Favorite Films of 2002

[Reid]

Jazzooo thinks I hate all the movies I see, so to prove him wrong I wanted to start this thread.

Here are my favorite films of 2002:

13 Conversations About One Thing
Talk To Her
Adaptation
Far From Heaven
Frida
Spirited Away
Tully
Spider-Man

I'm probably forgetting something, but oh well. I have to make special mention of Tully because probably many of you have either not seen it or heard it. It's not a perfect movie, but it has heart. It's one of the those films that you root for. I grew to like all the characters in this film.

Talk To Her is the first Almodovar film I've seen and I have to see more. It's weird, but it has a strange kind of magic that works on me.

[Tanager]

Monsoon Wedding. I myself had a Punjabi wedding in Delhi as well, so this was especially poignant and wonderful for both me and my wife. This was the movie India *should* have submitted as their Oscar entry, IMHO.

Bollywood Hollywood By no means a "great" movie, but it was relentlessly good-natured and fun.

I didn't see that many "new" movies, but one movie that was an abject disappointment was Attack of the Clones. Whatever magic Lucas brought to the first (in order of release, not in storyline order) three films was left at home for the last two, IMHO.

[Pete C]

I don't go to too many films, but I liked Talk To Her & City of God a bunch. I liked the Pianist, but I found Costa-Gavras's Amen a more effective, haunting Holocaust film. I hated Frida. I found it silly, pretentious, and very poorly (over)acted, especially Molina.

[patricia]

I really liked "The Pianist", but as a Holocaust film, I think that the film, "Triumph of the Spirit" is better than both it and "Schindler's List" in presenting the Holocaust.

[moneyp]

Some favorites of the past year, alphabetically:

25th Hour (Spike Lee)
Adaptation (Spike Jonze)
Atanarjuat (Zacharias Kunuk)
Chicago (Rob Marshall)
La Cienega (Lucrecia Martel)
Les Destinees Semintales (Olivier Assayas)
Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese)
I'm Going Home (Manoel de Oliveira)
The Lady and the Duke (Eric Rohmer)
Lilo & Stitch (Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders)
Narc (Joe Carnahan)
The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke)
Punch Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Rabbit-Proof Fence (Philip Noyce)
Read My Lips (Jacques Audiard)
Secretary (Steven Shainberg)
Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson)
Spider-Man (Sam Raimi)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki)
Talk To Her (Pedro Almodovar)
Time Out (Laurent Cantet)

A shade below fully satisfying, for various reasons, but still worthwhile:

24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom)
About a Boy (Chris & Paul Weitz)
Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore)
Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes)
Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat)
Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair)
Scotland, PA (Billy Morrisette)
Solaris (Steven Soderbergh)
Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alphonso Cuaron)

Still need to see:

8 Women (François Ozon)
Alias Betty (Claude Miller)
The Believer (Henry Bean)
City of God (Kátia Lund & Fernando Meirelles)
The Man Without a Past (Aki Kaurismaki)
Ten (Abbas Kiarostami)
Unknown Pleasures (Jia Zhangke)
What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-Liang)

A pretty damned good year. We're in the midst of a golden age, with so many outstanding filmmakers out there right now.

[Dr Dave]

Adaptation
Read My Lips
Y Tu Mama Tambien
The Hours
Black Hawk Down
In The Bedroom


Films I wish had been better: Bloodwork, Hannibal

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

I don't get to see too many new ones, and I'm not too sure about release dates, but

2001(?)

Amores Perros

Amelie


2002

The Fast Runner (nobody loves this movie but me, I think, but I love it enough for all of us!)

Y Tu Mama Tambien

Monsoon Wedding

Man From Elysian Fields (you have to kind of like this despite Andy Garcia, who is after all the lead, but I did)

[Salvador Dali Lama]

Gangs of New York

ya bastids.

[moneyp]

Originally posted by Squaredancecalling Steve
The Fast Runner (nobody loves this movie but me, I think, but I love it enough for all of us!)

Steve, I loved it too! (But I saw it in 2001...)

*edit*

Ah, what the hell... included it anyway. :-)

[Rob C]

Atanaaaaarrrrrrjuaaaaaaat!

The Fast Runner! Loved it!

[Tanager]

Originally posted by Dr Dave
Films I wish had been better: Bloodwork

Amen. This got some great reviews, but I found it utterly implausible and unsatisfying, not to mention a tad overacted (especially the supporting cast).

[stonemonkts]

Y Tu Mama Tambien

Loved the narrator's style..haven't enjoyed narration this much since...well, since listening to Jeremy Irons narrate almost anything (Lolita and Brideshead Revisted come to mind).

Anyway, Y Tu Mama tambien was my favorite from last year.

[john williams]

The Quiet American
Black Hawk Down

[kc bob]

I didn't see as many last year as years before but I liked Spirited Away, Rabbit Proof Fence, Secretary, 24 Hr Party People, The Hours.

OK... Fat Girl, Y Tu Mama, The Fast Runner.

City of God just recently hit town and I plan to see it. May check out the Pianist, which has been running forever but I haven't been into the mode for that vibe.

Adaptation was the only one I particularly disliked out of the acclaimed ones.

Didn't see Chicago or Gangs.

[Reid]

Read My Lips

I didn't think it was great, but it was entertaining, and way better than most thrillers coming out of Hollywood. I liked the relationship between the two characters and how it evolved throughout the film. I think it's worth seeing.

Another entertaining thriller that no one has mentioned from last year was Enigma.

Square,

I thought Andy Garcia gave a good performance. I didn't think the direction was very good in the film.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Reid -- I thought Elysian Fields was flawed in several ways, direction probably, Garcia never seemed entirely believable to me, Coburn always seemed like Coburn (which was OK) and the ending was like something you'd used if you didn't have a good idea. But the territory and the general drift of the movie worked for me, and I thought Mick Jagger, Angelica Huston (why was she uncredited?), the two wives and the main other escort all gave fine performances.