The story is familiar. The calendar year begins and there's dross in the movie theaters apart from a few platforming highlights from the previous year. Minor pleasures follow in the spring and summer. They valiantly struggle to catch public attention amidst cacophonous 8 figure ad budgets of vapid blockbusters. The weather cools and then, as suddenly as people stop going to the theater in droves, real cinematic triumphs arrive. (Funny how that's so backwards. Like leaving a party as soon as the A list guests show). And then a curious but predictable thing happens: the holidays hit and all the remaining movies are viewed sight unseen as "the best" of the year. Until they open that is. Inevitably, November and December feel a little flat. All buildup and no delivery; Christmas morning with so-so gifts.But not 2007. This year the movies Hollywood stingily withheld actually delivered. Well, most of them at any rate. As a result, the year kept getting better as it went, gathering speed as it barrelled towards its rather cataclysmic end. December had three major offerings emblematic of this tendency: Sweeney Todd's bloodbath, Atonement's guilty backwards glance and There Will Be Blood's implosion were all shocking and rather final finales in their own ways.
"You Can't Stop What's Coming"
...continue reading for more on the emotional disintegrations and mass destruction of this just-wrapped film year. Next up: underappreciated, honorable mentions and the ten best pictures of 2007 according to Nathaniel.
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