2007

This is my list of some things I enjoyed about 2007, so let's start...

***MUSIC***

I present my favourites of what was put out this year. This is not a very good list because this year I bought the least about of CDs I normally buy. In addition, I have been avoiding friends and radio so there was not a lot of exposure to new albums, bands and music. This is my top 20 but not very reflective of what came out but rather what I keep up with. In writing this I realise that I have a very negative tone in my list because instead of writing why I love them so ; and I do simply love all these CDs ; I am more writing why they are not my favourite. Now I present to you in cliché descending order my top 20 CDs I purchased in 2007 and released in 2007...

20. The New Pornographers - Challengers
Not their best album but still better than loads of other things out there. This band has such a strong sense of pop. The aesthetics and form, they just craft good pop songs. I love their dual vox with the male and female blend. This album does not make me dance like the others from them do so it gets to the bottom of the list. Good but their were better.

19. Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace
This album starts on such a rocking song, but then it gets slower... and slower... for the rest of the album it never reaches the peak of the first song. It is a solid album and their is not a weak track on the album... it is just that what the first song brings to the table is the peak, it peaks on the first song. Perhaps with a different track order or more "rock" songs it would rank higher.

18. Feist - The Reminder
I adore female vocals. It is kind of my weak spot. Never more reminded am I of this then listening to this indie-pop record. When you have smooth pop with that female blend and in addition to the multitude of instruments on it. It is just a really likeable album. Easy on the ears and the closest music comes to bubbling like champagne.

17. Interpol - Our Love To Admire
Blending the various shoegazing influences of the past this feels like the first album from them that they really have their own "sound". This album was such a dark and dreary trip but in the best way. Brooding and sexy like Angel from the Buffy-verse.

16. Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City
Those wounded vocals, the narrative of this concept album, the dream pop glimmer of the guitars and the punk rock pulse of the drums all come together so lovingly in this second album from these UK outfit. This makes the first album sound scattershot with the way it all gels together.

15. Taylor Swift - Taylor Swift [Deluxe Edition]
She writes the songs and plays the guitar, this is in addition to her sunny country-fried vocals. This is kind of a cheat since I have had the album for a long time and it originally came out last year but this year she put it out again in a deluxe edition so I am using that as a platform to sing her praises.

14. Ozma - Pasadena
They call themselves a "High School" band and lyrically and sonically sometimes that seems to be true but to let that term limit your idea of them would be wrong. They have a very grown-up and mature perspective with this new album. Bursting with amazing power-pop they are still going to be compared to Weezer but they are something different and altogether unique. Like Weezer though, lyrically you can never be sure if they are introspective or immature but their is something so appealing about them. I love this album so much.

13. Eisley - Combinations
It is so hard to describe this band. A family band with female harmonies and polished power-pop-rock ; but it does not serve them well though it is true. You just have to listen to the emotion they give off in each track. Moody and engaging. They always sound just a smidge "too" produced on the album and when you see them live they make more sense but really even over-production cannot make this album unappealing.

12. Travis - The Boy With No Name
In each album they work on perfecting their "pop" sound. They get clearer and cleaner and closer to perfection. I have been listening to them for so long I feel as though I grow along with their albums. This is the closest I have ever heard to a "perfect" pop album. It still rings truer than all those "emo" bands too!

11. Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist
In high school I was a pumpkins' fan first and little else. I loved the solo album and Zwan died too soon so this was my treat. This album is raw and it kicks ass... almost too much ass. This is a brilliant album but missing the quiet and introspection of his other works. It is an album of anger and defiance and in doing so it does not pause to consider the "why's". If it did, it would easily rank much higher.

10. Rilo Kiley - Under The Blacklight
This is a pretty different album for them but I really like it. It sounds like sadness and sleaze. I like it so much but it is not my favourite from them. I know what is missing, not enough Blake Sennett. He is usually co-writer and he sings more but on this one it is just letting Jenny get whatever she wants. I miss the balance he brought to the song-writing and music. Despite all my bemoaning this still has all his flourishing and it is still a killer disco-indie-pop album.

9. Rivers Cuomo - Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
I am a zombie love slave for Rivers Cuomo. I love all Weezer albums and I love his voice, his nursery rhyme lyrics and everything else. Getting to hear the these rough cuts that were recorded when he thought no one would listen to them is almost voyeurism. I have been listening to this a lot lately and I love how personal everything sounds and feels. There is such creativity in this collection.

8. Jimmy Eat World - Chase This Light
Even though this is not as distinct as all the other albums by Jimmy Eat World I still crave listening to it. I wish it was not so polished and shined but the strength of the music still shines through. At first I was a bit disappointed by the second half of the album but it grew on me over time. It is not my favourite but I still love every song a lot. It is hard to describe my feelings because they sound so negative but really this was one of my favourite albums of the year and one of my most played, it is just when I compare it to other Jimmy Eat World albums it falls a bit short.

7. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
This album is manic but not as much as others by Modest Mouse. Their has always been a nautical theme to the lyrics but in a number of songs on the album it extends to the music as well. The new addition of Johnny Marr has his influence comes out in the unlikeliest of places, it is subtle but there. As always you never know where the songs will go and when and where they will end. Brock does not sing as much and hoot and howl with such an energy. A lush and inventive album.

6. Carrie Underwood - Carnival Ride
A beautiful voice that reduces me to tears. Something about the production and the lyrics just "sing" to me but those pipes she has got on her... just turn me to mush. This album loses a bunch of the all-audience pandering and gains: more control by the artist, a stronger overall vision and my favourite country album of the year. Anyone who says she is not country is just blowing smoke. There is not a weak track on the whole album.

5. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
An epic album of lust production, vivid lyrics and passion that is also one of the most intimate albums to come out this year. As anyone who has been to their live show can attest, they make big bold moves but make it so personal and the bond between audience and band blurs into indescribable. The album is furious and passionate and when you listen it is so easy to get swept in from the pulsing two chord start to the big church organ finish.

4. The Swell Season/Once : Soundtrack for the Motion Picture
I basically consider these two CDs to be one and so they take one spot. They really complement one another. What Glen does so well and what Markéta intuitively does is channel their emotions into their music without losing anything in the translation. So what you get from their songs is just as pure as when it was in their heads.

3. Jeska Hoop - Kismet
A young woman from Northern California with a voice from some alien land and music and production to match. This is such a diverse album but really rewarding. There are nothing but brilliant songs on this album. I bought it so randomly because the quote on the cover. "It sounds like swimming in the lake at night". Not knowing anything about her or it I just was so curious what that sounds like. It was a wonderful surprise to find such a interesting artist that way. Touching and serious and silly or profound, this is an album that sounds like no other album I have heard this year. I have only had this CD for a few months but it really stands out.

2. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
The lead guitar part in the song "Impossible Germany". That song alone would put this in my top ten but the fact that the rest of this album such great vocals and interesting music. A alt-country album so polished and perfected that anyone can enjoy it. Really I do not see how anyone could turn this down. The sense of melody is so strong it is like a warm cup of cocoa. This album is at times morose but there is just a optimism in the music that it just feel like the bittersweet beauty of life. A charming album but never cloyingly so.

1. The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour
I will never get tired of this album. I have listened to it a million times and I want millions more. The way of defying genre and classification. The views so distinctly human... and Canadian. They have a song from the point of view of a cat, but it is so touching I still have not listened to it without tears. The first months with the album it drove me to weeping. A song about a hockey player and another about a guy who has seen Bigfoot. Love songs and breakup songs but with a refreshing lack of anything remotely cliché. My current favourite song on the album is about the (non)sport of curling, yes, curling! Alt-country, power-pop, indie rock, pop-punk, punk rock... so on and so on. But it all is made cohesive by the smooth and distinctly unique vocals and lyrics of John K. Samson. Silly and emotional, sometimes in the same breath ; this album is life-affirming and heartbreaking and real. There is an honesty I just ingest. My favourite album of the year is also what I feel is the most accessible.


Okay, that is it!! I really did not get to buy a lot of the things that I wanted to though so here are some of the things I wanted but never got around to this year, the Radiohead one will be released in stores in January so it will surely make my 2008 list this is not everything I wanted but just a few of them I think I would have enjoyed...

Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Jay-Z - American Gangster
Against Me! - New Wave
Radiohead - In Rainbows
John Fogerty - Revival
The White Stripes - Icky Thump
The Apples In Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder
Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is E.P.
Clinic - Visitations
Tegan & Sara - The Con

...Too many more so I am just going to stop this listing.




***FILMS***

These are all the films I have seen in 2007 in no special order and the asterisk signifies that I saw it in theatres. I am only counting 2007 released films that I have seen in the year of 2007 so if I watch a 2007 film in 2008 it is not listed here. After all the films I have seen is my top 20 films of the year but for now ... on with the list ...


1. Alpha Dog*
2. The Animation Show 2007*
3. Because I Said So*
4. Catch and Release*
5. Music and Lyrics*
6. Breach*
7. Bridge to Terabithia
8. The Number 23*
9. Reno 911! : Miami*
10. Black Snake Moan
11. Zodiac*
12. 300*
13. Reign Over Me*
14. T.M.N.T.*
15. Blades of Glory*
16. Grindhouse*
17. Hot Fuzz*
18. Waitress*
19. Spider-Man 3*
20. 28 Weeks Later*
21. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End*
22. Gracie*
23. Knocked Up*
24. Paris J'taime*
25. Hostel: Part II*
26. Nancy Drew*
27. 1408*
28. Evan Almighty*
29. Live Free or Die Hard*
30. Ratatouille*
31. Transformers*
32. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix*
33. I Know Who Killed Me*
34. The Simpsons Movie*
35. The Ten*
36. Interview (2007)*
37. Hot Rod*
38. Once*
39. Zoo*
40. La Doublure*
41. Year of the Dog*
42. Colma : The Musical*
43. Death at a Funeral*
44. Superbad*
45. Stardust*
46. Smoking Aces
47. King of Kong : A Fistful of Quarters*
48. Death Sentence*
49. Shoot 'Em Up*
50. 3:10 to Yuma*
51. Eastern Promises*
52. The Heartbreak Kid*
53. The Lookout
54. Vacancy
55. Into The Wild*
56. Lars and the Real Girl*
57. Dan in Real Life*
58. 30 Days of Night*
59. Across the Universe*
60. Bee Movie*
61. Wild Hogs
62. No Country for Old Men*
63. Fred Claus*
64. American Gangster*
65. Beowulf IMAX 3D*
66. Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium*
67. Southland Tales*
68. Enchanted*
69. Margot at the Wedding*
70. The Mist*
71. Little Children
72. Children of Men*
73. The Lives of Others
74. The TV Set
75. The Golden Compass*
76. Epic Movie
77. Juno*
78. August Rush*
79. Ghost Rider
80. The Messengers (2007)
81. The Hitcher (2007)
82. National Treasure: Book of Secrets*
83. Evening
84. Factory Girl
85. I Am Legend*
86. Atonement*
87. La Vie En Rose
88. In the Land of Woman
89. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story*
90. The Savages*
91. Helvetica
92. Sweeney Todd*
93. Aliens VS Predator : Requiem*
94. The Bourne Ultimatum
95. I'm Reed Fish
96. Alvin and the Chipmunks*
97. The Condemned
98. Hairspray
99. No End In Sight
100. Charlie Wilson's War*
101. The Kite Runner*


There have not been films that I could say I do not like but these are my top 20. I really enjoyed so much more then I got to talk about, like "Music and Lyrics" which was so good but it was Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore perfecting their romantic comedy characters together and it was so lovely and the songs so great but it was just really not enough to be in my top twenty. It was really hard to list them in an order because I adore all the films featured here so much. The top five I had no problem cementing but the rest were a lot harder to place. I think it is so amazing to have seen over a hundred films in a year. Here are my choice ones you should see if you have not yet...


20. The Kite Runner
This film angered and upset me. It drove me to tears and it moved me. It is powerful film making and it teaches as it speaks. It starts as a geographic lesson on Modern Afghanistan but really it teaches redemption and cowardice. It is about life and living. It features brilliant performances that never seem like performing. I think everyone should see this because it affects you. It made me want to read the book until I spoke to my friend who read it and all the things different in the book sounded so terrible I am glad I did not.

19. Into the Wild
A guy who took things too far but really a tale of someone who lived life by their own desires. Someone who knew what they wanted from life and did not settle. Even thought I do not agree with him he did what he had to and I respect anyone who follows their own path. A vividly shot film that takes you into the loneliness and isolation of being with him. A breathtaking journey that feels like a buddy road trip film but you the audience are the buddy watching where life takes the main character.

18. Charlie Wilson's War
A fun and breezy script full of wit and insight. It was a history lesson on an amazing time but unlike all the other "war" films of the year this one is not heavy headed or boring or bogged down in its own importance and weight. The script features a lot of walking and talking at the same time so you know it is a Sorkin script already but it also has his humour and pathos.

17. Live Free or Die Hard
I love an action film. Guys and guns and explosions. Growing up it was the main enjoyment I had with my father. We watched all the "Die Hard" series together so when this came out I took him out to the cinema to see it. I was worried it would be hindered in some way but it is not. Everything explodes and tons die while McClain spouts his little witticisms. Justin Long as comic relief ; with an assist by Kevin Smith and all is good. If you are a fan of any of those things then this will do the trick.

16. Paris J'taime
A collection of shorts, one for all twenty arrondissements in Paris. It says it is about the city but really the main theme and thread that holds everything together is love. This collection has some to make you sad and some happy but every short is so unique and pure. There are laughs and there is thoughtful silences but all if it just reminds me of life.

15. I'm Reed Fish
It wins the year's "Garden State" award for really good film about being a white Jewish male in your twenties just learning how to be a man. I really like how this is written and what seems mostly generic is actually kind of inventively done with its film within s film premise. All the female character's in it are super cute or hot and I love how that guy from "Undeclared" gets to be a leading man again.

14. Grindhouse
Blood and guns, women and violence. Cheesy story lines and cheesier effects but this intentional B-movie was put together so well. Those fake trailers, so good! I prefer the Rodriguez film because it actually elevates the genre but the Tarantino one is pretty good stunt work fun.

13. Zodiac
Meticulous and rich with character and story. It really is like two films at once. What begins as a murder mystery turns into a film about obsession with such subtlety. Long but never boring, it actually is rather engaging. There is so much going on but under strong direction it never gets lost. In addition, the visuals really bring you into the story so what could have just been a visual companion to a fact-based account is actually a film.

12. Enchanted
A return to form for Disney. This is a classic tale of female empowerment. The songs got me moving in my seat. The romance, the fact that no matter how cliché it just felt fresh and new. I do not think I could have felt better by an ending as I did. I laughed, I cried and I left the cinema with a spring in my step and a song in my heart.

11. Hot Fuzz
"Die Hard" was a return to the übermensch of the eighties but this was an homage to that. They show such an attention to detail and in trying to embrace those genre films in an original way they reinvent the genre as a whole. Blood by the buckets and humour that is actually funny, this film just blends so greatly all the ideas it is juggling.

10. Juno
The final shot of this film alone is worth its inclusion. It sums up so much better then the thousands of cute and clever words what the heart of the story is. About the love for two kids for each other on the surface but really about Juno and her growing heart. About getting older and growing up but not losing yourself. I enjoyed this film so much despite how cloying the dialog is.

9. Atonement
A period film that is like no other. Modern in its feeling and classic in its time line but so deftly done that it is timeless. Never stuffy but on the other side of the coin it is at time so simmering with sex and passion or so full of dread and mourning. Every shot injected with a such life. It burned with intent and showed the power of words. Especially one very wicked word.

8. Waitress
This film is not entirely unlike a chick flick but it does feature strong female characters with well written and diverse main character roles. Using pies as a visual metaphor and as the linchpin for the story and all its narrative arcs. This film features the main character that it is impossible not to fall in love with and putting Nathan Fillion in anything as far as I am concerned makes it magical.

7. Stardust
This is the fantasy film just like you used to see before "The Lord of the Rings". It is sumptuous feast of fantasy and storytelling. There is love, evil, family, secrets, adventure and everything else you could imagine... even an oddly fey Robert DeNiro. I love how bursting with energy the film is. So much whimsy and such visual feast that has its emotions on a sleeve.

6. Year of the Dog
A dark and touching film emotional but sterile, almost cold but it never gets too dark. There is comedy and their is pain but everything feels so deeply. I left the cinema with a real weight of pondering on me. I did not know how I felt. It had such a insulated lead and her views while shared by me in a lot of ways were so different but there was something about it all put together, a sort of off-beat spirit that I wholly support.

5. Dan in Real Life
Were anyone but Steve Carell in the lead I am not sure if this film would have worked or not but as it stands it is moving and deeply human triumph. Even when the lead does things despicable because of how winsome he is you just accept it, as if charm is enough to justify anything. A classy and real feeling film. When I say real I mean, it is just as painful and amusing and expectedly unexpected as life itself. Much stronger a film then the trailers do justice.

4. Nancy Drew
Taking a beloved character and bringing her to modern time while retaining her charms is what this film does. It is a captivating mystery yarn and also a tongue-firmly-in-cheek update of a classic literary heroine. I just adore the way Nancy Drew speaks, dresses, thinks ... I just think she is so swell. There are so many things about Nancy Drew the character that I either see in myself, find attractive in women or ... both.

3. No End in Sight
I hate documentaries. That statement may be a bit bold but for the most part it is true. One reason is that I feel the truest ideas and thoughts come out in fiction. Those who inject their ideas with their stories often feel more real then "real" footage. The writer has to inject his feelings on his characters and also acknowledge the opposing side but the documentarian just uses editing to enforce his views ; sometimes such as with Michael Moore, he is driven to make lies out of the truth. With that in mind this is what every documentary should be, this film is angry and has its opinions and feelings but it just tries to make sense of a complicated process with a levelheadedness and fact. It fulfills its goal of being persuasive but never unjustifiably so. The fact that this is on my best of list at all ; let alone so high ; is the most glowing praise I can bestow upon it.

2.5 : Hotel Chevalier/The Darjeeling Limited
[When I first published this list this was cut out. It was not because I wanted it out but because it got deleted and out of mind until I woke up today and could not stop thinking about this film and rather then rework the whole list to fit them I am just going to squeeze them where I would have put them before.]
So I think that the short prelude for "The Darjeeling Limited" can be summed up in one quote from it, "If we fuck, I'm going to feel like shit." Since it is a freely available, free download you should go watch "Hotel Chevalier" for yourself. "The Darjeeling Limited" is a film accused of using visual and musical "razzle-dazzle" as a substitute for real emotion. I feel there is no artifice but simply a sense of hyper-reality, but the emotions pushed to the forefront are simply human. I talked about how I feel fiction best tells truth in film making and there is really no better example then this. A story of three brothers in arrested development who journey to find themselves and perhaps their mother in India they instead lost the innocence and selfishness of youth and find a little peace, love and understanding. That is really simplifying this beautiful film, though.

2. Once
This barely fits the description of the term, "film" and the performances are so organic it does not seem like acting. The fact that the two leads are musicians and not actors and over the course of the film they actually fell for each other and are together now probably reinforces that fact. All that said, what is captured on film is so pure that it is immediately timeless. Bound together with such brilliant songs that are brilliant without the context of the film seems like the secret sauce that makes this concoction so delicious. Bittersweet and melodramatic like the best parts of living and breathing, this film really is a life-affirming treat.

1. No Country for Old Men
The film feels like it is being controlled by the hands of master storytellers and really I would say that is true. Edited to let each feeling of isolation and dread take as long as a human can bare, this film has a soul and more immediately noticeable it has wounds and pain. A tale full of human fears and hubris that is equal parts humourous and ponderous with a taut and singular story. Using cops, robbers and the wrong place at the wrong time the Coen brothers really create a masterpiece that feels epic and intimate with film conventions only serving to allows viewers into the world of this film. The villain in this film is one of the most striking in the history of cinema ; horror films or whatever. Every shot and all the staging feels so ... intentional. You leave the cinema thinking there was not one image that was not thoughtfully planned. The elevation of cinema into art form.