't seen, so this clearly isn't definitive- and as always, I appreciate comments.

The Best:

I'm certainly not in the minority on this category. No Country For Old Men is certainly near the top for me. Though I haven't seen it yet, There Will Be Blood looks promising to be one of the best. One movie I know that won't get any consideration, but would put up there among the best is Once. As for the actual best picture of the year, I'd have to point to American Gangster. It just features everything that one comes to expect out of a best picture movie.

As for acting, I'm terrible in this category. All I can say is that I felt Don Cheadle hands down gave the best performance of the year.

When it comes to comedy, Judd Apatow owned 2007. Knocked Up was one of the funniest movies of the year, and Superbad was the absolute funniest movie I have seen so far this decade. It's a shame Walk Hard was so bad.

I saw a number of interesting documentaries. The First Saturday in May about the Kentucky Derby was very interesting. But for the best documentaries is would be a battle between Jonestown: The Life and Death of the People's Temple (the terrifying piece on Jim Jones) and The King Of Kong (the Donkey Kong documentary making nerdy cool).

The best animation of the year will go to Ratatouille is only because of Pixar's slight last year. Bee Movie and The Simpsons Movie, however were also rather good- much better than Shrek 3. The best animation of the year, however, is Persepolis- a French animation about a young Iranian girl.

The Worst:

Not much to say about this. I've only given away four 0/5's ever. These were Black Christmas, The Hitcher, Daddy Day Camp, and Bratz. All four of these were among the worst of the year (even though Black Christmas was actually last year). Close in the running, however, would also be Captivity and 30 Days of Night.

As for next year, there are certain movies I am rather excited about. I've bought into all the hype about Cloverfield, and am going to be there with bells on. In February will be Michel Gondry's new comedy: Be Kind Rewind. The Summer will bring us the new Indiana Jones movie, the next Chronicles of Narnia installment, and the high budget Speed Racer and Iron Man. None of these seem to thrill me too much. What does thrill me, however, is Wall-E (obviously cause it's Pixar) and The Dark Knight. For my dark horse pick, I must choose The Brothers Bloom. This movie about con-men, starring Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, and Mark Ruffalo, is writer/director Rian Johnson's follow-up to Brick (possibly my favorite movie of 2005).

There you have it, my quick recap of 2007, and my outlook on 2008.