So, here’s my picks for what the best films of 2007 (movies released in Swedish cinemas in 2007 – they may have been produced in 2006, or earlier). I’m pretty sure some of you will disagree with me, but hopefully you’ll get to know about a few films you might have missed or skipped watching. I’ll start with number 10, and then going downwards to end with what according to me is the best film of 2007. Numbers 1-10 will have a short review attached to them and a few reasons why I think it’s worthy of the place it got. First off though, I’ve attached ten more films that didn’t make the list, but are great films despite that!

#11-#20 (in no particular order):
Eastern Promises
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Alpha Dog
Superbad
The Bourne
American Gangster
The Simpsons Movie
The Prestige
Dead Silence
Smokin’ Aces

So with those out of the way, here comes what I think is the ten best films of 2007!

#10 300
With excellent cinematography and an extremely innovative use of visual effects, this film had me through the entire thing. The film contained some of the most spectacular action film ideas I’ve seen so far, including the now well-known “horizontal dolly camera speed-up/slow-down” effect.

#9 Saw IV
The best sequel in the franchise so far, this horror film had probably the best sound design and sound effects of the year. This and the fact that it’s an interesting story that brings more humanity to the main villain, Jigsaw, makes it well deserving of it’s ninth place. It should be interesting to see how the inevitable next film is, considering director Darren Lynn Bousmann has abandoned the franchise after this fourth installment.

#8 Transformers
By far the best pure intense action movie of the year, Transformers has probably the most realistic visual effects I’ve seen all year. I’ve recently seen the film on HD DVD, and it was absolutely stunning. If you’re a fan of no-holds-barred action films, I recommend you watch the last quarter of the film, which is just an absolute spectacle of one amazing action moment after another.

#7 Death Proof
With as snappy dialouge as ever, Quentin Tarantino’s latest film surely doesn’t dissapoint with both some incredible set design and characters. It all comes together in a great package that really needs to be enjoyed in cinemas to be truly appreciated. It’s probably not his best work so far, but that doesn’t say much considering pretty much every single of his films are extremely good. A definitive must-see for everyone, if it wasn’t for the extreme violence in one particular scene.

#6 The Bourne Ultimatum
A great conclusion to an amazing trilogy, the last installment in the story of the fate of Jason Bourne was easily the best so far with some great acting and some really intense and well-choreographed fight sequences. Also features some stunts from friend Adam Kirley, which makes the whole thing even more awesome! Particulary memorable is the Waterloo station sequence, can’t wait to see that in high-def again!

#5 Blood Diamond
I was a bit hesitant towards the choice of making Leonardo diCaprio a Rhodesian mercenary going into this film. Obviously, he had proved his quality as an actor in “The Departed” which was released late 2006, but I still had some doubt. But was I proven wrong! This is the probably the best written film of the year with an engaging story that keeps you nailed to your seat!

#4 Sunshine
Probably the best looking film and the best cinematography I’ve seen in a film ever, this was incredibly amazing to see in theatres. I love the way colours are used, and I seriously can’t find anything wrong with this science-fiction epic signed Danny Boyle. Great acting by actors from all around the world round out an already stunning piece of film history.

#3 28 Weeks Later
A surprisingly great film, with some amazing scenes and cinematography despite the low-ranking sequel and low-budget-stamp often put on these types of films. I expected it to be an absolute fiest in extreme cheesyness, but it turned out to be one of the most gripping stories I’ve seen on the silver screen all year.

#2 Planet Terror
With references to old films, “Planet Terror” is by far Rodriguez’s best work so far. A film that absolutely shines with it’s love to the medium, it takes you on an extremely fun and enjoyable ride. I’ve seen it multiple times already, and it’s probably one of the most inspiring films I’ve ever seen. Every time I see it I want to go out and make movies, or just sit down and re-edit some scenes from an older film, just for fun. And that’s what the film is, just pure, unalterated fun!

#1 Hot Fuzz
But what throned over all of the other films this year is by far the comedic masterpiece that is Edgar Wright’s violent british police action-comedy. With some amazing actors, including Timothy Dalton (James Bond in “The Living Daylights” and “License to kill”) who probably gives the performance of his life as the mysterious shopkeeper who is a true “slasher”. Of prices. Featuring some amazing editing and also music by the master, Robert Rodriguez himself, it all sums up to be an extremely good film for both young and old (just make sure to cover your eyes during the killing sequences if you’re a bit sensitive). The most entertaining film of the year, it leaves you with a pretty big feeling of wonder. A wonder why every film can’t be as good as this?

Hey everyone! Been on the countryside for almost a week now, relaxing and enjoying christmas. Been working quite a lot on “Zombie Exterminator” I’ve done most of the visual effects and all the colour grading for the film, and I hope to finish all the visual stuff before the end of the upcoming week, to then move on to focus on sound and music. It’s been fun to work on a project with an actual deadline, as I’ve got loads more done now instead of just being too lazy!

Going to the countryside to spend the new year tomorrow, will be there until Wednesday. Going to bring my laptop and continue to work on the film, even if it will probably be slightly overshadowed by an essay for school I’m writing.

Look back on Monday for my summary of how the year has been, as well as a list of my top 10 best films of the year!

Since I’m leaving for the countryside for over a week later today I thought I’d write a little something! First of all, I wanted to wish you all a very merry christmas and/or happy holidays! I seriously cannot believe how fast this year has passed!

I’ll probably write something more just before the new year, so I’ll have a more thorough conclusion and a few more thoughts on the year as a whole in that article.

As you might have read yesterday, I finished editing “Zombie Exterminator”! This of course, doesn’t mean the film is finished – not even close to it – but it’s a good step in the right direction. It’s been a very tough project so far, as it has constantly been interferring with my studies at school and been bombarded with problems left and right. But, it all turned out fine in the end, and it’s going to be a lot of fun to finally just sit down with a final cut and start adding effects, sound and music. I’ve recently heard from our teacher that we will at most have approximately one week after the holidays to finish our film, but that seems a bit far-fetched, seeing as our group is the only one with an edited film (the other groups havn’t even finished filming it yet). So I guess I’m going to have to work quite hard the upcoming week, but still, it’s way better than homework! Hopefully I’ll be able to finish the effects, grading and other visual elements the upcoming week, giving me two more weeks to generally tweak it and add sound and music. This doesn’t really change my plans of releasing the film here on the website before February, as I will probably want to fix a few things after the premiere (since it’ll probably not be completely finished in terms of thought-through grading and more).

I’ll bring my family’s digital camera to the countryside with me, so I’m going to try and take some photos. Not sure if I’ll be able to upload them before I get back though…you never know with WiFi-availability. Anyway, you could check the Flickr page once in a while to see if any new photos pop up during the week. Keep your fingers crossed!

As I’ve been watching both “Eastern Promises” and “American Gangster” – both excellent crime movies – the last week I got some inspiration to some film projects. I’m thinking it’d be nice to do something a bit more down-to-earth and realistic than what I’ve done before. Perhaps some kind of criminal/detective story, sort of a cat-and-mouse kind of thing. Never really tried to do a film with paralell stories, should be interesting to give it a shot!

So once again, Merry Christmas! As I said earlier, this won’t be the last post for the year, I will probably write a summary of the entire year just before or on New Year’s Eve. Should be fun!

Take care everyone!!

Hey, I said a few days ago that I’d have the “Eastern Promises” review and an article up, but unfortunantly as you may have noticed only the review was uploaded. I’ve been really busy these last final days with finalizing and locking the edit for “Zombie Exterminator”, so I really havn’t had the time to write an article…but expect a pretty epic article tomorrow, as it will probably be my last one before christmas (going to the countryside for an entire week, so it might be hard to write something, seeing as it’s hard to come across a WiFi-connection over there).

But as I said, the good thing is that editing is pretty much done on “Zombie Exterminator”. Now remains only the fun parts like effects, grading, sound and music! Yay!

I saw “Eastern Promises” just last Sunday, and it’s a thriller by David Cronenberg starring Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts. Here is my take on the film! As always, I’ll keep it as spoiler-free as possible!

Not sure what expectations I had going into this film, since I hadn’t really heard or seen anything from it, besides a trailer a few months ago. But, since I liked Cronenberg’s earlier films (like “A History of Violence”), his way of shooting, and the lead actors I decided to go see the film.

The story takes place in London, and circulates around a “driver” (Nikolaj) for the russian mafia (played by Viggo Mortsensen) and a young nurse by the name of Anna (Naomi Watts) – who helps a 14 year old girl to give birth in the beginning of the film. As the young mother dies directly after concieving the child, Anna tries during the course of the film to find out who the mysterious girl’s parents are by translating a diary she find in the mother’s purse. But when the russian mafia finds out about the diary after Anna confronts them (seeing as the adress to their restaurant is in it) it pretty much all goes down the drain. As you might have understood by now, it’s quite difficult to summarize the plot without giving too much away. I absolutely loved the story, and while it’s a pretty basic thriller story, it has a few twists which make it so much more interesting. But before I go into praising the film, I should let you all know that this is probably one of the most violent films I’ve ever seen. Cronenberg doesn’t try to cover up any of the violence, which really makes you cringe in your seat. It never feels over-the-top or out-of-place though, as it merely adds to the dramatic reality that runs through the entire film.

The acting was superb! Viggo Mortensen and all of the other Americans and Brits really sound believeable in the russian accents they’ve managed to aqquire for the film. Contrary to what I’ve read in some reviews just a few hours ago, I don’t feel Mortensen’s Russian sounds any strange at all. Naomi Watts is of course, as always, a great actor and puts on a good performance, without attracting too much attention to herself. The actor that really shines in the film is Vincent Cassel’s “Kirill” who really out-acts every single one of the remaining ensamble cast. He gives an amazing performance, and as I had only seen him in “Ocean’s Twelve” and “Ocean’s Thirteen” (hardly any real acting possibilities in any of those) it was great to see an actor which such a varied emotional and character range.

I really liked the subtle yet documentary-feeling cinematography kept through the entire film. It’s not shaky-cam, but it has a slightly more realistic tone than what you usually see in these types of crime films. The way the camera is pretty much always moving or tracking in the shots brings great fluidity to the action on-screen. The lightning is also great, with many of the lightning choices covering one part of the actors’ faces in one colour, and the other side in the opposite colour. This gives the film quite a stylized look, but as I mentioned earlier, doesn’t do it to the extreme. So in short, I think it’s a very nicely shot film, while the cinematography doesn’t really attract too much attention to itself.

The musical score and sound mix are equally good, with a real film-noir feeling striking the score made by Howard Shore (composer of among many, many others, the Lord of the Rings trilogy).

If there was one tiny, tiny problem with the film according to me is that it ends a bit too quickly. While I’m sure some people will love the ending – which I did to some extent – it’s hard not to feel as if it’s too abruptly cut off in the middle of the dramatic final act. Overall though, it’s a great film that I’m sure will stand the test of time extremely well! But if you’re not one for quite strong violence, this might be one to avoid.

Verdict: 9 out of 10