A Few of My Favorite Movies From 2007

With the year beginning to come to a close, I thought that it would be fitting to put together a list of my favorite movies from the year. Before proceeding any further, I must make the disclaimer that I do not assert that this list is by any means complete and is quite likely to change when somebody reminds me of something that I really liked but for some reason forgot to include. So without further ado, here are my favorites in no particular order:

• Once - Loved the music. Loved the story. Loved the emotion. Loved everything about this movie.
  
• Lives of Others - Fantastic story with excellent character development.
  
• No Country for Old Men - The sound editing for the desert scenes blew me away.
  
• Children of Men (I know this came out at the very end of last year but I did not see it until January of this year so I am including it on this list) - Loved the extended tracking shots. Especially the one through the city streets and up into the apartment building in the middle of the gun fight. Awesome.
  
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - Casey Affleck steals the show and I love the Terence Malick feel. The shot with the train pulling to a stop with all the steam and Jesse James silhouetted on the tracks was perfect.
  
• Sunshine - This really needs to be seen on the big screen to appreciate the beauty. Even if I didn't like the last fifteen movies. Mike Warner swears I will like the last fifteen minutes more if I watch it again. I remain unconvinced. I appreciate how the last fifteen minutes were made. But I still don't like them.
  
• Michael Clayton - Nice tight story. Great acting. George Clooney was really on point.
  
• Juno - Loved the witty dialogue and the way the characters really came to life. Great laughter mixed with some poignant moments equal a winner in my book.
  
• Lars and the Real Girl - I heart Ryan Gosling. Need I say more? But really this movie was excellent on many levels. Ryan Gosling was just an added bonus.
  
• The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters - As one of my friends said "you can't write dialogue and humor like this." The real thing is just too amazing.
  
• Into the Wild - Great soundtrack. Great cinematography. Great acting. I really like Emil Hirsch. As another one of my friends said "this movie changed my life."
  
• Darjeeling Limited - Loved the luggage. Loved the colors. Loved the cast.
  
• Hot Fuzz - This movie gets funnier and funnier each time I watch it. My favorite comedy of the year. By far.
  
• The Bourne Ultimatum - Best of the three in my opinion. The fight scene where he hits the guy with a book was amazing. So intense.
  
• Paris, je t'aime - A great compilation of short films about Paris. If you don't like one, no problem. Another one will be coming along in about ten minutes. My favorite was the short about the guy who gets shot.
  
• The Lookout - I really liked this one in the theater but when I watched it again on dvd it wasn't as good as I remembered. Still it was solid. Solid story with no real holes if a bit antiseptic and lacking characters with any real depth.
  
• 300 - Loved the ballet of death.
  
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Probably my favorite Potter movie to date. I really liked how they used the newspaper shots to show passage of time.
  
• Ocean's Thirteen - George Clooney. Brad Pitt. I'll watch pretty much anything with them in it and like it. I love the Ocean's series. Just plain and simple good times.
  
• The Kingdom - Surprisingly emotional for me.
  
• Eagle vs Shark - If you like Flight of the Conchords then you will like this. Very similar to Juno in that it was a great mixture of laughter and poignant moments.
  

And that is all I can think of right now. Like I said before, I am sure I am forgetting some movies that I really did like. I often struggle to remember if I ate breakfast or not or how old I am so it is not inconceivable that I would forget a movie that I really enjoyed if I watched it more than a day ago. Feel free to add to the list of this years enjoyable movies in the comments.

PS I will go on the record and say that my favorite movie of the year was Once. If you still haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and rent or buy it when it streets on December 18th.