Michael Brody's Top Ten of 2002
You've seen Hobbit's Top Ten, now FilmHobbit.com critic Michael Brody has a few words on his favorites for the year. You could do a lot worse than his selections! Here's the ten films he thinks you shouldn't have missed in 2002. - FilmHobbit
1. Chicago
The glitz, glamour, and every sleazy but joyfully entertaining moment all add up to this wonderfully splashy, flashy film. The musical has always been the type of film that should expect a physical reaction from the audience if it were done right. Like laughter to a comedy, a musical is supposed to make you want to sing and dance along with the cast or, for that matter, the audience. I was repeatedly tempted to jump up and down with joy that such a film could be created.
2. Adaptation
Adaptation never mistakes inanity for insanity. Every gleefully wacko moment seems carefully thought out. The viewer begins to believe that this film might have started out as a film adaptation of “The Orchid Thief,” to be written by the real life Charlie Kaufman, but soon developed into this inventively twisted, often ingenious tale. As it happens, it actually did. Compared to Barton Fink, the Coen Brother’s typically bizarre tale about a Manhattan intellectual who goes Hollywood, Adaptation is perhaps the best film ever made to chronicle the oppressive screenwriting process. Kaufman’s gradual loss of focus and resulting desperation is something that anyone who has ever attempted to put something down on paper and met a certain amount of difficulty could connect to.
3. Minority Report
Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner), Minority Report is the ultimate in intelligent popcorn entertainment. All the thrills of The Fugitive integrated with a thought-provoking paradox make this a summer blockbuster that serves candy to both your eyes and mind.
4. The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers
The saga of middle earth continues in The Two Towers as we bear witness to a follow-up that is both lesser and greater than The Fellowship of The Ring. Not carried by the heavy burden of establishing the principal characters and storyline, The Two Towers is the second step in establishing The Lord of The Rings as perhaps the most breathtaking trilogy in cinema history.
5. Blade II
Not since Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan has a sequel so completely blown the original out of the water. Featuring all the atmosphere and excitement that the original so sadly lacked, Blade II is both a superior sequel and one of the darkest comic-book movies to ever rival The Crow.
6. One Hour Photo
If Insomnia was only a glimpse of how creepy Robin Williams could be, then One Hour Photo is the whole picture. Williams plays Seymour "Sy" Parrish, a lonely photo-lab employee who becomes obsessed with a “perfect” family and attempts to integrate himself into their lives. The result of the obsession leads to film so dark and twisted it could only be described as Taxi Driver meets American Beauty.
7. Signs
M. Night Shyamalan carries on his unique storytelling method by taking supposedly genre-grounded material and updating it from a dramatic point of view. After transforming a simple ghost story into a poignant thriller with The 6th Sense and convincing us that superhero mythology is what shapes so much of everyday life in Unbreakable, he now shows us the old-fashioned "alien invasion" flick from a new perspective. Signs sets the rural farm scenes in Independence Day as the basis for an feature length, Twilight Zone-style horror film that is a pleasure to watch in these gory, teeny-bopper thriller days.
8. Metropolis (Animated)
Very loosely based on the 1927 silent epic by master filmmaker Fritz Lang, this animated remake is every bit as entertaining as it is insightful. The film follows a young boy as he and his uncle befriend a robot child named Tima in the far future where robots and humans live together, but not harmoniously. What propels Metropolis to extraordinary levels is that the story is never overwhelmed by the breathtaking landscape that would make even Ridley Scott envious.
9. 8 Mile
The top track “Lose Yourself” must speak for the intentions of Director Curtis Hanson, who has made a film that is better than it has any right to be. The adrenaline-pumping freestyle battles and honest drama between a young man named Rabbit (Eminem) and his rough Detroit surroundings make it no difficult task to get lost in this spirit-lifter that evokes strong memories of the ‘go for it’ classics Rocky and Saturday Night Fever.
10. Insomnia (2002)
In this intense American remake of a 1997 Norwegian thriller, the groundwork is laid for a series of forensic examinations and cat-and-mouse chases, giving the impression that this was going to be an entertaining thriller, one that gave way to simplistic plot points and supposedly gritty dialogue, but was nonetheless entertaining. My original take on the film, based mostly on the first act, was proven wrong oh so viciously, as if director Christopher Nolan wanted to fool the audience in every possible way, including having them believe that this was going to be a mediocre film.
