The Good:

• 3:10 to Yuma – Wow. Just. Wow. Who said the Western was dead? Christian Bale, as always, impeccable. Russell Crowe played the most complicated and understandable villain I’ve ever seen.
• 300 – Spartans! Prepare to have your faces melted by the glory of Frank Miller! The really stunning part is that the creative filming techniques descended from Bullet Time do a stunning job of capturing the feel of the graphic novel. I’ve never been in a theater where this many people shouted along with the characters on screen.
• Transformers – Could I ever ask for more? It was funny, action-packed, and full of teen angst. Who knew Michael Bay could make a movie with like, a plot? Seeing this movie was like suddenly turning around and noticing that the boy next door grew up into a major hottie. A major hottie with the sexiest Camaro known to man.
• Knocked Up – Judd Apatow is a true wunderkind, understanding human character better before the age of 25 than most writers do in a lifetime. Poignant, revealing, and ringing true, it’s a bittersweet meditation on relationships, family, and the unexpected joy that life’s curve balls can bring.
• Superbad – Apatow is batting 1000 this year. For once a teen movie isn’t watered down to be PG-13 acceptable, but is still smart enough to leave American Pie in the dust. Guess what, parents! Life is rated R, remember?. This movie had me cringing with agony as a flood of memories from high school come back to haunt me. I should have brought an extra gut to the theater because I busted mine seeing this one.
• Hot Fuzz – Loads of fun. Everything a summer movie should be. The killer duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Sean of the Dead) rocked my socks again. I never would have thought that the ultimate shoot-em-up cop flick that paid tribute to every big budget crimestopper could have been made by Brits. I was also pleasantly surprised to finally see Timothy Dalton in a film and not be irritated by his presence. More bullet casings drop than F-bombs in Superbad. Enjoy.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – Best group melee brawl of the year. I’ve really enjoyed watching the cast grow up, and the seven film arc is really allowing for some meaningful connection between the characters, and with the audience. Gary Oldman just owns the part of Sirius Black. Even though I knew he was going to get it, I still cried.
• Live Free or Die Hard – If I wasn’t already voting for Optimus Prime, I’d say John McClane for President. The Mac kid wasn’t bad, either. I didn’t think McClane was going to be able to top walking on broken glass, but killing a helicopter with a car and shooting through your own body to kill a terrorist deserves the Congressional Medal of Kickass.
• I Am Legend – Will Smith turned in easily the most compelling acting performance of the year. Because the Oscars don’t mean anything to me, I’ll just say that he is hereby awarded the Best Damn Actor of the Year Award for 2007 courtesey of yours truly.
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – It should not have surprised me that Johnny Depp can sing. Chalk up one more deliciously twisted dark tale for Tim Burton and his favorite muse.

The Bad:

• Music and Lyrics - I want that ninety-six minutes of my life back. Why did my roommate buy that one?
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End - I think Bruckheimer missed the memo: psychedelic dream sequences were abolished in 1973. Some snappy jokes and always awesome costuming, but I feel the same about the Pirates franchise as I do about the Matrix franchise: 1 was awesome, 2 and 3 were progressively crappier, poorly scripted, and boring. What really killed this one for me was complete failure to make proper use of Chow-Yun Fat, the only compelling or interesting character in the entire film. There was one part that I found believable, though: a married man only getting laid once every ten years.

The Ugly:

• Beowulf – Ah, what could have been! What with the ridiculous Austin Powers-ish schlong monitoring, I couldn’t really enjoy the battle scenes. Great visual effects. Decent story adaptation of the Old English epic. Crappy characterization of Momzilla and her poster child for ADD. Even worse characterization of frigid ice queen. Just watch the TV movie with Gerard Butler. Mmm . . . Gerard Butler . . .
• The Simpsons Movie – I ain’t sayin’ it was a terrible movie. It’s just a better TV show.
• National Treasure: Book of Secrets – Nicholas Cage’s botox treatments had me so distracted I could barely pay attention to the plot, which luckily was so lame it didn’t take effort to figure it out. The idea of people creeping through tunnels, kidnapping heads of state, and murdering each other in the name of family honor is just . . . yeah. The only plus: some snippets of U.S. history might actually seep through the skulls of viewers, or even possibly inspire younger moviegoers to learn about the country they live in.

Didn’t Bother to See:

• Spiderman 3 - Overrated.
• Ocean’s 13 – Really overrated.
• 28 Weeks Later - Can we say cash cow sequel with crappy scripting and poor characterization for the sake of squeezing a few more bucks out of the franchise? The title makes it sound like a pregnancy movie anyway.
• Sicko – Nothing does more to destroy the legitimate case for such as important issue as the health care crisis as a big fatass making a movie about it. Hey Mike– drop 200 pounds and show us you take your own health seriously. Then maybe I’ll take your film seriously. It doesn’t help that this publicity whore is so ethically repugnant that even when he’s funny or makes a decent point, I just don’t want to reward him with my money. I will probably see this out of sheer curiosity at some point, just to see if he tainted making a good case for something through dishonest slimeball tactics, but I won’t pay for it.
• Nancy Drew – I wasn’t really in the mood to have a significant part of my childhood destroyed.
• The Golden Compass – The books were derivative drivel, so when Hollywood’s done taking its axe to material like that, you know it won’t be good. Any work written purely as a reaction to something else is never as good, hence Pullman will not ever be as well known or respected as C.S. Lewis. It doesn’t help that Pullman is hypocritical as well– he’s openly stated that the goal of his books is to convert children to atheism. At least Lewis wasn’t pushy about adapting Judeo-Christian ideas and story elements to entertaining, enduring fiction. Readers are free to interpret the text as they will. No room for that in Pullman.
• TMNT – I like Jim Henson, thankyouverymuch.
• The Bourne Ultimatim – Meh.

Wanted to See:

• Waitress – Nathan Fillion. ‘Nuff said. I’d also like to pay my respects to Adrienne Shelly. RIP, and it’s a shame you won’t be making more films.
• Elizabeth: The Golden Age – The first one wasn’t bad at all, and I’ve always been an admirer of QE1.
• Persepolis – Looks like a poignant and important film to reveal that even psychotic religious oppression can’t quite squash the human spirit.
• Wind that Shakes the Barley – Say Irish Republicanism and I’m there.
• Juno – Looked sweet, funny, and like it had some truth to it.