A Look Back at 2007: The Unappreciated

With less than a month left in the year, it's time to start making sense of the year that was 2007. Over the next few weeks I'll be writing a few articles looking back at the films of 2007, leading up to my Top 10 for the year. To kick things off, we'll start with the five films that deserved more love than they got. For whatever reason, these five films went under the radar, didn't get the reviews they deserved, or simply failed to catch on. None are necessarily classics, but they certainly deserved better than they got.

5. Smokin' Aces

With all due respect to Javier Bardem, the psychopath of the year award goes to the Tremor brothers from Smokin' Aces. Their all too brief screen time in this film was by far the best part of the movie. And the scene in which (spoilers) they kill Ben Affleck's character and then pretend his corpse is forgiving them for his murder (end spoilers) is both hilarious and unsettling. The rest of the movie is pretty fun as well, with an amazing cast. And this is the film that finally proves that Clint Masell is the best new composer of the decade. He delivers yet another amazing score for a movie that probably didn't even deserve such a memorable score.


4. Hot Rod

In a year of Knocked Up, Superbad, Hot Fuzz, and The Simpsons Movie, I am almost embarrassed to admit I laughed hardest at Hot Rod. Watching this film, I couldn't help but be reminded of the early films of Adam Sandler (and yes, that's a good thing). The laughs are unexpected and not as idiotic as you might have expected. Take, for example, the scene in which Rod and his buddies are purposefully walking down the street and a crowd begins to follow them. This inspiring moment goes haywire when it suddenly turns into a riot. It's out of left field, yet it's a great spoof of similar ridiculously inspiring scenes in movie musicals. I don't know if this film is a sign that Andy Samberg will be the next big comedy star, but it's certainly the first time I've had any interest in a SNL alum since Will Ferrell.


3. Severance

I saw Severance way back in 2006 at an early screening and the fact that I still think about how fun that experience was at the end of 2007 is a sign of how wonderful Severance is. If you like horror movies mixed with dark humor, this is one of the very best - I'd easily rank it up there with Shaun of the Dead. The cast of characters aren't just there to be killed, and the villain is surprisingly realistic and frightening. The film got almost no press and a small early summer release before finding its way to DVD. Next Halloween season, if you want to impress your friends with a horror movie, watch this one. You'll never look at bear traps the same way again.


2. Grindhouse

Any film on this list I would suggest you go out and watch. Except Grindhouse. Grindhouse was an experiment from directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez to try and recreate the experience of going to see a double bill of cheesy exploitation films. A big part of the experience is seeing it in the theater with other people. Grindhouse came complete with fake trailers, advertisements for neighboring restaurants, missing reels, scratched prints, and more. Unfortunately most people didn't get the point when it was released in theaters, and after bombing it has been chopped up and kind of ruined on DVD. Gone is that experience of watching an event, replaced with two stand alone movies minus all the goodies. I highly suspect that this experience (a word I keep using, but it's the only one that accurately describes Grindhouse) will become a midnight movie staple. If it does, do yourself a favor and check it out there. Don't bother with these botched DVDs, they don't do Grindhouse justice.


1. Sunshine

Of all the movies on this list, Sunshine probably came closest to being a genuinely great film. Were it not for the fact that it turns into a slasher film in the final act, it would easily be among the best sci-fi movies of recent years. It is thoughtful, humbling, exciting, tragic, and funny. While watching it, one gets the sense that director Danny Boyle wanted it to be Children of Men in space. Fox Searchlight, who have had a banner year, somehow completely botched the release of this film, never putting it in more than a handful of theaters and getting a gross of only a few million. This should have been one of the blockbusters of the summer, instead it became an afterthought. Whether you like movies to thrill you or to make you think, Sunshine offers both in ample portions.

Grindhouse

From the scratchy prints, to the fake trailers, to the commercial for your local Mexican restaurant, Grindhouse is more than simply a movie - it's an experience. To see this on DVD is to miss the entire point, which is the fun that can be had in a communal viewing of movies in theaters. Because Grindhouse is made up of so many components and is unlike just about any movie I've ever seen, I'll try and review each part individually, and then summarize the movie experience as a whole.

Planet Terror

Director Robert Rodriguez is something of a modern day John Carpenter in many ways, so it seems fitting that his ode to Seventies horror films would be an homage to the films of Carpenter, particularly Assault on Precinct 13. Everything from the characters to the plot to the music is straight out of Carpenter - and yes, that is very much a good thing.

Following a band of survivors in a small town infested with zombies, Planet Terror does something that few horror movies do anymore: it creates interesting characters. These aren't simply people to be killed off one by one (though that does happen). These people have personalities, and as such it actually fun to watch them interact with each other and their zombie antagonists. Of particular note are El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), a mysterious drifter who really has a way with weapons, and Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan), a former go-go dancer whose dreams of being a stand-up comedian are dashed when a zombie eats off her leg. If that sounds ridiculously campy, you'd be right. And that's where the real fun lies.

The thing about grindhouse films is that most were pretty bad to begin with, and Robert Rodriguez acknowledges that by making his film overly ridiculous. The end result is extremely entertaining, perhaps the most crowd pleasing film of the year thus far. If you love schlocky old horror films but recognize that they have flaws, this film was made for you.



The Trailers

There are four trailers interspersed throughout the films, as well as other small things like commercials and theater advertisements.

The first trailer is for Machete, an Mexsploitation film (which is exactly what it sounds like). Danny Trejo is very amusing as the titular Machete, and his jacket of weapons is hilarious. Overall it might have been the weakest trailer, but it was still great.

Werewolf Women of the SS is a bit unlike the other trailers in that it seems like it knows it is a joke, whereas the others imply their movies are real. It is still very funny, as the whole concept of Nazis and werewolf women is great, and the final surprise cameo at the end of the trailer makes it perfect.

Don't is possibly the funniest trailer, as it relies almost entirely on the voice over to tell you about the film. The number of times the word "Don't" is uttered is hilarious, as is the reveal of the film's title.

Finally there is Thanksgiving. It is so dead on accurate as to how those old trailers were made, right down to the voice over, that it honestly felt like a lost horror movie that someone finally found thirty years later. It also elicited the biggest response from the audience, and for good reason: it's pretty shocking. All in all, the trailers were amazing and probably the most entertaining part of Grindhouse.



Death Proof

Finally, the movie ends with Death Proof, a Quentin Tarantino film. Something you should know is that the point of a double feature is not to give you the same film twice, but to give you two different experiences. As such, this film is a complete 180 from Planet Terror. This is a grindhouse film that isn't in on the joke, at least not much. There are some laughs to be had, but in the end this feels like a film that was actually made to be in a grindhouse, not a spoof.

The basic idea is that a guy named Stuntman Mike uses his death proof car to kill unsuspecting women. It's a great premise in theory, but it is such a slow burn to get to the action that many will be put off, especially after the fast paced first film we already watched. I can understand the need for the slow burn, as it helps you care about what happens to the victims, but I think Tarantino made a mistake in how he went about it. The women talk for long periods of time about things we couldn't care less about. It's almost tedious. Yet when the women do start to die, it is much more shocking because you feel like, for better or worse, you actually kind of knew these people, so seeing them violently dismembered is more shocking than amusing.

Kurt Russell is perfect in the film, balancing both creepiness and charm. Yet he is unlike your typical horror film villain in that, when the tables turn on him, he is no longer brave at all. The women in the film are largely annoying, although that has more to do with the dialogue than the acting. Zoe Bell, who is a stuntwoman, plays herself, and while her acting is nothing special, her stunt work is amazing. That's kind of the problem with Death Proof: it has some of the worst elements in Grindhouse (the dialogue), but also some of the best. The car chases and crashes are phenomenal, and ultimately make the whole thing worth it.




Overall

Overall, this was an amazing experience of a film. It's a shame that it has failed so miserably at the box office, as it is a true crowd pleaser. I'd almost say that you shouldn't see it unless you see it in theaters with an audience, as that's where a lot of the enjoyment comes from. Still, I suspect that this is the kind of film that will be showing at midnight movies for years to come every Halloween. That is ultimately what it was probably made for, just like the grindhouse pictures it is worshiping.