My take: Best movies of 2007

In all the rush of doing other things, seeing movies slipped dramatically down the list of priorities. As it did, so did my reviews of them. So here 'tis, my year end movie review of what I consider to be the best movies worth your time and money (if you haven't already seen them).

First are the honorable mentions. These are movies that, for one reason or another, will most likely not wind up in my DVD collection. Some of them are good, some not so much:

• The Departed - Okay, so technicially this was released last year, but I didn't get around to seeing it til this year. Straight-up modern gangster flick that plays out as a cat and mouse game that leaves you on the edge of your seat til the very end. The reason it's not getting added - just too rough of a movie to watch more than once or twice.
  
• Catch and Release - Decent little rom-com-drama, though a little uneven. Worth a rental.
• Shooter - kinda blah, full of Mark Wahlberg, who supposedly hates guns, posing as a decorated sniper.
  
• Spiderman 3 - my biggest disappointment of this year. Cool action sequences and special effects, but too much story and the bad guys were given the Batman Forever treatment - too many, too shallow, too uninteresting.
• Knocked Up - I didn't like 40 Year Old Virgin. Barely liked this one a little more than that one.
• Evan Almighty - Much better than I expected, but I didn't have high expectations. Steve Carrell is a funny, funny man, though.
• Ratatouille - Good, but not Cars. Plus, they're rats. In a kitchen. [Body shiver]
• Hairspray - it was a choice between this and Underdog. I chose wisely - the tunes are kinda catchy. I just don't go for dancing movies.
• Halloween - John Carpenter should unleash every demon, serial killer, and possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury on Rob Zombie for making this turd of a remake.

Next up are the movies that will most likely be bought and watched a handful of times:

• Shrek the Third - better than I expected, but pretty uneven. Ending lacks what the first two had.
• Pirates: At World's End - far better than the previous installment, though the acid trippy sequence with multiple Capt. Jacks was pretty weird.
• Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix - I enjoyed this one at the theater only slightly less than I did the previous movie, but it was still fun. Liked the anti-political-correctness angle, too.

And finally, the three movies that I think are the best of the year, in no particular order:

• Transformers - this was a childhood dream done really, really well. They're robots that change in to cars, planes, and tanks and then back in to robots to blow stuff up. What's not fun there?
  
• 300 - quite possibly the manliest movie of all time. This movie drips with testosterone from beginning to it's glorious (and bloody) end. Molon labe.
• The Bourne Ultimatum - James Bond, meet your daddy.