Nice list... I saw maybe half of those movies this year... Bourne, Juno and Once stand out in my mind as once I'd like to see again.

About Alvin, I have a 3 year old and was not sure if he'd like it. What did you think? A little young? For what it's worth, he loved the Bee Movie and didn't like Shrek 3, despite liking the original Shrek.

Wish you and yours a successful, happy new year. Can't wait for the Dodgers already... I do feel better about A. Jones than I did about J. Schmidt and J. Pierre, plus the kids are ready to roll. Should be a fun year. I'll catch you on the boards.

I hear that the Care Bears movie was often overlooked.

"Walk Hard" is one of the four movies I saw in theaters this year. The other three were "Transformers" and "Superbad" twice.

I would wait for the DVD... the biopic formula drains the comedy out of a lot of the scenes (Jenna Fischer is pretty much wasted) and the few sequences that really work just make you long for the "Line-o-Rama" extended versions that will appear on the DVD.

1 - My kids, 3 and 5, liked Alvin and weren't too young for it. But you, certainly, will be too old. I would say my 3-year-old liked it more than Bee Movie.

I saw Sweeney Todd this afternoon to bring me to 51, and I have 132 minutes to finish the final 42 minutes of Jesse James to make it 52 before the end of the year.

Wow. 50 movies just from 2007 is impressive. I doubt that I got to 10, though I probably saw another 15-20 that were actually 2006 movies.

Did you catch the matinee double header of Care Bears and There Will Be Blood? :)

Oops - I forgot Kite Runner. So I'm actually at 53 now.

I've seen most of the ones on your "wanna see" list, and I'd break them up into four categories:

DEF. MUST SEE: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days; This Is England

WORTH SEEING: 3:10 to Yuma; Charlie Wilson's War; Persepolis, Sweeney Todd; Darjeeling Limited

EH: Becoming Jane; I Am Legend; King Of California; The Great Debaters; Walk Hard

SKIP IT: Across The Universe; I'm Not There; Assassination Of Jesse James

Then again, Jon, you and I frequently disagree on movies. So maybe you should disregard everything I've written.

t money: your skip it list looks pretty good, actually. i'm not there was something i wouldn't recommend, but loved. it was more narrative in feeling than anything else (if that makes sense, though it really doesnt).

I miss most movies in the theater, but I did see Sweeney Todd (my son's a big fan of Sondheim, and he graciously let me take him to his second viewing). Really good, I thought. A good effort by Tim Burton, whose films had become very mannered. This is a return to form.

The peripherals are incredible: Sets, cinematography, costumes, makeup, sound, lighting. All of it works.

The idea of having the non-singing actors sing makes loads of sense onscreen. The songs seem like the characters' private thoughts -- things they might be saying to themselves as much as to others.

The music is great. In fact, I'd venture to say that, hands-down, this is the best music ever in a slasher film.

I missed too many films this year, too, or at least, too many before I had to finally complete my own darned "Best of '07" list - enough where I could see changing half the films on the list in another two months after I've finally seen them all.
But here they are, at least for the moment:
http://www.greencine.com/central/bestof07craig

I tried desperately to get a screener for Jesse James after missing it in theaters, to no avail. But at least it's officially coming to DVD next month.

Yeah my colleague had "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days" as the best film of the year. Of course he had the advantage of seeing that one in Berlin. Hasn't opened here yet.

11

It actually played in LA last week - for just one week - in order to qualify for Oscar consideration. But there wasn't much publicity surrounding it, as its official release isn't until late Jan./early Feb.