Top Ten Movies of 2002...
This is from Rolling Stone....top 10 of the year...and some of the worst too......
1. Gangs of New York
A landmark film from Martin Scorsese, who turns a tale of immigrant gangs in the 1860s into a hot-blooded epic for the ages. Ignore the love fluff with Cameron Diaz; Leonardo DiCaprio and a stupendous Daniel Day-Lewis bring history to raw life. No one dares more than Scorsese. Watch him fly.
2. Far From Heaven
The twin peak, along with "Gangs," of the movie year is another period film -- suburbia in the 1950s. The gifted writer-director Todd Haynes uses a disintegrating marriage (superb acting from Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid as her closeted gay husband) to speak potently about the way we live now.
3. Adaptation
The most original and outrageous comedy of 2002. Twin writers (both Nicolas Cage) try to adapt a book about orchids (no sex, drugs or violence) into a Hollywood movie. Director Spike Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman are true originals: They make hilarious satire out of the end of civilization.
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Part two of Peter Jackson's film trilogy of J.R.R.Tolkien's books tops the original in thrilling spectacle. Tolkien gets fudged a bit, but the story's themes remain powerful and resonant. Jackson delivers the goods in battle scenes that will take your breath away.
5. Y Tu Mama Tambien
Two teen horn-dogs (Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal) hit the road with an older woman and learn to see beyond their hard-ons. It's an erotic ride that Mexico's Alfonso Cuaron elevates with unexpected feeling.
6. Chicago
A splashy, sexy knockout of a musical about the corrupt heart of showbiz and, by extension, the world. A razzle-dazzle triumph for director Rob Marshall. Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones are hot, hot, hot!
7. Talk to Her
It sounds bizarre: how do two men love two women -- a dancer and a bullfighter -- who are in comas? Spain's Pedro Almod-var tells you how in a one-of-a-kind film that brims over with magic and mystery.
8. Road to Perdition
Some people didn't buy Tom Hanks as a hitman and found director Sam Mendes' follow-up to American Beautytoo arty. I found the film and Paul Newman, as the hit-man's surrogate father, indelibly moving.
9. About Schmidt
Jack Nicholson's turn as a Nebraska retiree is a career high, but don't discount the expansive human comedy that director-co-writer Alexander Payne has given him to play.
10. 8 Mile
With all the fuss about Eminem's striking screen debut as a rapper much like himself, you might've missed the authenticity director Curtis Hanson built into the film. Look again.
Runners-up:Besides two from Phillip Noyce (The Quiet Americanand Rabbit-Proof Fence) and a trio of documentaries (Standing in the Shadows of Motown, Dogtown and Z-Boys, Bowling for Columbine), there's Christopher Nolan's Insomnia, Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, Paul Schrader's Auto Focus, Stephen Daldry's The Hours, Joe Carnahan's Narc, David Fincher's Panic Roomand Paul Greengrass' Bloody Sunday.
And The Worst
Madonna sank with the shipwrecks of 2002, but she wasn't alone Britney Spears started us off with the sour notes of Crossroads: not a girl, not yet an actress. Denzel Washington won an Oscar in March, then tarnished it with the cliches of John Q. Eddie Murphy bet on a losing horse with Showtime, then made it a trifecta with Pluto Nashand I Spy. Summer brought the soggy Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black IIand The Sum of All Fears. Scooby-Doowas a steaming pile, except at the box office. Ditto Adam Sandler's Mr. Deeds, which even co-star Winona Ryder couldn't steal. Austin Powers in Goldmemberneeded Viagra. And for the holidays, we've been saddled with Roberto Benigni in a live-action Pinocchio. Still, the sheer clueless incompetence displayed by Mr. and Mrs. Guy Ritchie in Swept Awaywill surely go unrivaled for years. If we're very, very lucky.
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