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In Reply to: Village Voice critics poll - best movies of 2002 posted by TA on January 02, 2003 at 16:29:53:
(nt)
Follow Ups:
It's much easier to criticize than to create.
Note: These are only films released during in 2002; I've seen them all.1) Metropolis - NO, not the animated feature, but rather the 1927 restoration of the German classic silent film with footage previously unavailable in an official U.S. release & newly recorded original score! (ltd. theatrical release)
2) Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers - Continuation of classic Tolkein trilogy, as envisioned by Director Peter Jackson, creating the epic scope, majesty and heart of books many considered unfilmable!Characters come alive as if pulled directly from Tolkein's mind; this is a classic for the ages.
3) One Hour Photo - Robin Williams most gripping serious performance; a study in obsession that will have you thinking twice before processing any more family photos at the local XYZmart!
4) Catch Me If You Can - One of the cleverest feel good movies of the year, with relaxed dead-on performances by Hanks and DiCaprio, unpretencious direction from Steven Spielberg(!) and a fitting score by John Williams that will have you thinking he's channeling 60's era Henry Mancini.
5) Frailty - Bill Paxton(D), Matthew McConaughey and Powers Boothe in a Bible thumpin' thriller that's sure to scare the bejesus out of anyone who has ever felt uneasy about fanatical fundementalism.
6) Spiderman - Tobe Maguire literally becomes everyone's friendly neighborhood webspinner; thanks to the superb direction of Sam Raimi the charm of the original comic is intact, with a perfect low key performance by Maguire as Peter Parker, who, once disguised transforms into the wisecracking Spiderman. Note: J.K. Simmons almost steals the show with a dead-on performance as the gruff and sarcastic J. Jonah Jameson.
7) 8 Mile - Surprisingly, Eminem can act! This semi-autobiographical tale of a street-wise white kid trying to get respect and make his way in a poor minority dominated neighborhood is a new twist on the old luck or pluck success story; in this instance the options are gang-bangin', low wage jobs or trying to hustle opportunities to get out of the hood. Well made and convincing.
8) The Ring - A horror movie that works inspite of itself. The creepier elements work throughout; the elements which work less well don't draw too much attention to themselves.
9) The Bourne Identity - A nicely paced spy thriller with the added benefit of Matt Damon making it's amnesiac backstory seem almost plausible.
10) Red Dragon - Genuinely creepy remake of Manhunter from Thomas Harris's first novel in the Hannible Lecter series. Anthony Hopkins reprises his role as Hannible and while Edward Norton may seem a little odd cast in the role of FBI Agent Will Graham, he manages to carry it off; the stand-out performance however, falls to Ralph Fiennes as the elusive Tooth Fairy serial killer.
11) Changing Lanes - Road Rage taken to it's most extreme excess; the actions taken by both Ben Affleck and Samual L. Jackson seem both childish and uncomfortably real at times as civility breaks down in a dangerously escalating war of attrition.
12) The Sum of All Fears - Ben Affleck changes lanes with Morgan Freeman in a cautionary tale from Tom Clancy involving a terrorist plot that is only resolved after a nuclear device is planted on American soil. Not all that new, but still gripping stuff and all too timely.
13) The Mothman Prophecies - After the tragic loss of his wife Richard Gere's character, unable to find peace, tries to resolve seemingly coincidental occurances that seem to be leading him to a rendevous with fate.
14) The Road to Perdition - Tom Hanks as a depression era hitman trying to care for his family when he's pulled into a violent gang family dispute and his own family is placed in harms way with escalating tragic consequences.
15) Brotherhood of the Wolf - French film about mythological werewolf-like beasts set in the period of the reign of Louis XV which mixes several genres with entertaining results.
16) ...(TIE) XXX / Blade II: Bloodhunt - Two action movies which deconstruct fictional genres, the former with the sophisticated super-spy & the latter with traditional vampires.
17) Die Another Day - The sophisticated super-spy reconstructed by Mr. Brosnan again in the guise of 007; you've seen it all before, but somehow new twists and interesting villains are devised which carry the jolly good show.
18) Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets - The second book amnd feature movie in the series has much of the charm of the first, but runs on a little too long and seems disjointed in places; unfortunately, the best scenes in the movie (spiders) do little to move the plot forward, but overall the characters still hold up well. New direction will supposedly accompany the next installment.
19) ...(TIE) K-19: Widowmaker / Enigma - Two claustrophobic submarine movies that succeed on different levels... the former, based on a true story of heroism and sacrifice by the USSR's first nuclear sub crew, works quite well in spite of the difficulty "fathoming" Harrison Ford as a Russian submarine commander, and the latter, a horror/SF genre crossover set in WWII is effectively creepy in spite of obvious situational comparisons with the original Alien.
20) ...(TIE) Knockaround Guys / Gangs of New York - Vin Diesel in the former as (surprise!) a tough guy street fixer caught up in a screw-up that takes him and his buddies way out of their familiar surroundings and Gangs of New York, the latter, Martin Scorsese's flawed mid-19th century gang drama with a first rate performance by Danial Day Lewis (i.e., who's appropriately called "the Butcher") mincing scenery while Leonardo DiCaprio tries to figure out how to get even with him for dispatching his father (i.e., a Catholic Priest, no less! - ?) 16 years earlier. Though muddled by a plot that is overly ambitious and in the end wallows in precious coincidence, Scorsese takes great pains to recreate the period. Were he not trying to tell two separate stories (i.e., that of the gangs through the fictionalized characters and the historical incident of the conscription revolts, both coming to a head simultaneously) Gangs of New York might stand as a classic of the genre.
Whew! Well, how's that? I haven't seen Adaptation yet, nor Rabbit Proof Fence, which might alter this listing for the purposes my Academy Award nominees, but don't count on it! ;^)
Included among the movies I've seen, but failed to make this list are Insomnia, Bloodwork, Minority Report, Signs, MIB II, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Star Trek: Nemesis, Murder By Numbers, High Crimes, Showtime, John Q, Collateral Damage and Panic Room.
Cheers,
AuPh
...that expalins how you could like LOTR 2.Spiderman?
Changing Lanes?
The Sum of All fears?
The Mothman Prophecies?
Brotherhood of the Wolf?
XXX?
Die Another Day?
Knockaround Guys?Finding these on a best of 2002 list instead of a dregs of 2002 list is more than a bit astounding. Hollywood did even worse than usual this past year.
joe
... as was Die Another Day. OTOH, the Mothman Prophecies was MUCH better than I'd been led to believe, Changing Lanes is an intriguing study in what can go wrong when civility is replaced by uncompromising rage, Knockaround Guys is an interesting street-smart movie with some very tense moments (i.e., I'm a sucker for "fish out of water" flicks), Brotherhood of the Wolf isn't exactly a "Hollywood film" (i.e., it's French), The Sum of All Fears is one of the best takes on a Tom Clancy novel since The Hunt for Red October (i.e., I hate to say it, but Ben Affleck was almost as good as Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan) and last but far from least, Spiderman is one of the best friggin' movies that came out last year (i.e., if one can look past the character's comic book origins it's much easier to see the conflicted personality of Peter Parker; Tobe Maguire managed to nail this character and raised the level of the film from hocum to rousing entertainment with a genuine feeling of pathos).AuPh
I dunno, AuPh, I dunno... looks like about 70% of your list is the films that have nothing to do with reality... rayguns, superheros... is there something we should know about you?
;^)Seriously, I can't exactly see where you're coming from, ...okay, perhaps you were hiding behind a Shrub Outside and I missed being blind-sided, ...but looking back over my list here's the Top 20 (i.e., 23) breakdown:
Science Fiction (1) - Metropolis
Horror (3) - Enigma, The Ring & Frailty
Psychlogical drama (2) - One Hour Photo & Red Dragon
Comedy (1) - Catch Me If You Can
Action/Adventure [superhero] (2) - Spiderman & Blade II: Bloodhunt
Supernatural drama (1) - The Mothman Prophecies
Fantasy (3) - LoTR:TTT, Harry Potter:TCoS and Brotherhood of the Wolf
Non-fiction Drama (2) - 8 Mile & K-19: Widowmaker
Fiction Drama (2) - The Road to Perdition & Changing Lanes
Crime Drama (2) - Knockaround Guys & Gangs of New York
Action/Adventure [spy] (4) - The Bourne Identity, XXX, Die Another Day & The Sum of All Fears
Of course there are more SF films among those which didn't make my Top Twenty-something list, but I also didn't list every film that I'd seen last year.> > > "I dunno, AuPh, I dunno... looks like about 70% of your list is the films that have nothing to do with reality... rayguns, superheros... is there something we should know about you?" < < <
LOL! Not really, but so what? I like science fiction; it's only a portion of a fairly broad range of cinema that I like and better than a lot of the cheese that passes for "stimulating" film fare; I prefer sleeping at home in my own bed rather than in a movie theater, thankyou very much!
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