14 Underrated Movies of 2007

It's only October, but 2007 is already full of tons of great or really good movies. It's pretty amazing, because I've gone years where I haven't seen a truly great movie until the final weeks of December and struggled to piece together a top ten list where the bottom three aren't on there simply for the sake of filling out the top ten.

2007, however, has had plenty of great films, some of which were complete surprises (28 Weeks Later), some were ones you were hoping to be good but weren't expecting them to be (Transformers) and others ones that received great critical reaction but not many box office dollars (Michael Clayton comes to mind). And so this list below takes a look at the movies released thus far that have failed to reach their box office potential for whatever reason...

Zodiac
It's no real surprise that this serial killer movie didn't make a ton of money as it is nearly three hours long and it's no action thriller along the vein of Seven, but Zodiac is a near masterpiece in its presentation of the long and arduous investigation that went into finding the Zodiac killer, a real person. Pulling off a movie like this is difficult, but David Fincher seemed to be on automatic as pieced together the complicated storyline.

28 Weeks Later
Yeah, it's a zombie movie. But it's a zombie movie that takes what was accomplished in the first film and makes things scarier and more exciting. This is definitely one of the best horror sequels ever, yet didn't perform too well in theaters and even got slammed by quite a few critics as being unoriginal. Seriously, I've read many reviews, some from professional critics and some from bloggers, that have mocked this movie, but I don't know what the hell they were watching. I consider myself to have pretty good taste in film, and 28 Weeks Later was certainly a pleasant surprise.

Gone Baby Gone
The full strength of this movie is yet to be seen, but it already appears to be skirting under the radar. The directorial debut of Ben Affleck, the movie stars his brother Casey as a private detective looking for a kidnapped girl. The film fires on all cylinders and is a dramatic yet exciting detective flick with heart.

The Kingdom
Sure, the script isn't all that great and overall the movie could have been more, but The Kingdom is an exciting, well-paced action thriller that was seemingly made to blow away the competition. Surprisingly, this one flopped massively, and I'm still scratching my head as to why.

The Last Mimzy
It's a kid's movie, but a very good kid's movie at that. In a year where Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a bit disappointing, The Last Mimzy is a refreshing and unique adventure tale about a brother and sister who discover a toy that give them special powers. However, what is the true purpose of the alien toy? This one probably flopped because it's a more serious kid's movie, and the title sucks. Highly recommended, even to adults.

Michael Clayton
Some people predicted this would top the box office when it hit theaters, but of course a slow-moving legal thriller wouldn't do that. Still, the movie has shown disappointing returns even though it is one of the best reviewed movies of the year and features some of the best performances of the year, by Tom Wilkinson, George Clooney and Tilda Swinton most notably. This movie isn't for everyone, but those who are patient while find payoff in the film's climax.

Seraphim Falls
This Liam Neeson/Pierce Brosnan movie was never even released wide, but it is a non-stop action thrill ride set in the old west. With a simple story of one man trying to hunt down another man through snowy mountains and the desert, Seraphim Falls offers very little dialogue but haunting performances from the men involved nonetheless. More importantly, it is exciting from start to finish and features some great visuals.

Ratatouille
The Pixar movie still made a good amount of money at theaters this summer, but compared to other Pixar films, it was a box office disappointment. Some blamed it on the fact that the title is hard to pronounce or that it stars a rat, but I don't really know. All I know is that this film features absolutely stunning visuals, an entertaining storyline and witty screenplay. It is a pure treat, and one of the few animated films that I could see competing against live action movies as "best movie of the year". It isn't THAT good, but I hope you get my point.

Rescue Dawn
Christian Bale's movie about a man who crashes in Vietnam and forced to live in a prison camp in the middle of the jungle looked cheesy at first, but it is actually one of the finest made pictures of the year. Featuring great acting, beautiful scenery and exciting, fact-based story, Rescue Dawn is certainly one of the hidden gems of 2007.

Sunshine
This film about the death of the sun and human's last attempt to save the species is more pure sci-fi than most films we see these days, but it's a shame it wasn't marketed to general audiences more effectively. Featuring dazzling special effects, good performances and an exciting, chilling story, the movie could easily appeal to both sci-fi buffs and regular moviegoers alike. I blame the studio for not positioning this sci-fi classic better.

The Lookout
I can't remember how this one did at theaters, but regardless it probably didn't get the attention it deserved. Featuring a great performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and a memorable story about a young man trying to overcome a disability, and a bank robbery, the movie is exciting, dramatic and "twisty" all at the same time. Those who like small-town crime thrillers should certainly check this out. It may not be Fargo, but it's still really good.

Vacancy
The last minute or two kind of suck, but Vacancy, starring Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale, is an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a bitter couple who get trapped in the hotel from Hell. There isn't a moment that passes when the tension eases up, and that's all that really needs to be said.

Grindhouse
Amazingly, the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature flopped at theaters, forcing The Weinstein Company to split the directors' two movies, Death Proof and Planet Terror, into two movies in Europe, and DVD. Had they released this around Halloween we might have seen better results, as while neither film are absolutely amazing, both are certainly better-than-average horror movies, if you can even call them that.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Casey Affleck hits this list for the second time, as he plays the second title character for this slow-moving western drama. He turns in an award-winning performance, as does Brad Pitt, who plays the famous outlaw. As with Michael Clayton, this movie isn't for everyone, but it has certainly gone under the radar without much box office impact.

The year is still young. I expect more quality films to make this list as we wind down to New Years...

Movie Review: The Assassination of Jesse James... (2007)

I just got back from watching the two-hour, forty-minute The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a western that's quite a bit different than anything I've seen in recent memory. In a year of constant, pleasant surprises, Jesse James is just the latest in a number of surprises, though it certainly isn't for everyone.

It isn't an action movie, though it does have a fair amount of killings. It is dialogue driven and relies on its acting and screenplay to carry the audience through to the tragic ending (tragic in more ways than one). It can easily be described as a character study, a slow and methodically meandering character study. Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck both turn in career-best performances, and the movie itself is all but mesmerizing from beginning to end. It suffers from a few loose parts in the middle, but makes up for it with one of the most emotionally devastating endings I've witnessed on screen in a long time.

Read my full The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford movie review here.

Movie Review: Descent (NC-17)

Rosario Dawson gets raped and then gets revenge in Descent, a dark and gritty drama about a woman trying to recover from an unspeakable crime. I've posted a movie review, so read it now. By and large, this is one of the most disturbing movies I've seen recently, and probably does deserve the NC-17 rating unlike most other films that get that kiss of death.

Movie review: The Bourne Ultimatum

The Bourne Ultimatum starts off right where The Bourne Supremacy ends, with director Paul Greengrass back at the helm, Matt Damon's Jason Bourne on the run from the CIA and the audience ready for another two hours of non-stop, camera-jerking action and suspense.

As one might expect, since the director, writers and actors have all returned for another bout, The Bourne Ultimatum stands up close to the quality achieved by its predecessor. Personally, I consider Supremacy to be one of the best action movies ever, and Ultimatum ranks pretty high on the list - but not as high. The movie is fast paced, action packed and intelligent, and also features the addition of one of my favorite actors, David Strathairn. The combination of the compelling soundtrack, gritty camera movements and non-stop attention to detail make it the best sequel of the summer, and that's saying a lot given the amount of high-brand sequels that have been unleashed upon audiences in the last couple of months.

Greengrass is quickly growing to become one of the best action/suspense directors around. Everything he touches turns to gold, from the gritty drama Bloody Sunday to the amazingly tense United 93, which should have received even more acclaim than it did. His ability to build and maintain suspense without cheating the audience is unrivaled, and, especially in the Bourne movies, he shows that action and smarts can go hand-in-hand. When the camera is on Bourne, you can literally see the spy breaking down his surroundings and building strategies in real time. When the action comes, it is fast, brutal and well choreographed. And when there is no action... well, when is there no action?

Damon once again shows that he can play bad ass hero. Some people still mock him for playing an action star, and I ask if they've ever watched the Bourne movies. He's gotten increasingly better with each film, and the trend continues here.

All that being said, since I am a big fan of both the Bourne movies and books, I have to point out a few minor issues I had with this film. First off, the plot isn't anything remarkable - it is almost too simple, though the writers and directors pull it off quite well. I don't quite get why this black hat operational team, led by David Strathairn, would want to just assassinate the CIA official who was leaking secrets - wouldn't they want to learn his motives and see if he had given the information to anyone else? Some of the plot developments, like that, weren't completely fleshed out. Furthermore, the film ends rather abruptly and not as explosive as I was hoping.

Lastly, once again, I'm disappointed the writers didn't take more pieces from the books. While the third book in Robert Ludlum's series wasn't the greatest, they still could have created a plot revolving around the real reason for Jason Bourne's existence - to weed out and kill Carlos the Jackal. Carlos, the main villain in all three of Ludlum's original trilogy, has yet to make an appearance in the Bourne franchise. If there is a fourth film, please, please, please (and please!) make the plot revolve around Carlos the Jackal. How awesome would that be?

My complaints aside, The Bourne Ultimatum is still a great action movie. It is intense and gritty, everything an action movie should be. A more developed story and a better ending would have set this one ahead of Supremacy, but it's still one of the best action movies of the last several years, if not longer.

The Sopranos series finale: This is what happens

The Sopranos is over. Never again will we hear James Gandolfini breathe deeply while eating food. It will probably be a long while before we see another show that manages to please and infuriate audiences as much as Sopranos did with its genius.

And now, the series finale. I will say what happens, but before that, I have to say it was a good episode. It is not the all-out gun battle where several people meet their fate that so many people around the world were predicting, and yet, we should have seen it coming. David Chase didn't win so many Golden Globes for creating a mobster show where people just get "offed", where everything happens how you want it to or expect it to. That is why the show has been so good for so many years; The Sopranos is one of the few shows where you want it to go the cliche route, just once (remember the episode where Dr. Melfi gets raped - how many people wanted her to tell Tony and have him bash that guys brains in to end the episode? Instead, she remains silent).

No, The Sopranos doesn't end in a blazing ball of flames, and we shouldn't have expected it to. Chase plays on our emotions and expectations by creating tension where there should be none; after Phil gets shot in the head and then run over by his own car, with his grandchildren inside, no less, Tony and the rest ease up and return to their normal lives. The audience doesn't. In the back of our heads, we are thinking, "They've let their guard down, and it's only a matter of time where Tony, or one of his family members, gets killed."

The last scene is agonizing, as Tony sits alone at a table waiting for his family to show up. One by one they do, but with every passing second more and more people feed into the restaurant. Could that guy be the guy who kills Tony? One man enters in front of Anthony Jr. who looks suspicious; he even eyes Tony, then gets up and goes to the bathroom. Will he turn around with a gun and fire? Will he return from the bathroom and blow Tony's brains out? And then there's Meadow, who has trouble parallel parking. Chase plays with us and prolongs the scene. Will she be delayed just long enough to watch her family get gunned down? Will she be struck by a car when, in frustration, she pulls back onto the street?

No. The episode just ends. Tony is alive, his family is alive, and there isn't much closure. The threat of Phil is gone, and that, honestly, is enough for me, but for many audience members who really wanted closure, Chase actually makes things worse. Not only does Tony live, defying odds, but Chase leaves it wide open as to whether Tony will spend the rest of his life in prison. And for that, I give Chase props. He may have pissed off the audience, but then again, they are not his audience any longer. And in the long run, people will respect this episode for staying true to the nature of the show: do not do what the audience expects, do what could happen in real life.

But this is why I truly liked the episode. Tony gets fucked over, and you don't see it coming. I didn't realize it until half an hour after the ending credits rolled, but The Sopranos season finale contains one of the biggest fuck-overs ever in the history of television. For several episodes now, and even for years, that FBI agent has been coming around talking with Tony, asking for terrorism tips, et cetera. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I don't think so: that guy single handedly took down Tony Soprano. He befriend Tony as much as any FBI agent could do, and even proceeded to feed Tony info on Phil whenever he could. Tony was relying on this man's information to find Phil. Then, shortly after Phil gets killed, we see the FBI agent say, "We won" or something along those lines. You think he's talking about siding with Tony, but in fact, isn't he saying "We won" in that they had finally taken Tony down.

The FBI agent gave Tony information to help him kill Phil. But the FBI already had Carlo ready to flip; all they needed was for him to be in the same room when Tony asked to have Phil killed. After Phil is killed, they now have a witness who heard Tony ask for murder. The FBI agent fucked Tony over, and I didn't even see it coming.

It takes a little bit of time to accept it, but that was a great end to The Sopranos.

Movie review: 300

Wow. That's all I can say. Wow. Okay, that's not true. 300, the movie, is incredible. The visuals kick ass, the action is stupendous, and the movie is surprisingly deep given the subject matter. Zach Snyder, director of 2004's Dawn of the Dead, does an incredible job of taking every thing to the limits without pushing things overboard - this movie could have easily been a cheesy disaster if done wrong.
You can read more of my 300 movie review by clicking here.