Lars and the Real Girl
No Country for Old Men
Control
Darjeeling Limited
and yes, I liked Juno.

eastern promises > juno > control

I do not know if I have watched 5 movies from last year

I really really liked

Charlie Wilson's War (saw it last week. very funny and biting for such a very serious issue)
No Country For Old Men (fucking awesome movie. Hitchock would have been very proud of the Coens.)
Eastern Promises ( the single greatest hand to hand fight scene ever)

yeah the guy who played the dad, i can never remember his name, hes actually one of the better charachters actors out there. he was great in juno, was one of the only things worth watching thank you smoking for, and less we forget, his charachter on oz, the defacto bad guy of a show all about bad guys, as an ultra sadist, sexually repressed rapist, mega sinister, leader of the aryan brotherhood. he was ultra scary on that show, episode 1 hes introduced to the audience by raping and tattoing a swastika on the ass of the lawyer guy beecher. great actor.

oh dude, forget hand to hand, that was the best fight scene period. beats even scorceses more memorable ones. just so over the top, i love the end when viggo is climbing over the supposed dead guy and the guy wakes up and strangles him, so viggo breaks his arm in three places and then puts the knife in his eye. just for extra effect, haha, i loved it.

Juno Dad is actor JK Simmons. The guy has done a lot of things. Was looking at his filmography. He was in "Arrestted Developement", he was on "OZ", and of course he was JJ Jameson in the "Spider-Man" movies, but the one that put a smile on my face, he did an episode of "The Adventures of Pete and Pete".

control was only playing two nights here in tucson, and of course i was in pheonix those two nights. Actually i was playing guitar in my friends shortlived band, they needed some extra sound or some shit, it was fun i remember. Moral of the story, i missed control, and cant wait till it comes out on dvd.

it's alright, its not "great" unless youre a joy division fan i guess. good movie, black & white & shot in scope (anamorphic), a most unusual combination. some people complained it's too much the wife's persperctive but DUH its based on her autobiography. good movie no question-- a masterpiece not.

Yessssss, when I saw him in Juno I couldn't help but thinking "...he's gonna slice her throat...."

i am a joy division fan

yeah, aren't we all? i did enjoy getting the dirt on ian curtis a bit-- i really had a good time watching and the soundtrack (played by the actors). just saying i dont see it a some sort of genius movie that will change the course of film history.

I don't know if I saw 5 movies last year? Ratatouille? I don't know, we have a kid , and we see more kid movies than anything :)

If you haven't noticed, you're not much in favor for making this remark. I'll join in by saying better those musical references than something lame like, say, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, or Radiohead.

SPeaking of bad music in movies (not that Juno had bad music, but whatever) did anybody see August Rush? What a God-awful film. I think somebody saw one too many Andy Mckee videos and and decided to make a movie. Than the boy's dad was in a rock band that wrote Bush-esque songs that made you want to vomit. I only stayed cause of a friend of mine invited me and I didn't want to hurt their feelings, otherwise I would have just walked out.

I'm a film student, so I take this all way too seriously. Please, forgive me.



ALEX LAVIN'S 10 FAVORITE MOVIES FROM 2007
no order; all movies with first U.S. distribution in 2007


Bug
Do call it a comeback for director William Friedkin, thanks in part to a shattering performance from Ashley Judd. This claustrophobic, delirious, and finally tragic piece of chamber cinema is an itchy good nightmare.


The Darjeeling Limited
Wes Anderson fine-tunes that inimitable preciosity to deliver his most focused and affecting tale of arrested development yet. Lines like “We haven’t found where we are yet; hey, is that symbolic?” attest to its verve.


Death Proof
Tarantino divides people roughly along lines of moral seriousness. Love or loathe his doses of puerile pop, though, surely his is one of the most beguiling cinematic addresses to the spectator that Hollywood has bankrolled.


The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
A film ostensibly about real-life vegetable Jean-Dominique Bauby, it’s actually Julian Schnabel and Janusz Kaminski’s pornographically indulgent cine-poem of beautiful, crying French women. If only his paintings were as good.


Eastern Promises
If he’s good enough for Martin Scorsese, then you should love David Cronenberg too. Another classically spare film that’s fun in the way hugging a porcupine must be; the novelty of the encounter distracts from the pain.


Fay Grim
Hal Hartley introduced this at the IFC Center by encouraging us to enjoy our confounding. This most Bresson-ian of American filmmakers’ films sink or float by casting, and Parker Posey steadies the course admirably.


I'm Not There
The carefully judged interplay of ideas and emotions that drives all of Todd Haynes’ work paves the way for the future of American cinema. This is most distinguished for having so assuredly executed its bold central conceit.




No Country for Old Men
There’s something going on in this movie that has to do with the killing of people and the killing of beasts. I don’t know exactly what it is, but go back and see for yourself, the boys know what they’re doing, something’s up.


Southland Tales
This jarring, caustic gambit is both half-baked and overly determined at once. For all the script’s brash ambition, though, it’s the inexplicably dissonant acting that makes this a truly unique and baffling viewing experience.


Zodiac
Another masquerading film. This true-story serial killer manhunt gradually decodes its myriad plot events as an avant-garde meditation on time, verity, and other imaginary concepts underlying human existence.

3 FAVORITE SHORT MOVIES:

The Shock Doctrine
Alfonso Cuaron’s companion to Naomi Klein’s book of the same name; if it ain’t broke, pretend it is and take it.

Western Union: Small Boats
Isaac Julien’s installation about the oft-fatal voyages of refugees from Africa to Sicily is menacingly baroque.

No Part of the Pig Is Wasted
Debut auteur Emma Perret was tellingly taciturn at NYFF about this sublime short; she serves up a lot to chew on.