LUGASHI ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK

let's start with the best...

it's that time of year again.  ok, so it's a little past that time of year, but there were a bunch of movies i wanted to see before i put these lists together. even with that, there are still many that i haven't got to - i mean i am only one man and i do have to eat and sleep and work.  so, before you go asking where is (put title of movie you think deserves a place on the list here), let me just give you a rundown of some of the movies i just didn't get to at the time i am putting this list together that have been finding there way onto other top lists: Grindhouse, Lust Caution, Sweeny Todd, Ratatouille, Persepolis, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, This Is England, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, 4 months 3 Weeks 2 Days, the Savages, La Vie En Rose, Lars And The Real Girl, The Waitress, In The Valley Of Elah and Into The Wild

with that being said here are my lists for the best and worst movies of 2007 - many of which you can read more in depth discussions of on the site.  let the listing begin...

don't forget (best)                                                         

1) No Country For Old Men
- brilliant.  two filmmakers at the top of their game taking chances with complete confidence                                 
2) Juno 
- a great and very funny comedy that takes an after school special premise and makes it anything but. 

                                                               
3) There Will Be Blood   
- p.t. anderson has guts and talent beyond that of most filmmakers with many more years of experience

                                          
4) Eastern Promises 
- a great film and croenenbergs best work ever

5) Once
- a small and simple love story with great music, so much heart and a little off-hollywood ending which works to perfection.

6) The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

- a movie about a guy who is paralyzed and can only blink his left eye.  doesn't sound like great movie fodder, but shnabel makes a great movie

7) The Namesake

- this film is about so much more then the simple identity crisis played up in the previews.  in fact, the parents and their story are as much a part of this wonderful film as is that of kal penn's character, who gets most of the screen time in the trailer.

8) The Bourne Ultimatum
- the best action movie of the year and the perfect ending to a really good trilogy

9) A Mighty Heart
- even though you know how it ends winterbottom makes the story completely engaging and draws the audience in to the search and the mystery of what really happened with the documentary style, jump cuts and hand held camera.  jolie is great as mariane pearl as well.

10) Eagle Vs. Shark
- this little oddball film might seem to some like just another Napoleon Dynamite, but it is definitely its own film and a very good one at that.

this was a good year for movies. i went back and forth with a few of them and had a hard time narrowing the list down to just 10 films.  and while 10 is the traditional list number, it is also unfair to the quality movies that just missed the cut.  so here they are (in no particular order), a few of which were in and out of the top 10 during the weeding process so when i say 'just missed the cut' i mean exactly that...

don't forget (honorable mention): The Brave One, The Host, Knocked Up, 28 Weeks Later, Gone Baby Gone, the Simpsons Movie, Crazy Love, the Orphanage, Across The Universe, Interview, Breach, Zodiac

as for the worst.  i had a little harder time coming up with this list.  not because there weren't a lot of crappy movies released this year, but more so because i didn't see a lot of them. i avoided the Good Luck Chucks and the Daddy Daycares and The Number 23s (either because they didn't look good or were directed by joel shumacher).  but, i did see my share of not good movies, and here they are.  some are just bad and others are just not as good as they could have been.

forget (worst)

1) I Am Legend
- this isn't the worst movie of the year, but i put it at number one because it made me so angry in how it wasted its potential.  this movie had the potential to be on the best of the year list but it just gave in, went for the quick buck, treated the audience like impatient drones that just want mindless action and negated a very interesting premise that seemed to be developing for the first half of the movie.  for that reason it gets the number one spot (if you want to hear my rant you can check out episode #54 of the podcast)

2) American Venus
- not sure if it was trying to be funny, satire, entertaining or a combination of all three, but, it ended up being none of them.

3) Next
- great premise that is interesting for about 15 minutes and then we have to sit through the boring story and an ending that would have only worked if we had actually cared about the rest of the film up until that point.

4) The Invasion
- there have been four 'invasion of the body snatcher' movies made and two of them were good.  The Invasion wasn't one of those two.

5) The Transformers
- too long, uninteresting story and a big final battle that i couldn't care less about by the time we finally got to it.

6) Spiderman 3
- the worst of the three.  a mess with two many villians and not enough time spent on any of them or an interesting story

7) We Own The Night
- first third of the film works, then its all down hill from there

8) Disturbia
- a potentially good re-tellng of hitchock's Rear Window that falls completely apart as the last part of the film is rushed and ridiculous.

9) The Bucket List
- jack and morgan are always great, but this thing was totaly average.  it had some sweet moments, but it was predictable and regular.

10) The Lookout
- good performances but a very predictable heist movie

11) Black Snake Moan
- i was really looking forward to this one.  the problem was that the story didn't have a full movie in it, so that when the initial idea is played out the rest of the film doesn't quite know what to do with itself.  however, the music and the way he brewer uses it is really good.