I watch movies.

...although part of that’s the lack of movies I’ve been to lately.

48. Halloween
Actually saw this almost two months ago, and forgot to post about it. Although really, the less I remember about this movie, the better.

49. Across the Universe
I’m a fan of both Julie Taymor and The Beatles, so I was very happy to se the two work together so well. The songs as sung by the cast are distinct from the originals, often adding meaning to make them work with the narrative without altering the lyrics or music. Like Cirque du Soleil’s Love, Universe sets the action if the time of The Beatles, but without featuring the Fab Four as characters (although Jude looks a little too much like McCartney to be coincidence), instead using the music to tell a story of what the youth of that era was going through. The attempt at a universal experience is likely why the cast is mostly unknowns (Eddie Izzard as Mr. Kite is the most recognizable face in the entire movie), a decision that makes it easier to see the characters as characters, as opposed to actors. In the end it’s not as deep or emotionally powerful as Taymor’s other films, but it’s true to The Beatles’ music (even throwing in a number of references to songs not featured in the film) and tells a good story in a visually interesting way.

45. Superbad
This reminded me a lot of my own high school experience, only much funnier. It’s vulgar, but in a way that seems natural coming out of the mouths of teenage boys, and there’s a real heart under all the talk of genitalia.

43. The Bourne Ultimatum
I’m happy to see that three movies in, the series still holds up, and I hope it’s the last film they make. Although the Bourne series continued after his death, Ludlum only wrote the three books, and it works so well as a trilogy I would hate to see them bring the character back for, in the words of Paul Greengrass, The Bourne Redundancy. There are a lot of great throwbacks to the previous films, some more obvious than others, but I suspect the movie would be plenty entertaining to someone who hadn’t seen the first too. After all, how much back story do you need to enjoy a really excellent car chase (they still haven’t topped the chase in Identity, but that’s a pretty high bar and they come damned close). Best of all, like its predecessors, it’s an action movie that you don’t need to place your brain under the seat to enjoy. The audience’s intelligence is never insulted - a rarity in the summer action genre.

40. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
As with every adaptation of a book with a rabid fan base (the four previous films in the franchise included), I’ve heard a fair share of complaining that this isn’t a 4-hour epic that includes every detail of the source material. Personally, while there were things I noticed missing, I don’t think the movie suffered for any of them,* and in fact works better as a movie without them. While Rowling’s books do a good job of exploring much of what happens to a variety of characters over the course of a school year, in order for them to work on screen they need to be pared down to the main story. Order of the Phoenix does this incredibly well, showing how far the main characters have come in five years while putting them up against the series’ best villains to date. I think it’s a toss-up between this and Prisoner of Azkaban as to my favorite movie of the series so far; Azkaban had an incredible look and feel to it, but Phoenix was probably the more fun to watch - especially the climactic battle scenes.

On a side note, I saw this in an IMAX theater, where said climactic scenes were presented in 3-D. I’d be interested in watching it again in two dimensions, because while the giant screen and high level of detail that come with IMAX are great, transferring a flat image into three dimensions is a science that is far from perfected. At times it was more of a distraction than an asset, and I think that sequence of the movie would work better presented in the same format as the rest of the film.

*Except maybe the conversation with Nearly-Headless Nick at the end, but that’s less about importance to the plot and more about it being one of the best scenes that Rowling has written.

37. Transformers
A lot of cool-looking action and special effects, but not quite enough story to support it. Two and a half hours apparently isn’t enough time to create characters interesting enough that you care if they live or die. There was a lot of potential in the movie that could have been better used if the characters had been better developed. And the climactic battle was hard to enjoy, because I missed the logic that the main characters used to justify taking the MacGuffin to L.A. when they knew they were being pursued by giant evil robots (and somehow the existence of the Transformers is still a secret at the end of the movie, despite everyone in a five-mile radius of downtown L.A. witnessing said battle). Fun to watch if you don’t think too much, and probably more enjoyable if you were more into the cartoon/toys as a kid than I was, but as current action movies go this one falls far short of Live Free or Die Hard.

35. Ratatouille
It’s a Pixar movie by Brad Bird. Of course it’s great.

30. Mr. Brooks
I’m as shocked as anyone: a movie with Kevin Costner and Dane Cook that not only doesn’t suck, but is actually pretty good. It helps that they’re working with an excellent script about a man who is addicted to killing people, which covers a lot of different subplots without ever straying too far from the main story and without including anything unnecessary. Plus the ending used a device I tend to think of as a cop-out, but it really works in this case. Performance-wise, a lot has been said about William Hurt, who essentially plays the personification of Mr. Brook’s compulsion, but while that praise is well-deserved I think it’s actually Costner who makes the movie work (never thought I’d be saying that again). He makes the title character likable, to the point that you want him to beat his addiction because, apart from the whole serial killer thing thing, he’s actually a pretty good guy. My hat’s also off to the art director for the excellent use of color (or lack thereof); Brooks is surrounded with black and white - at home, at work, in the clothes he wears, everywhere. My guess is it was done to highlight the dichotomy between his public and private selves, but regardless of meaning it creates some striking visuals.

31. Paprika
The latest eye-popping anime from Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue) deals with a technology that allows dreams to be recorded and studied, and what happens when that technology is misused. But the story, while interesting, is not nearly as important as the visuals, the fluid animation, and the mind-bending dreamworlds created in this movie. Excellent animation throughout, and just plain fun to watch.

32. 1408
FInally, a horror movie that actually tries to scare its audience, rather than gross them out. Very psychological and very effective, this is a movie that could have gone wrong very easily. It’ll never happen, but I’d love to see John Cusack nominated for some acting awards simply for the fact that he carried the majority of the movie alone. With a lesser actor this wouldn’t have worked, but Cusack pulls it off. I wanted a little more from the end, but for the most part the movie succeeds in its goal of creeping out the audience.

28. Once
Very beautiful Irish movie about a street musician and a Czech immigrant who want to fall for each other but are held back by past relationships. The movie looks very unpolished, but it’s deliberately so. Shot on 35mm with smooth camera moves and beautiful (for conventional movie definitions of “beautiful”) people, Once would have lost its impact. Instead we get hand-held digital video of actors who don’t look like movie stars, but instead look like real people (and I can’t think of any major actor whose face is as expressive as Glen Hansard’s is in this movie). That the leads look their parts so well is a bonus, but they weren’t hired for their looks: Hansard and Markéta Irglová are both singer/songwriters, and they wrote the bulk of the music in Once.

That music is what elevates this movie from good to great. All the songs work as something the character would write/sing while fitting perfectly into the emotion of the scene. I was not the only one in the theater nodding along with the music (especially the last few songs as the movie hits its emotional climax), nor was I the only one to pick up the soundtrack in the lobby as soon as the credits finished rolling. Looking back on what I’ve watched in 2007, Once is easily the best drama, and a serious contender for best movie I’ve seen this year.

26. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Not as good as Curse of the Black Pearl, but better than Dead Man’s Chest. In fact, the third movie makes the second movie better, and they would probably be best as a double feature (they really make up one long story told in two parts, whereas the first stands on its own). The story had better dramatic impact than I expected, and the visuals (both effects and cinematography) were incredible. The political commentary at the beginning was a little much, but the scene’s dark beauty was enough for me to forgive it, especially since they didn’t carry it through the rest of the movie. It was almost three hours of fun with a story complex enough to reward you for paying attention and satisfying resolutions for its characters. Unlike some other third installments this summer, Pirates more than lived up to expectations.

23. Disturbia
I should be annoyed that they not only remade Rear Window again, but that they did it without having the common decency to admit that they were doing it (no mention in the credits, no reference in the movie, nothing), which I suppose makes it more of a rip-off than a remake. The problem though is that once you get past the fact that it’s been done before (and better), it’s a pretty entertaining piece of matinee fluff. It’s a more or less interesting story, Shia LaBouf holds his own opposite David Morse, and it is genuinely suspenseful. Most of the movie keeps wondering if the neighbor would turn out to be a killer, or just a creepy old guy - it could have easily gone either way right up until the reveal. Of course Rear Window is a far better film, with a more talented lead actor and more effective execution, but as a loose update of a similar story 50 years later (it’s a different situation when cell phones camcorders, and google are thrown in the mix), Disturbia manages to be exactly what is sets out to be: a fun early summer movie.