Year in Movies 2007

The awarding of the Oscars reminded me that I have not yet done my traditional reckoning of my experience of the years’ movies. It won’t take long. Your Humble Blogger has been out to the movies three times this year. Stardust was wonderful, Pirates mostly stunk, with some good bits, and Charlie Wilson’s War was perplexing, good but by virtue of straddling a line between nearly great and nearly awful. My Best Reader and my Perfect Non-Reader went to see Rattattaatatttoouille without me, which was fine, but it means it’ll be a while before I get around to seeing it.

We also saw several movies at home, largely courtesy of Red Box, although the library assisted as well. Two of those (Surf’s Up and The Transformers) Your Humble Blogger watched from the other room, wandering in and out and generally failing to engage. Of those, Surf’s Up actually looked better than I had expected, although too long and not charming enough, and The Transformers appeared to stink on ice. Speaking of stinking on ice, what happened with the Harry Potter movie? Was it really as bad as it seemed, or were we just in lousy moods and unable to enjoy it? Now, Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite of the books, so that may well have entered in to it, but seriously. No fun was had.

Things get better. I’m not really that cranky. Honest. It’s cool.

I enjoyed Music and Lyrics quite a bit, and although I would have written it with substantial changes, particularly to minor characters, it was a success. Amazing Grace (which is about the abolition of the slave trade in England) had some substantial weaknesses, but on the whole was enjoyable and moving, Romola Garai was lovely (as was Rufus Sewell, but that goes without saying, yes?), and Michael Gambon and Albert Finney got to have juicy bits and go home early. Hot Fuzz was good, and I enjoyed it, although not having actually watched a lot of Hammer Horror or modern action flicks seemed to be a drawback. And Waitress was a good movie, but it was not a romantic comedy, and so when we snuggled in to watch it, we wound up disappointed. We enjoyed it despite that, so it’s clearly an excellent movie. But expectations needs must be managed.

And that’s it. Ten movies, so far, from the year. And unlike in previous years, not so many box office smashes or Oscar nominees. Ah, well. These things, they happen. I blame the Youngest Member.

We also caught up a bit on 2006 movies, through the magic of the shiny disc. In addition to the six I saw on the big screen (and the one we saw on an airplane, and I didn’t watch all of that), we have now seen eleven flicks from 2006. To categorize quickly, I liked Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men, History Boys and Stranger Than Fiction, kinda liked Casino Royale, The Prestige, The Holiday and Nanny McPhee, and didn’t like Superman Returns, My Super Ex-Girlfriend or Nacho Libre.

I’ve occasionally thought I should blog all the movies I watch, just like I blog my books, although (a) that is beginning to seem a lot like work, and (2) I am largely just blogging books to build a list of Things I’ve Read, and I don’t honestly care about a list of Movies I’ve Seen, this post, last year’s post, the one from the year before and the one from the year before that notwithstanding.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.