In 2002,
The euro was introduced;
Queen Elizabeth II celebrated fifty years on the throne;
The 2002 Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City;
East Timor gained independence;
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo killed seventeen people in the DC sniper attacks;
The SARS epidemic began;
The Department of Homeland Security was created;
Sesame Street broadcast its 4000th episode;
Donovan Patton replaced Steve Burns on Blues Clues;
TV Guide named Seinfeld the Greatest TV Show of all Time;
Sadie Sink, Jenna Ortega, and Maddie Ziegler were born;
While Dave Thomas, Cyrus Vance, Ted Demme, Peggy Lee, Astrid Lindgren, Daniel Pearl, Princess Margaret, Waylon Jennings, Chuck Jones, Lawrence Tierney, Spike Milligan, James Tobin, Milton Berle, Dudley Moore, Billy Wilder, Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), Byron White, Robert Urich, Thor Heyerdahl, Linda Lovelace, Lisa Lopes, Lou Thesz, Davey Boy Smith, Stephen Jay Gould, Sam Snead, John Gotti, John Entwistle, Rosemary Clooney, Katy Jurado, Ted Williams, John Frankenheimer, Rod Steiger, J. Lee Thompson, Johnny Unitas, Bob Hayes, Stephen E. Ambrose, Richard Harris, Jam Master Jay, Eddie Bracken, James Coburn, John Rawls, and George Roy Hill died.
The following are my top ten films released in 2002:
10. Gerry
Two guys named Gerry (Casey Affleck and Matt Damon) go hiking, get lost, and wander the desert. Their adventure ends in tragedy, but there’s a bizarre poetic quality to their time together, I find hypnotic.
A lot of people won’t like it. It’s definitely not for everyone, but I love this kind of ponderous pretension, and it’s one of Gus Van Sant’s best films.
9. About a Boy
Will Freeman (Hugh Grant) pretends to have a son so he can pick up women at a single parent support group. While there, he unexpectedly bonds with Marcus Brewer (a very young Nicholas Hoult) and his mother Fiona (Toni Collete), but their relationship is tested when Will’s lie is revealed.
Hugh Grant is wonderful. His nearest precursor is Cary Grant. Both are effortlessly smooth and naturally gifted at light comedy. It’s an underrated art, denigrated because it relies on the performer’s natural charm. Grant’s comments to the press about his lack of enthusiasm for the craft certainly didn’t help, neither did the controversial incident involving a prostitute in his early career.
However, here as elsewhere, he’s a magnetic, enjoyable presence. Hoult is clearly wise beyond his years. Toni Collette is always good. Rachel Weisz is less memorable than you’d expect. The by-the-book movie hinges on Grant’s ability to be debonair and charming. He is, so the film succeeds.
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Tolkien’s fantasy masterpiece is a monumental work. Like its predecessor, this film is a visual feast, but mixes in a darker, more layered story. Gollum is one of the most tragic characters of all time. Serkis’s performance is top notch and the CGI work was revolutionary.
I loved Gandalf’s return. The growth of the Hobbits is an impressive and effective interpretation of the hero’s journey. Legolas and Gimli are a wonderful combination. Saurman is a perfect villain and Sauron is just mythic enough. The one character that gets lost in the shuffle is Aragon, but this is a minor quibble.
It’s a great movie, surpassing the original in nearly every way (a noteworthy accomplishment).
Based on a Philip K. Dick novel, three clairvoyant humans are used to predict crime before it happens.
An official from the Department of Justice, Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell), investigates the program to determine if it can be scaled nationally. During his audit, the precogs predict the program’s leader, John Anderton (Tom Cruise) will kill someone he’s never met.
Anderton flees before he can be arrested and slowly uncovers a greedy web of deceit.
This thoughtful film asks important questions about the value of good intentions. A utopia is nice, but is it worth the people you have to kill to get there.
Colin Farrell is still green, but flashes his undeniable charisma. Max von Sydow is an always reliable performer. Samantha Morton is excellent in a difficult role as the most talented of the precogs, but this is peak Tom Cruise. Not yet morphed into action star extraordinaire and still dabbling in more serious fare, this was a transitional film for him and represented the best of both versions of his career.
Spielberg’s wheelhouse is sci-fi with a tinge of conspiracy and a dash of mystery and he excels in bringing Dick’s layered novel to life.
6. Chicago
It’s a film version of a successful 1990s revival of a failed 1970s musical based on a 1927 silent film based on a 1926 satirical play inspired by two 1924 court cases.
In so many ways, this shouldn’t work. It’s not historically accurate. The plot is byzantine and it’s dripping in cynicism.
But everything clicks. Richard Gere’s considerable charm is perfectly suited to sleazy lawyer Billy Flynn. Renée Zellweger is wonderful as Roxie Hart, the overly ambitious chorus girl who will do anything to get ahead. Catherine Zeta-Jones rightfully won an Oscar for her role as Velma Kelly, Roxie’s one time role model / rival / co-conspirator / collaborator.
John C. Reilly is great as Roxie’s pushover husband. Queen Latifah is a shot of adrenaline as corrupt prison warden Mama Morton.
Christine Baranski, Taye Diggs, Lucy Liu, Colm Feore, Dominic West, and (original Velma) Chita Rivera round out the top notch cast.
This movie mixes and matches many elements of the 1975 Broadway production with its more successful 1990s revival, but the signature Bob Fosse choreography remains and gives the film a driving energy. It’s less than two hours, but it’s exhausting. There’s always someone singing or dancing while the zippy plot just keeps going and going and going.
In the nearly fifty years since the musical premiered on Broadway, culture has caught up with its cynical attitudes about the American dream, fame, and the justice system, indicating the original was ahead of its time.
Supposedly, Bob Fosse was set to direct a film version before his untimely death, and while that would have been awesome, I’m not sure it could have surpassed the film the long wait produced.
After Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) retires, he misses the routine and purpose of work, but his successor makes it clear he doesn’t need him or his advice.
When Warren’s wife of almost fifty years dies, he discovers she had a brief affair with one of their best friends. They had grown apart, but he’s hurt by her infidelity and, desperate for companionship, goes on a rambling cross-country trip to revisit scenes from his past before arriving at his daughter’s wedding. He disapproves of her future husband, but, after attempting to dissuade her from the union, chooses to hide his disapproval.
Full of self-pity, he returns home to finds numerous letters from Ndugu, the child he sponsored in Tanzania. Schmidt had previously written several confessional letters to Ndugu detailing his various frustrations and disappointments and the letters from his sponsored child convince Schmidt his life has made a difference.
In Alexander Payne’s early films, the pro-abortion comedy Citizen Ruth (1996) and the political satire Election (1999) he was still discovering his voice.. Beginning with and continuing with Sideways (2004), The Descendants (2011), and Nebraska (2013), his films explore mankind’s desperate search for meaning.
I love this movie and it’s one of my favorite Jack Nicholson films.
It’s an epic tale about the criminal underworld in New York City in the mid nineteenth century on the cusp of the Civil War. Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day Lewis), the ruthless leader of a protestant street gang, battles and defeats the Dead Rabbits, killing his counterpart “Priest” Vallon (Liam Neeson). Vallon’s young son Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio) escapes and returns sixteen years later to exact revenge. He infiltrates Bill’s gang and gains his trust, planning to kill him during the anniversary celebration of his defeat of the Dead Rabbits.
DiCaprio is astonishingly good and Day Lewis is brilliant. This film began the fruitful DiCaprio / Scorsese collaboration. John C. Reilly, Brendan Gleeson, and Jim Broadbent (as Tammany Hall leader Boss Tweed) are all excellent. The weakest link is Cameron Diaz and her romantic subplot with Amsterdam is superfluous, little more than a MacGuffin.
I love the bloody dirtiness of nineteenth century NYC and the film makes an interesting connection between the civilized world of American cities and the wild west we think we know post Civil War.
The ending montage draws a parallel between the almost forgotten past of the city and its current state, with Scorsese echoing The Who’s lament, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
This powerhouse film with two unforgettable central performances is a fine entry in Scorsese’s oeuvre. The mythical fights between the famed director and producer Harvey Weinstein are fascinating and I’d love to learn more about the film’s tortuous production. I’d love to see a Weinstein documentary which focuses on his phenomenal influence as a producer in the latter twentieth century and not his spectacular fall from grace. Giving him credit and making sure people understand his artistic and cultural contributions is vital to understanding the power he amassed and the way he abused it.
3. The Son
Olivier, a non descript carpenter who teaches the skill to juvenile delinquents, takes a particular (borderline creepy) interest in his newest protégé, Francis. We gradually learn Francis murdered Olivier’s son in a robbery several years ago. He served his time and is now reentering the world. Olivier sees an opportunity to exact revenge for the death of his son, but unexpectedly bonds with Francis.
It’s an intense, minimalist rumination on justice and the power of forgiveness.
The Dardenne’s films are famously bare, bereft of movie magic. They’re character portraits in the truest sense of the words. Olivier Gourmet is mesmerizing as a broken father clinging by his fingernails to survival, hoping to make sense of the unspeakable tragedy of his life.
This harrowing and meaningful film captures the tension we all experience between doing the right thing and what feels right.
2. Adaptation.
It’s a loose adaptation of Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief, a non-fiction account of the arrest of John Laroche for poaching rare plants in Florida.
Calling it an adaptation is a sleight of hand by Jonze and frequent collaborator Charlie Kaufman. It’s more like an interpretation; freely adding fictional elements to Orlean’s non-fiction work.
Kaufmann is a consistently inventive screenwriter. From Being John Malkovich (1999), to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), to Synecdoche, New York (2008), his films are hyper post-modern examinations of the fractured reality of 21st century existence.
Kaufmann was hired to adapt The Orchid Thief and, suffering from writer’s block, wrote a screenplay about his struggle, creating a fictional identical twin brother in the process. As a joke, he gave this make-believe brother a co-screenwriting credit, making Donald Kaufmann the first (and only) fictional character to earn an Academy Award nomination.
In an insightful parody of the Hollywood process, Charlie attends a screenwriting seminar led by controversial Hollywood guru, Robert McKee.
Donald suspects Orlean (Meryl Streep) is hiding something, so the brothers follow her to Florida and discover she’s having an affair with Laroche (Chris Cooper). The reason he stole the orchid was because the plant can be used to create a drug which causes fascination. Laroche gave this drug to Orlean and she subsequently developed an obsession with him.
The end of the film is a pastiche of action movie clichés as Orlean and Laroche try to kill the Kaufmanns to protect their secret.
Chris Cooper was a late bloomer with Lone Star (1996), but afterwards exploded with roles in American Beauty (1998), The Patriot (2000), the Bourne movies, Capote (2005), The Town (2010), The Muppets (2011) and Norman Obsorn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). He deservedly won an Oscar for his work as John Laroche.
Nicholas Cage is talented, but often chooses movies not worthy of his talent and claimed in 2011 to have developed his own style of acting, “Noveau Shamanic.” His dual role as Charlie and Donald Kaufmann, while not likely to change any opinions, is one of his best performances.
Despite only directing four feature films, Spike Jonze has developed a reputation for experiential narrative in films where a secret door provides access to John Malkovich’s mind, or a man falls in love with his phone’s operating system.
The more you pursue the seeming loose ends in this twisted, funny movie, the more you realize Kaufmann and Jonze anticipated your questions and answered them. It’s a perfect film to begin a new millennium, deconstructing the practice of adapting works of art to different mediums.
1. Talk to Her
While visiting his comatose girlfriend Lydia, Marco develops a deep bond with Beningo, a male nurse, but when he learns Lydia had intended to break up with him, he stops his daily visitations and his friendship with Beningo suffers.
Benigno cares for another coma patient, Alicia Roncero. While caring for her, he talks openly about his many insecurities, using her as a sort of silent therapist. Mistaking this for intimacy, one night he makes love to her. When routine lab work reveals she’s pregnant, a hospital investigation identifies Benigno as the father. The physical shock of giving birth unexpectedly revives Alicia, but her child is stillborn. Arrested for his crime, Benigno commits suicide in jail.
Despite the appalling and reprehensible act Beningo perpetrates on Alicia, Almodovar casts him in a sympathetic light, implying his actions are a product of intellectual limitations and emotional issues stemming from his difficult relationship with his mother. His rape of Alicia is presented as a stylized parody of the silent films Benigno loves, further contextualizing his actions.
Benigno’s imprisonment and death are not the righteous punishment due a rapist, but the devastating demise of a misguided outcast.
A modern-day Douglas Sirk, Almodovar specializes in female centric melodramas filtered through the tropes of Spanish language soap operas and uses dark humor to expose cracks in the facade of normalcy.
This movie illuminates the fine distinction between love and obsession. Love leads us to elevate the needs of others above our own. Obsession leads us to subjugate the needs of our beloved. Love is a mutual agreement. Obsession is a one way street. The obsessed will talk to her, a lover will listen.