Buffalo's Best Films of 2007

Posted: Dec 11, 2007

Well, 2007 wasn’t the best year ever for movies, but we did hit on a few real winners. It seemed the theme of the year was war, with an unusual amount of war films, but we still got a dose here and there of comedy and a small handful of Oscar caliber performances, like Tommy Lee Jones, Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington and Kate Winslet.

Below are my own Top Ten Films of 2007. Please comment and let me know what your favorites were.

Keep it Real. Keep it Southern.
Buffalo

Tommy Lee Jones in "No Country for Old Men."

10. 3:10 TO YUMA
Russell Crowe as Ben Wade, a Billy the Kid type of outlaw, who ends up arrested and in route to catch a prisoner train to Yuma. Christian Bale, Alan Tudyk, and Peter Fonda are among the cast that help to make 310 To Yuma a stellar film.

9. IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH
Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon play Hank and Joan Deerfield, a retired military couple whose son Mike goes missing on his first night back from fighting in Iraq. Jones goes looking for answers, but there are a lot of empty spaces in the story. Charlize Theron is great as the police detective.

8. BREACH
Chris Cooper shines as the religious yet amoral FBI officer who has been selling secrets to the Soviets. Extreme action and extremely well acted.

7. GRINDHOUSE
A joint venture between directors Quenton Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, directed and shot in true early-seventies style, with all the gaps and scratches we remember from the old drive-in movies. Complete with missing film reels, melting film and cornball on screen ads, this is a true tribute to the old "grindhouse" films.

6. RENDITION
Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal ), a CIA analyst based in North Africa, is forced to question his assignment after he witnesses the brutal interrogation of an Egyptian-American by secret North African police. His pregnant wife, Isabella El-Ibrahimi (Reese Witherspoon), does everything in her power to find her missing husband, who has seemingly disappeared during a flight from Cape Town, South Africa to Washington, DC.

5. LITTLE CHILDREN
Both funny and sad, with Kate Winslet and featuring an outstanding performance from Jackie Earl Haley as the “sex criminal” that turns the neighborhood upside down.

4. THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE
Benicio Del Toro stars as Jerry Sunborne, alongside Halle Berry as Audrey Burke. Audrey’s husband Steve (David Duchovny) is dead at the beginning of the film, but is seen in many flashback sequences. Jerry is Steven’s best friend, and a major junkie, who is trying desperately to recover.

3. EASTERN PROMISES
Nikolai Luzhin, the Russian born “driver” for London’s biggest mob boss. Naomi Watts plays Anna Khitrova, a nurse who just happens to inherit the newborn baby of a slain hooker. But the key to the whole story lies within a diary she also finds on the body of the deceased.

2. AMERICAN GANGSTER
Denzel Washington stars as Frank Lucas in this tale based on a true story of a driver for one of the leading black crime bosses. Russell Crowe plays Detective Richie Roberts, the man who aims to take down the heroin dealing mob boss

1. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
The latest and greatest from the Coen brothers with Tommy Lee Jones in one of his two, count ‘em, two outstanding roles of 2007. The best modern day western since The Getaway.