2002: Year in Review

Man, boredom really just destroys you... seriously...

Best movie ever—Memento...
Hands down, the absolute worst movie ever—Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back!
Best director out there—P. Jackson (LOTR)...
Best original screenplay ever... Memento...
The most faithful adaptation out there... just some kid, since there wasn't anything better to work with...
Best actors out there—Tom Wilkinson in In the Bedroom or Hugh Grant in About a Boy...
Cate Blanchett in Bandits or Nicole Kidman in The Others... both absolute legends.
Best supporting actress ever... Laura Harding (or whatever her name is) in Mulholland Drive vs. Olga Pakulovic (or whoever...) in Fatale...
The hottest ones? There weren't really many... but maybe Scarlett Johansson or that lead actress from Y Tu Mama Tambien...
Worst acting ever—that detective in Basic Instinct... if we're talking bigger roles though, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in The Scorpion King was a total disaster...
Worst case scenarios... Jay & Silent Bob strike back and Black Hawk Down—both totally screwed up because they didn't have an actual script...
Worst directing ever—Ghost World / Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back...
Best Hitchcock emulation? Definitely Spielberg with Minority Report...
Minority Report... Amelie... man, what a difference...
The production design in Fellowship of the Ring... just wow.
music... amelie (kind of)
Best use of music that isn't even worth mentioning on its own: that score whenever Woody goes into action in Curse of the Jade Scorpion...
overrated—it’s hit or miss: Black Hawk Down, A Quiet Place...
underrated—even more so if you count: Bandits...
Best scenes... that empty Times Square in Vanilla Sky, the light in The Others, and that basement in The Signs...
Most intense scene... like jumping through that canyon in Spirit or running through a burning city in Sum of All Fears...
Why, oh why?!?!?!? – the "humor" in Jay and Silent Bob...
Best ending—The Others or Memento (not even because of the wife, just because that guy killed way too many people already...)
Worst ending ever—In the Bedroom (WHICH ending even???) runner up: Gone Girl. (It’s basically just an epilogue, but since it’s at the end, I guess it counts as the ending... totally useless, yuck!)
Just using the song... since there wasn't anything better to work with, it's that thing at the end of Metropolis...
Worst song usage ever... Brothers in Arms in Spy Game... seriously?
damn... beavers and ducks! (bandits)
Best trailers—Vanilla Sky / Minority Report...
Worst trailer ever—ants in my pants...
Best movie intro... Memento...
A pleasant surprise—about some kid, and some dead girls...
Total curveball... Jay and Silent Bob strike back / Black Hawk Down.
Total mindfuck scenes that exist just to be there, only to get ignored or left hanging later on... sucks.
Best action scenes... that Moria mine entrance in LOTR / the chaos at the gates in Monsters, Inc.
Worst action scenes ever... that final showdown in The Scorpion King, and that fight at the end of Spider-Man... ugh.
Best bad guy? Joey Pantoliano in Memento... maybe.
Guy Pearce was such a huge standout in Memento... that big blue guy in Monsters, Inc. was killer too.
Best supporting character of the year: that technician in Memento bad movie...
Biggest cliché... anything from Showtime or Collateral Damage...
Total waste of potential... Sum of All Fears was such a rip-off...
Best fight scene? That first quick scrap in Bourne Identity... hands down.
One of the better jokes—spitting in Memento, plus that "don't answer the phone" bit in Memento...
Best part was that white glow when Arwen shows up in the frame... that whole ring effect in the shot...
The movie with the most terrifying scene/image... The Others.
Best soundtrack? Probably Black Hawk Down...
Best Badalament composed track of the year: Fine Dead Girls...
Best visual effects overall... Attack of the Clones.
Worst visual effects ever... like those explosions in Collateral Damage... total garbage...
Best short shot ever—that soldier getting swallowed by the sandstorm in Black Hawk Down...
Worst dialogue ever... Scorpion King and Final Fantasy were absolute trash...
Best newcomer... Naomi Watts or Laura Harding, depending on which one counts more as a rookie...
The annual award for best bust goes to Thora Birch in Ghost World... hands down.
Most annoying character ever—Jay in Jay and Silent Bob / that guy with the keys in E.T....
Cutest thing on this side of Pecos - Boo! (Monsters, Inc.)
Best lesbian scene ever—Mulholland Drive. Honestly, probably the best sex scene of the whole year...
Best feel-good flick of the year—All or Nothing
The best part/vibe of the movie? Honestly, just all the different ideas it throws at you... more than one message, really

I feel compelled to weigh in because I disagree with several points here (though I’m aligned with most of them)

I won't get bogged down in the debate over the best or worst films, as I already addressed that in Taylor Cruz7's thread, but I suspect Memento wasn't actually released in 2002 (unless my memory is failing me)

"Overrated—highly subjective: Black Hawk Down, Scream, Whispers"
I would personally add Signs to that list

"Best ending—The Others"
I've seen it, and while it was unexpected, it feels like a trope that has been played out quite heavily over the last few years.
For me, the standout is SW: That moment where Palpatine just stands there watching the army march away, with Senator Bail Organa right by his side.

"A pleasant surprise"
Ice Age and Monsters, Inc.

"Best action scene"
Yoda vs. Count Dooku

"Worst dialogue—Scorpion King / Final Fantasy"
Well, you certainly found some cinematic disasters there.
You might be better off listing your personal favorite, Jay and Silent Bob (though, let's be honest, they're mostly just Jay's monologues)

"Sweetest creature this side of Pecos—Boo! (Monsters, Inc.)"
I'd go with the saber-toothed squirrel from Ice Age

"Feel-good film of the year—All or Nothing"
I'd nominate SW, but that's far too subjective, so I'll remain silent🙂

Nah, I have to say it: SW🙂

Happy New Year to all my fellow cinephiles🙂

lonescout2 said:I'm going to sit this one out when it comes to picking the absolute best or worst movies, since I already touched on that in that other thread (the one started by Kika). Though, if my memory serves, I don't think Memento came out in 2002, though I could be wrong.

Production-wise, Memento was actually released in 2000.
Now, I can't quite recall exactly when it hit theaters here in the States...

lonescout2 said:"the best action scene"
Yoda vs Count Dooku

Look, I always thought action scenes weren't supposed to be funny. 🙂 Seriously, when I watched that, half the theater was staring in stunned silence while the other half was losing it laughing.

But that scene right before it, where the lights go out and the lightsaber duel starts... that's Dobro.

BTW slyrider16, solid pick... but if we're talking about the ultimate bad guy, I'd probably go with Guy Pearce himself... 😉

The best films of the year, in my estimation: SW Attack of the Clones, Memento, Monsters, Inc., and Jay & Silent Bob

A few more things. 😁
Every single movie under consideration was playing in US theaters back in 2002—that’s the only rule I'm sticking to. Sure, Metropolis showed up at some film festival and Scream and Bindings was part of a retrospective, but let's not get all nitpicky about it. 🙂

By the way, graniteangler10, when I was first thinking about the bad guy category, my top pick was Guy Pearce. 🙂 But after mulling it over, I figured you actually need some real intent to be a true villain, so Joey takes the crown. Wouldn't say he didn't earn it.

Oh yeah, that whole "best lesbian scene" category... 👍 😁

Just thought of another top-tier villain—Max von Sydow in Minority Report. He was incredible... but then you've got Pantoliano... "My mother calls me Teddy, my name is John Edward Gammel!"

[ graniteangler10 said:"]Look, my take is that action sequences shouldn't be a punchline. 🙂 Seriously, when I watched this, half the theater was staring in stunned silence while the other half was absolutely cracking up.

That’s because people simply don't get it.

The way Yoda fights is exactly how I imagined it would look—the execution is spot on.

But honestly, I wasn't even focused on the lightsaber duel itself; I was more preoccupied with the way they utilized the Force earlier on 🙂

[ graniteangler10 said:"]But honestly, that scene right before—where the lights go out and the saber duel kicks off? That part is solid.

If you’re talking about the moment where Dooku and Vader clash, that’s tough to call great. Honestly, what kind of fight was that? All the camera really does is show their faces lit up by the sabers, and that's basically it. If you compare that to the masterpiece fight from Duel of the Fates, the difference is night and day.

Now, if you mean the duel between Kenobi and Dooku, that's a different story... though personally, I don't care which one is the best in the trilogy.

Take a guess what I'm talking about. 🙂

That scene with the forcefields while Duel of the Fates plays in the background is killer, but honestly, who’s actually going to enjoy it given how much the rest of the movie falls apart...

Anyway, it just hit me—we haven't even mentioned Panic Room in the best cinematography category.

[ graniteangler10 said:"]Anyway, it just occurred to me—we didn't actually include Panic Room in the best cinematography category.

Right, I completely overlooked mentioning it—so here I am, bringing it up now.

Though, I did mention it back when discussing the Best film 2002...

redowl90, give me a break. That duel between Dooku and Anakin is easily the most intense part: didn't you catch the symbolism in how Lucas focused purely on their faces? You have Anakin bathed in that blue glow and Dooku caught in the red, all set against those flashes and the constant shifting between slow-mo and fast motion.

Oh, and I completely neglected to mention one massive, totally underrated movie. It actually came out in 2001, but hit US theaters in 2002: Vidocq!

Now that is a real movie...

[ kF said:"]Anyway, it just hit me—nobody mentioned Safe room in the best cinematography category.

Yeah, true... honestly, the camera work didn't really blow me away.
yeah, I get it, those few shots where the camera glides through the house are cool, but they aren't exactly "WOW." (The only thing I'd call out is how smooth the VFX was; in Fight Club, you could tell when they used animation for similar shots, but here it looks totally seamless.) Beyond that, I'd just chalk those shots up to the director and the VFX crew. Maybe I should've clarified that when I talk about "camera," I'm talking about the whole DP vibe, including the lighting and all that.