Best Albums of 2007

10. Lyle Lovett and His Large Band - It's Not Big It's Large

This album was a return to form of sorts for Lovett, after a long dry spell following The Road to Ensanada. It hasn't held up as well as I thought it might, but it's still a great listen with a couple of songs that rank among his finest.

9. M.I.A. - Kala

The definition of a "grower" — I liken this album to a sore tooth that you can't keep from probing with your tongue. It's loud, repetitive, assaulting... and I couldn't help but listen to it over and over again. I've never been into world music or electronica, and this album is a fusion of both, but I find something irresistable in M.I.A.'s electric delivery and her addictive beats. It's a great "dance" album but at the same time feels like a powerful ground-up political anthem.

8. Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather

Another collection of simple gems by the best songwriting team since Lennon and McCartney (or at least John and Taupin). They have a gift for turning the banality of daily life (waiting in line at the DMV, driving down I-95 to meet your girlfriend, searching for luggage at the baggage claim) into pop poetry. This album doesn't reach the heights of Welcome Interstate Managers, but it's a worthy addition to their teriffic catalog.

7. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

It's a shame Winehouse is such a mess, but I suppose she fits into a long line of fine artists whose personal lives were drug-addled disasters. Here's hoping she cleans herself up and continues to put out music as wonderful as this bluesy, soulful throwback. Its Motown-via-21st century English party girl vibe is beyond cool, and the songwriting is truly exceptional. So, too, are her vocals — who would guess a woman whose hair weighs more than the rest of her body could have pipes like this?

6. Josh Rouse - Country Mouse City House

I'm convinced that Josh Rouse is incapable of making bad music. Through seven full-length albums I've yet to come across a song I'd even consider skipping. This latest effort is a low-key affair, recorded over a few days in Spain, featuring nine laid-back ditties, two or three of which count among his best work. He's one of those songwriters who comes up with such perfect melodies that you can't help but wonder how nobody could have stumbled upon them before. In a fair world, he'd be winning Grammys and selling out arenas. But I'm happy to have him (along with Ben Folds and a few others) in that 'secret treasure' category.

5. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away

The Shins are the sort of other-worldly band that seems to play by their own rules and put out a kind of music that nobody really ever came up with before (I'd put them in a category with Belle & Sebastian and The Smiths in that regard). Several years ago, Zach Braff doomed them by having Natalie Portman, in Garden State, declare that their music would change your life. No it won't. But I can see why a kid in the throes of teeange existentialism would think so. This album is their best yet and it offers new delights with every listen.

4. Lily Allen - Alright, Still

Absolutely the most fun I've had listening to an album in years. The alchemy of Allen's Cockney-accented vocals blended with her sunshine melodies and ska beats makes for the musical equivalent of a banana split. It's such a delightful evocation of a particular time and place in a brash young woman's life — every time I listen to this CD I find myself longing to go to London and pub crawl with the cast of a Nick Hornby novel.

3. Lucinda Williams - West

Williams is in the unenviable position of having to compete with her own peerless catalog with each new release. West doesn't stack up to Car Wheels on a Gravel Road or her self-titled classic, but neither does anything else on this list. What it does have are six or seven of the best songs I heard this year, performed and produced to perfection. It has one misstep (a 7-minute blues stomp that loses my interest at the halfway point) that drops it to #3, but Williams long ago cemented her status as one of the finest ever songwriters, and this album is further confirmation.

2. Bruce Springsteen - Magic

You have to hand it to Bruce — 58 years old and putting out his third teriffic album in a row. This is a streak to rival Bob Dylan's current run, which is high praise indeed. Magic is the best of the bunch — a perfect blend of his anthemic Born to Run style with the introspective power of Devils & Dust. He has a few songs here that are directly or indirectly about the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, and he manages to make them powerful, poignant and also damn catchy. Perhaps the most impressive is 'Long Walk Home,' in which Springsteen bemoans how far off track Bush has taken this country. The final verse is particularly gripping:

My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town,
It's a beautiful place to be born.
It just wraps its arms around you,
Nobody crowds you and nobody goes it alone"

"Your flag flyin' over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone.
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't"

It's gonna be a long walk home

Yes it is. But meaningful albums like this one will make it an easier journey.

1. Rufus Wainwright - Release the Stars

This is getting a little boring. Rufus Wainwright puts out an album and it hits #1 on my year-end album list. This year I struggled a bit and thought about going with Bruce or Lucinda, even Lily Allen or The Shins. But I kept coming back to Wainwright's latest opus. Following his epic two-part Want albums, Release the Stars is a relatively modest affair. As modest as any collection of pop operettas (poperettas?) lavishly adorned with strings, horns and choirs can be, anyway. What brings me back to Wainwright again and again, and his albums back to my #1 spot, is his peerless songcraft, of course, but also the reckless abandon with which he pours his heart out on tape. His is the only work I can think of that has brought little old stoic me to the brink of tears, and on more than one occasion. The highest compliment I can pay to Wainwright is that he's the most cinematic musician I've ever heard, and this is another release worthy of the biggest of screens.

Margot at the Wedding

Date: March 4
Location: Clifton Living Room

I'm glad movies like this are being made, and I'm glad writer/director Noah Baumbach is interested in making them. I'm just not so sure I want to watch them. It's talky, raw, darkly funny and (to borrow a phrase I heard from an elderly woman following The English Patient) "very European." Nicole Kidman does wonderful work as the deeply flawed title character, a woman who shows affection by mistreating her loved ones. She and Jennifer Jason Leigh, playing her sister, have great chemistry and their scenes feel painfully real. Also memorable is newcomer Zane Pais, playing Kidman's son, and shining in some achingly uncomfortable scenes. It's all very well done, but how much fun is it to watch unlikeable people attack each other for 90 minutes? Some, but not a lot.

In the Valley of Elah

Date: February 27
Location: Clifton Living Room

The Paul Haggis Redemption Tour continues. To make up for the atrocity that was Crash, Haggis first co-wrote the screenplay of 2006's excellent Casino Royale — a strong move, but he was a hired gun so it didn't quite count. In the Valley of Elah, however, is a full-blown return to auteur mode, and it's a splendid one. This is an anti-war film disguised as a murder mystery, anchored by a beautifully understated (and deservedly Oscar-nominated) performance by Tommy Lee Jones. Jones is the perfect actor for Haggis. He's incapable of insincerity. He plays a weary ex-military man, the father of an AWOL soldier, with such grit and dignity that he never becomes a conduit for Haggis' message. The message is there, no doubt, but it is completely earned. Charlize Theron does nice work as the detective working alongside Jones and small supporting roles by Jason Patric, Josh Brolin (what a year he had!) and James Franco all hit the right note. Once again I'm staggered by how strong a year 2007 was, and here's the latest example.

Best. Oscars. Ever.

The show itself was just fine. Shorter than usual, some nice speeches, a truly special moment when Marketa Irglova came back to deliver her lovely speech, some great jokes from John Stewart (the Norbit one was a favorite of mine).

But that's not why these were the best Oscars ever. No, it was because of the winners. If you had asked me for my personal Oscar lineup, regardless of the official nominees, I would have said this:

Best Picture: No Country For Old Men
Best Director: The Coen Brothers
Best Actor: Daniel Day Lewis
Best Actress: Marion Cotillard
Best S. Actor: Javier Bardem
Best S. Actress: Amy Ryan
Best O. Screenplay: Juno
Best A. Screenplay: No Country For Old Men

So as you can see, the official winners matched my dream lineup in 7 of 8 cases. That has never happened. I have trouble even remembering a year when the Best Picture matched my #1 film (Schindler's List is the only one that leaps to mind) let alone almost all the major awards.

I am happiest about Marion Cotillard, who pulled off the one real upset of the night. I found Julie Christie wonderful in Away From Her, and I have a real soft spot for Ellen Page's great Juno performance, but Cotillard's work was transformative in the same way Daniel Day Lewis' was. And boy, is she ever cute.

I was also happy to win this year's small prize — which I can now reveal is a loaded Jaguar XF.

Across the Universe

Date: February 22
Location: Clifton Living Room

This goes down as one of the very pleasant surprises of the 2008 movie year. I'd read so many pans of this film that I expected a train wreck, good for some unintentional laughs. Instead I found it to be clever, earnest and lovely. Most of the credit belongs to The Beatles — honestly, how can you go wrong filling a movie start to finish with some of the best music ever committed to record? The versions of the classic songs performed here are wonderful, without exception. Who knew Evan Rachel Wood had such a hauntingly beautiful singing voice? All the performers (most of whom are unknowns) are impressive. And Julie Taymor, definitely one of the finest visual directors working today, pulls out all the stops — the film very much resembles Moulin Rouge in its go-for-broke heart-on-its-sleeve showiness. It has some cornball moments, and the naive kids lose their innocence in the age of Vietnam plot is a bit of a cliche, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Date: February 12
Location: Clifton Living Room

2007 could be remembered as the year of the Western, with astonishing films such as No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood topping critics lists and the Oscars. This gorgeous, meditative tale continues that trend. It's a shame it was lost in the mix (save for Casey Affleck's much-deserved Best Supporting Actor nomination). I've read and heard much criticism that the film is too "slow" — and I can see that, up to a point. It is definitely long, and more concerned with talk than action. But I was riveted from the first frame to the last.

The movie reminded me a lot of the book Manhunt, about the events surrounding Abraham Lincoln's assassination. It has a fascinating attention to detail, both of the period and of the circumstances surrounding James' murder. The events that follow the assassination were particularly fascinating (and new) to me.

Finally, major kudos to cinematographer Roger Deakins, whose work here is at least on par with his amazing work on No Country For Old Men. Deakins has been nominated by the Academy for both films and it will be a crime if he cancels himself out and the trophy goes to somebody else.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Date: February 5
Location: Clifton Living Room

Over the past several years, there's been a trend of great documentaries about the incredible competition and fascinating characters found in "geek sports" — spelling in Spellbound, crossword puzzles in Wordplay and now old-school video gaming in The King of Kong. This one could be the best of them, largely because it focuses on a single hero and a single villain locked in a heart-pounding battle for that ultimate prize, the highest score in Donkey Kong. At times it plays more like a work of fiction than a documentary — one player is so clearly the protagonist that the filmmakers even play the Rocky theme to highlight his comeback. It's great fun, but at the same time I wonder if they didn't go a bit far. Surely the "villain" isn't as cartoonish as he's portrayed here. And isn't it the responsibility of documentary filmmakers to deliver something close to the truth? That's a debate worth having, but this is a wonderful film regardless.

Oscar gets it right

I predicted it a few months ago, and I'm happy to have been right: this is the best Oscar race in memory.

My top three films are up for Best Picture, and a fourth nominee is my #9. I haven't seen the other film (Michael Clayton) but I very much want to, and by all accounts it is a worthy contender — and not the sort of cringe-worthy stuff the Academy sometimes goes for.

My two biggest disappointments are the lack of nominees for Zodiac, without a doubt one of the year's best films, and the complete shut-out of Judd Apatow, who did such great work this year in different roles (writer, director, producer) on three great films (Knocked Up, Superbad, Walk the Line — I'm taking Amy and Dana's word on the worthiness of the latter).

The biggest snub — Jonny Greenwood in the Original Score category — turns out to have been a matter of eligibility. The Academy deemed his score ineligible because it contained elements of other composers' work. Yeah, yeah... whatever. I hope Michael Giacchino (who was snubbed for his extraordinary score for The Incredibles) picks up the award this time for his teriffic work on Ratatouille).

Nice to see Once get a nod for Original Song, though they could have had several nominated. Those songs were much better than the cute showtunes of Enchanted.

If I had my way, the winners from this group would be: No Country For Old Men for Best Picture and Director, Ellen Page for Best Actress, Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor, Javier Bardem for Best Supporting Actor and Amy Ryan for Best Supporting Actress. Juno and There Will Be Blood would win the screenplay Oscars. No Country would take Cinematography and Editing and anything having to do with Sound. Ratatouille would win Score and Animated Film. No End in Sight would take Best Documentary. And the show would actually be written and broadcast because the strike was over.

There Will Be Blood

Date: January 19
Location: Muvico Palace

Paul Thomas Anderson has cemented his place as the finest filmmaker of his very talented generation with this extraordinary, mesmerizing turn-of-the-century saga about a sociopathic oil man's descent into hell. The most impressive thing about Anderson's work in There Will Be Blood is how little it resembles anything he's ever done before — it has none of the hip Scorsese stylings of Boogie Nights, none of the Altmanesque cross-cutting or brazen sentimentality of Magnolia. Instead it is a very straightforward (lack of) morality tale that brings to mind Citizen Kane more than anything else.

Plenty has been written about Daniel Day Lewis' wonderful work as Daniel Plainview — he is, and has been, among the finest actors alive, and he's doing his best work here. And just as much has been written about Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's amazing score. Anderson has always used music splendidly, from the 70s radio hits of Boogie Nights to Aimee Mann's song-score of Magnolia, and here he's allowed Greenwood to craft a score that practically becomes a character in the film. If he loses the Oscar, there's no justice.

I have no doubt that Anderson has crafted an American classic that will be watched, written about and studied decades from now. I personally gravitate more toward Boogie Nights and Magnolia, which have a brazen pop sensibility that I thrive on, but I'm blown away by the powerful classicism he taps here.

Once again, I'm thrilled at what a wonderful year for movies 2007 has turned out to be — the best of the decade so far, by far. It's interesting that my top six contains three dark, brutal, pessimistic films and three that are lighter than air. As for why There Will Be Blood wound up at #3, despite the "best of the year" level praise I've heaped on it — in a nutshell, when I walked out of No Country For Old Men, I immediately wanted to watch it again... when I walked out of There Will Be Blood, I immediately wanted to watch Juno.

Eastern Promises

Date: January 15
Location: Clifton Living Room

What a great year for movies this has been. So great that this powerful, absorbing crime thriller can't crack my top ten. Viggo Mortensen gives one of the year's best performances as a driver for the Russian mob caught up in some particularly messy business. Everybody talks about the naked steamroom fight scene, and it is indeed a doozy, but it's just one aspect of the extraordinary physicality Mortensen brings to this role. Between this film and A History of Violence it seems Cronenberg has found the De Niro to his Scorsese.