November 4, 2022
Several months ago, I brainstormed a list of topics to cover in future blog posts. After doing a retrospective of 2000 and 2001 the last two years, I decided to do another anniversary post this year. I looked at a few different options (1997 and 2002 being two that I considered), but quickly realized that the year to look at was 2007. Now, 15 years is not a traditional anniversary to hone in on, but 2007 was an incredible year in film (so much so that I am splitting this into two parts) and there is no way I would keep it on the shelf for five years to write about its 20th anniversary. Let’s briefly go back in time to look at the movie industry 15 years ago before we dive into some of my favorite films from that year.
Back in 2007, I was five years into my new company and overwhelmed after getting promoted to a bigger job there. I can say with almost 100% certainty that I saw none of these movies in the theater. And streaming services were just beginning to become a thing, with Netflix starting its streaming service in 2007. Yes, these were the glory days of going to a theater, or waiting several months to catch a film after it made its way to DVD or a cable channel. Needless to say, I saw all of these movies over the last fifteen years and not “in the moment” when they were popular. But the great thing about today’s technology is that you can now find all of these films at your fingertips online.
In looking at the 2007 box office, the phrase “the more things change, the more they stay the same” comes to mind. This was the year before Iron Man was released, kicking off the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise which has dominated the industry ever since. It was also two years after the Star Wars prequels (maligned at the time, somewhat nostalgic now) and eight years before the franchise would return with The Force Awakens. So you would think that the popular movies would be original stories, right? Well….
Looking at the top films that year, sequels were still the story, as well as IP (intellectual property) pictures, much like it is today. Audiences weren’t rushing to theaters for adult dramas. They did go see a few comedies (which we’ll get to), but those were the exceptions. The top ten domestic grossing films of 2007 included sequels in the Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Spider-Man franchises, as well as the first movie in the Transformers franchise. The year also saw a lot of sequels that demonstrated that certain franchises were on their last legs – Ocean’s Thirteen, Rush Hour 3, Live Free or Die Hard, and Shrek the Third, as well as ones that will never die (Halloween and Saw). People still went to see these films in droves because they knew what to expect, but the quality was certainly lagging as these installments didn’t measure up to the originals for the most part.
Here’s One That Did – The Bourne Ultimatum
Looking back on the early 2000s, sometimes I still can’t believe that Matt Damon was an action star. Don’t get me wrong – I have long been a big fan of his work, going all the way back to his early years. Despite a few clunkers (like most actors have), he has had a pretty strong run of very good or great movies for a long time now. But, I still think of him as Linus from the Ocean’s franchise, the evil cop in The Departed, or as the genius wiseass in Good Will Hunting. In 2002, Damon took on the role of Jason Bourne, a character introduced in Robert Ludlum’s spy novels in the 1980s. Bourne is a CIA-trained assassin with amnesia, trying to figure out who he really is, while battling government agents and nefarious international enemies. With the first film in the franchise, The Bourne Identity, Damon showed a different side of his acting ability as he balanced action sequences with the human side of a trained killer searching for his identity and coming to grips with who he really is.
The Bourne franchise was very successful and 2007 saw the premiere of the third film, The Bourne Ultimatum. There were three keys to the success of this franchise in my mind. The first is obviously Damon’s talent as the everyman anti-hero. The second was a very deep bench of supporting characters throughout the franchise. Even as the stories changed, the directors surrounded Damon with such talented actors as Brian Cox, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, and Albert Finney. The third key to success was the brilliant writing from Tony Gilroy, who wrote the scripts for the first four films, and directed the fourth installment, which featured Jeremy Renner as the protagonist, as Damon chose to sit that one out.
Gilroy managed to keep each installment fresh, even though the themes were similar. In The Bourne Ultimatum, our main character is trying to obtain key information to expose the government’s secret methods to train assassins. We get some exciting action sequences, but the real fun is the cat and mouse game between Damon and Allen, the CIA officer brought in to help track Bourne down. If Gilroy’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he is receiving strong praise for creating the new Star Wars series Andor on Disney+. Despite the solid reviews, I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet. We are in prime movie season these days, but it’s on my list. And despite my love of the Bourne series, this film was not my favorite Tony Gilroy project from 2007 – that one is coming up later in this week’s post.
The Glory Days of Apatow – Knocked Up
For a short period of time from 2005 – 2011, it seemed that Judd Apatow could do no wrong in Hollywood. As a producer, writer, and director, he was involved in such legendary comedies as The 40-Year Old Virgin, Anchorman, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Bridesmaids. But, lately Apatow seems to have lost his fastball. Granted, some of his lack of success the last few years could be chalked up to comedy being in a really weird place. It’s very hard to make people laugh without approaching the line of offending someone and potentially getting canceled. But with Apatow’s last two films, I think it was just the lack of quality material. I found 2020’s King of Staten Island pretty bland, mostly because I am not a fan of Pete Davidson, who served as the lead actor. And Apatow’s last movie, The Bubble, was savagely reviewed when it was released earlier this year. Even his last producing effort, Bros (a comedy that I found pretty funny) was a box-office disaster. But that’s a conversation for another day.
In 2007, Apatow played an integral part in two very successful comedies, including producing the outrageous Superbad, which I covered in my piece on high-school comedies here. He also wrote and directed Knocked Up, a “Beauty and the Beast” romantic comedy starring Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl. After an alcohol-influenced one-night stand, Heigl becomes pregnant and the two attempt to forge a relationship out of their circumstance. She’s a talented entertainment reporter and the only way to describe him is as an absolute loser. He spends his time hanging out with his stoner buddies, who are developing a website for a very specific kind of movie fan.
Knocked Up works for a number of reasons, primarily the hysterical dialogue (a lot of which was ad-libbed), the interaction among all of the supporting characters, including Bill Hader, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jason Segal, Jonah Hill, Kristin Wiig, and Jonah Hill, and the sweetness between the two leads. Yes, the humor is crude at times, but if we don’t take it too seriously, it’s pretty damn funny. The two minor criticisms I will give Knocked Up is that it is too long (much like most of Apatow’s films), and at times, the two leads come across as one-note characters. Rogen’s stoner act gets old after a while, and I think Apatow could have done a better job creating more of a character for Heigl, who comes across as a screaming shrew in too many scenes. That being said, this is still a very funny comedy at the height of the 2000s comedy boom. Let’s hope we can get back to these types of films in theaters and remind everyone that it’s ok to laugh at something, even if it is a little offensive. It’s a joke, people!
An Impressive Directorial Debut – Gone Baby Gone
I’ve previously written about the many ups and downs of Ben Affleck throughout his personal and professional struggles. After early-career success and winning an Oscar for co-writing Good Will Hunting, Affleck’s career was in danger of going into a tailspin in the early 2000s when he started his comeback. It started with an excellent supporting performance in Hollywoodland, as George Reeves (who portrayed Superman in the 1950s) in a story about his mysterious death. It reminded us what a great actor Affleck could be with the right material, and a few years later, he decided to take his talents behind the camera with his directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone.
The film is based on the novel of the same name written by Dennis Lehane, a native of Boston who has written several books about crime and mysteries set in the Boston area. Lehane’s novels are pretty good if you are a fan of that genre and he has had other stories adapted into movies, including Mystic River (directed by Clint Eastwood) and Shutter Island (directed by Martin Scorsese). Not a bad pedigree of filmmakers to work with.
Gone Baby Gone is the story of two private investigators (played by Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) hired to assist in the location of a missing girl. As they interview various members of the girl’s family, the local police, and other nefarious members of the Dorchester community, they realize this might not be a simple case of kidnapping. In addition to directing the film, Affleck also co-wrote the screenplay, and I really liked how he chose to tell this story. It’s not a typical crime narrative. At one point, halfway through the movie, it seems like a major plot point has been resolved and the movie is going to end, but we’re then taken in a new direction. Also, there are a number of characters he needed to piece together into a cohesive storyline. A lot of times when you have a lot of big-name actors (including Amy Madigan, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, and Amy Ryan, who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance), you have to give them too much screen time to justify their appearance. But, you can tell the respect the actors have for Affleck that they were happy to be part of the film, regardless of their role. This isn’t the most uplifting story, given the subject matter, but it’s a very good movie for this genre, and demonstrated Affleck’s potential as a filmmaker, which we would see on display a few more times over the next decade.
An Incredible Emotional Film – Into the Wild
While this next movie can be a tough watch (especially the ending), I still found it an excellent display of filmmaking from Sean Penn, who wrote and directed Into the Wild. Based on the 1996 book of the same name, written by John Krakauer, the story is focused on Christopher McCandless, played by Emile Hirsch. Following his graduation from college, McCandless rejects his family’s traditional lifestyle of going to college, getting a job, getting married, settling down, starting a family, etc. Instead, he gives away all of his money and hitchhikes across the country, including a brief stopover in Mexico, before traveling up to Alaska.
In choosing to tell this story, Penn flashes back and forth between Christopher’s time in Alaska, where he camped out in an abandoned bus (that he dubbed “The Magic Bus”) and his journey across the continent. We see him being raised by parents living in an unhappy marriage and bonding with his sister to get through the tough times before setting out on his journey. Along the way, he meets a wide-ranging cast of characters, played by well-known actors Penn recruited to participate in the film. We see McCandless interact with a hippie couple on the road, spend time working on a farm in South Dakota (for Vince Vaughn, in a nice performance), and bonding with a young aspiring singer (an early role for Kristen Stewart). To me, the best interaction was with Hal Holbrook, as a widower living a lonely life in California, who bonds with Christopher during his brief stay in the area. Holbrook plays the role with such tenderness as he recalls his own son who died many years earlier in a car accident with his wife. Despite his pleas to give up the dangerous fantasy of traveling to Alaska, Christopher continues on his journey of self-discovery.
Throughout the entire film, Hirsch brings an incredible presence to the story of Christopher, as he embraces the life of the nomad adventurer. In fact, it’s kind of surprising to me that he hasn’t had a bigger career, given the potential he showed with this performance. While I admire Penn’s storytelling technique and brilliant filming of the landscapes across the country, the movie was a little long for my taste. It could have been tightened up, especially as we navigate Christopher’s journey to his final destination. I can’t wrap up my thoughts about Into the Wild without mentioning the soundtrack, featuring original songs written and performed by Eddie Vedder. Of course, as a big Pearl Jam fan, I’m going to like just about anything Vedder does, but this is top notch songwriting and a perfect complement to Penn’s work on the screen.
Let’s Lighten Things Up – Once
Moving on from two movies that should not be watched as a double feature, less you go to bed very depressed, next up is a lovely romantic piece with some wonderful music. In one of my earliest posts, I wrote about The Commitments, the tale of a struggling soul band in Ireland. It’s an all-time comfort movie for me, with an excellent soundtrack of tunes from the Motown era. The bass player of that band was portrayed by Glen Hansard, who has gone on to have a very good musical career in the thirty years since that film was released. Hansard has released a number of solo records and has also partnered with other musicians, including Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam.
In 2007, Hansard co-starred in Once, a portrait of a struggling musician in Ireland, who writes music to cope with the recent breakup with his girlfriend. While performing on the street one evening, he meets a woman (played by Markéta Irglová) who admires the song he is playing. The two strike up a friendship that leads to a budding romance and a fruitful musical partnership. What transpires next is a collaboration of music and lyrics that come together like a couple meant for each other. Now, I saw this movie many years ago and remember liking it a lot. I recently revisited it in advance of writing this post and found it just as charming, especially the songwriting scenes and chemistry between the two leads. It helped that Hansard and Irglová are primarily musicians (and not actors) and the film was shot in a way that feels life-like and not cinematic. Throughout the movie, you feel like a fly on the wall watching two people falling in love while creating beautiful music. They actually became a couple and continued making music together for a few years after finishing the film.
In a true “Hollywood Ending” story, Hansard and Irglová won the Oscar for Best Original Song (for Falling Slowly). At the ceremony, Hansard spoke emotionally about what the award meant to him and before Irglová could say anything, the orchestra played them off to move to the next award. After a commercial break, host John Stewart brought her back to the stage so she could say a few words – a nice moment to recognize someone during a once in a lifetime experience. That wasn’t the end of the magic of Once – the movie was adapted into a very successful Broadway musical a few years later, winning eight Tony Awards. Not bad for a movie shot in two weeks for $100,000. Sometimes the perfect combination of story, music, and actors is all that you need.
A Star is Born – Atonement
It must be quite a feeling for a director to cast a young actor in a film, realizing that you’ve found something really special with a person who has a long career ahead of them. Upon watching Atonement recently for the first time in many years, I couldn’t help but think about Steven Spielberg casting 13 year-old Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun. Of course, the big discovery that director Joe Wright found when casting Atonement was 12 year-old Saoirse Ronan, who plays a pivotal role in the first half of this World War II romantic epic. For her performance, Ronan received the first of her four Oscar nominations, all by the age of 25. She has yet to win, but that is only a matter of time. She is one of the best actresses working today, with Brooklyn and Little Women among the best of her performances.
In Atonement, Ronan plays Briony, an aspiring writer who misinterprets various events at her family home, leading to significant impacts on the lives of her sister (played by Keira Knightley) and the man her sister is in love with (played by James McAvoy). Despite Briony’s pivotal impact on the story, the heart of the film is truly the romance of the two lead characters. Much like stories told during this era, many problems get in the way of their budding romance – complications of the war, class differences between the wealthy and poor, and family politics among them. With Atonement, Wright crafted a fantastic period piece story that captures Europe in the 1940s, especially a sequence set during the evacuation at Dunkirk.
In addition to strong performances by all of the leads, what makes Atonement work so well is the way the story was crafted by screenwriter Christopher Hampton. The film covers many years in the lives of these characters without feeling like a bloated story. The runtime is only about two hours. But what works best is how we see the same events from multiple viewpoints in just the right way to keep us in suspense on what really happened to these characters. As we all know, sometimes what you believe you saw, is not what really happened. And Ronan’s character learns that the hard way.
A Legal Masterpiece – Michael Clayton
As much as I admire The Bourne Ultimatum, that was not the best film we got from Tony Gilroy in 2007. No, that would be Michael Clayton, the directorial debut of Gilroy (who naturally also wrote the script) and starring George Clooney as the title character. Early in the film we are introduced to Clayton, an attorney who doesn’t serve as your typical litigator. Instead, Clayton is a “fixer” or a “bagman” as he refers to himself. Clayton is the guy that the law firm calls in to clean up messes, like we see in the opening sequence where he advises a wealthy jackass client of the firm who has fled the scene of a hit and run and needs legal help. We then transition to the major crisis that Clayton gets pulled into – wrangling a top attorney of the firm who has gone off the deep end, jeopardizing a major lawsuit.
The attorney Clayton is tasked with babysitting is Arthur, played by Tom Wilkinson, who discovers incriminating information about the company the law firm is representing in the lawsuit. When he decides he’s had enough of big companies getting away with hiding criminal activity, the law firm calls in Clayton, one of Arthur’s close friends, to keep him under control. But Arthur has other ideas in mind. Wilkinson is outstanding in this role, as is Tilda Swinton, who plays the general counsel of the company in the middle of the lawsuit, and Sydney Pollack, as the head of Clayton’s law firm.
What I love so much about Michael Clayton is not only the story, but that it is not your typical legal thriller. And that starts with the main character. A lot of typical legal stories (think John Grisham’s work), feature a protagonist as the hero who can do nothing wrong, and everything works out for him. In this film, Clooney plays a character with many flaws – he is a recovering gambling addict, he is facing bankruptcy following a failed restaurant investment with his brother, and he is a part-time father trying to fit in time with his son while looking for Arthur on the streets of New York City. Gilroy’s script makes Clayton seem like someone we want to root for at times, but also someone with the flaws of an everyday lawyer, and the realism of that dynamic makes the story that much more compelling.
The film was a modest hit at the box office, but a huge hit with critics and on the awards circuit. It received seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, along with acting nods for Clooney, Wilkinson, and Swinton, who was the only winner. Michael Clayton is the kind of film that you enjoy in the moment and then kind of forget about until many years later, you’re scrolling through your streaming service, see the picture of Clooney on the poster with the film’s tagline “The Truth Can Be Adjusted” and remember, “Oh yeah, that movie is a masterpiece – let’s fire it up.”
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed part one of my look at a fantastic year in movies. I’ll be back with part two next week. Thanks for reading and if you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe here.