Entirely to the contrary of any reputation I may have fostered as a serious student of the Cinema, my list of best films of 2002 is topped by cartoons and action movies. And I’m not ashamed.
1. Spirited Away – Some of the finest cinema ever takes its form as a mere children’s movie. Anyone familiar with Hayao Miyazaki knows to expect stunning animation, and complex, beautiful characters. In Spirited Away, Miyazaki out does himself, with colors so vibrant you want to jump up and lick the screen and visual composition to rival Kurosawa in majestic simplicity. Watch the movie once and wish you’d grown up with it. Then watch it five more times because its just that good a story. Ignore that Disney distributed it in the US.
2. XXX – Wow I thought Fast and the Furious had everything I needed in an action film, but boy was I wrong. Apparently snowboarding on avalanches is what’s been missing from my life.
3. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – Okay so Gollum ended up being a little more Jar Jar Binks-ish than I’d like. (Other members of the audience actually went "Awwwww" a couple times because he was cute! Gollum isn’t supposed to be cute! Dammit!) And the geek patrol gives the storyline a 5 for accuracy. But hot damn! You can’t deny that the Battle for Helms Deep was pretty exciting. Plus, no other film series has pleased me this much visually, while utilizing such a large amount of CGI.
4. Metropolis – Pretty much just Akira with a little girl, but I’m a sucker for Anime.
5. Super Troopers – I believe this is what they call in "the Biz" a "sleeper" because it totally looked like it was just another stupid comedy, but then when you watched it you realized there was brilliance at work. I found out later that Jay Chandrasekhar also used to direct Undeclared , then it all made sense.
6. Spiderman – Totally cool. Totally fun. Everyone saw it, I don’t need to extol its virtues. It lost some notches on the year end list for the totally fake looking balloons in the Batman-rip-off parade scene.
7. Scorpion King – The Mummy series is fulfilling some kind of Egyptology kick that I blame on Indiana Jones. Plus if you don’t love The Rock, you’re a goddamn Commie.
8. Dogtown and Z Boys – Avril may have made the pop song first, but I sure do love skater boys. Plus, any one of those little tow-headed 12 year olds could have totally kicked my ass.
9. Y Tu Mama Tambien – Mostly just a coming-of-age roadtrip movie, but the fact that it stars two beautiful boys who are naked during a fair amount of the movie makes it just that much better than Crossroads.
10. Pepe Le Moko (Actually released in 1937, but technically it was on Films of ’02 lists, for its theatrical rerelease) – Technicalities aside, this film would be my number 1 for this year were it not for the little issue that is was actually made 40 years before I was even born. So I’ve snuck this essential in as my last pick. Pepe Le Moko has more action than Spiderman, a creepier bug-eyed henchman than Two Towers, a suaver hero than XXX, and a more magical, exotic setting than Spirited Away. Julien Duvivier makes Casablanca look like You’ve Got Mail.
2002
LISTS
dan
kevin
jeremy
alex
sujan
dave n.
sarah f.
juhi
genna
shawn
chris larry
mitch
chris m.
donovan
marc
jim
