Todd’s Top Ten Films of 2007

by Todd Maternowski

Greetings, cinemaphiles and movielovers alike! As you may recall from my last annual Top Ten Films column, 2006 was a great year in film, featuring some top-notch cinematic efforts that will stand tall for the ages. I didn't think it was possible to top a year like 2006, but, to my amazement, 2007 proved more than up for the challenge. It was truly difficult to take all of the year's most riveting movies and pare it down to a mere ten: if your favorite movie was not included in this list, rest assured that had I opted to pen a Top Fifty Seven Movies of 2007 like I was originally considering, it might have made that fateful cut. As it is, I have painstakingly put this list together, and hope that you will share the fond memories I have of these superb films.

#10 - Fred Claus: This socially-significant anti-Santa documentary treated the gravely serious topic of mindless holiday consumerism with maturity and aplomb. I would hate to meet the American who, after one-too-many trips to the local mall's parking battlegrounds, would not instantly identify with this film's Everyman hero as he finds outlet for his societal alienation by throwing the proverbial snowball at "Santa's" groin. Fred Claus was the one movie brave enough to stand up to this overstuffed pagan holiday and shout, "Enough!"

#9 - Spiderman 3: This little-known hidden gem from the underground French avant-garde art film community flew under most critics' radars, but if you can find it it's really not to be missed. Originally penned by Parisian auteure Jean-Luc Godard, this nugget of a film took the director's famous "Jump-cut" film editing invention and pushed it to the farthest boundaries of cinematography, resulting in the startling "Suck-Cut" technique of editing together long stretches of expensive, substandard special effects and loosely joining them with purposefully poorly-written dialogue. Once considered a technical flaw, Suck-Cuts should revolutionize the quality-drenched cesspools of contemporary Hollywood filmmaking.

#8 - Delta Farce: Many glass-half-empty critics unfairly labelled this film as "unwatchable." Perhaps these nattering ninnies should look at the positive aspect of this film: that due to the God-given limits of movie technology, this movie was unsmellable, too.

#7 - Saw IV: Saw IV what? I saw four Oscar nominations for this family-friendly flick!

#6 - Georgia Rule: Most schools of critical analysis agree that when it comes to intelligent film commentary, there is ultimately just one question that must be answered: haute couture or hot cooter? Since nothing in this film quite fits the thankfully-strict definition of the latter, it logically follows that this film must be the former.

#5 - Good Luck Chuck: Attention Oscar-obsessed moviegoers: this highly-praised film was included on as many as one critic's top ten list. I'm that critic, and this is that list.

#4 - I Know Who Killed Me: In this groundbreaking film, sought-after starlet Lindsey Lohan plays a character that knows who killed her. Hardly a dismissable feat, but even more impressive when you consider that in real life, Lohan has difficulty knowing the difference between her ass and a coked-up hole in the ground. With two movies on this list and her name and portrait featured prominently in various print publications, this has truly been a banner year for the promising Disney-reared talent.

#3 - The Brothers Solomon: Hollywood has often been criticized by the liberal media for its immature, pleasure-first depiction of the sexual act. In this film, however, the primacy of the biological function of intercourse is given top billing. No longer can the religious right take cheapshots at Hollywood for ignoring our biological imperative after one viewing of this pro-DNA epic.

#2 - Bratz: 2007's sequel to Easy Bake Oven, this film brought a little sass and a lot of class to a year dominated by toy-based movies (Transformers, Lawn Darts 3). Like some of the other greatest films in cinematic history, this paean to individuality brilliantly exposed the underlying foundations of the talent show-obsessed social caste system while simultaneously providing young girls --the most vulnerable of victims in a male-dominated society-- with the means and inspiration to take back the very notions of equal citizenship under law via butt-hugging shorts with the words 'SLUT MACHINE' subversively written across the back.

#1 - Resident Evil: Extinction: After last year's magnum opus Ultraviolet, it may come as little surprise that perennial Oscar-worthy A-list actress Milla Jovovich has once again provided this list with its Top Film of the Year. While a vast majority of Hollywood movies concentrate on ultimately pedestrian exploits of families breaking up or dogs shooting baskets, the rare and elusive apocolypse movie truly understands what it really important. Strip the comforts of society away, put a once-civilized human being in a desert and send waves of brain-hungry zombies after them, and you'll inevitably discover life's deeper, hidden meanings. You can take your pathetic dinners with Andres and English tarts becoming Janes: apocolypse movies are the one genre that can teach us to put things in proper perspective. Lost your job? Wife left you? A snowball just hit you in the groin? Wow, buddy you've got problems! Meanwhile, an unholy, mutated mass of deformed undead flesh has just gnawed through my skull with its razor-sharp fangs dripping with an incurable zombie virus. Yeah, that's right, I have to go blow off my own zombie brother's face off with our grave-touched ghoul of a grandad's shotgun. You sure? No, I'll have to get back to you later. Go deal with your big problems. Dipshit.

That's about it for 2007. Tune in same time next year when we try and scrape together ten of 2008's best films!