Some Other Movies From 2002 (2)

For further background on the year in film please refer to the Some Other Movies From 2002 entry.

The following things happened in 2002:

• The Sierra Leone Civil War ended.
• The Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• The FIFA World Cup was held in South Korea and Japan.
• Switzerland and East Timor were admitted into the United Nations.
• The SARS epidemic began in China.
• The great Richard Harris passed away.
• The Queens of the Stone Age released Songs for the Deaf.  A great album.

Underlined entries were viewed on Netflix.

Linked entries can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube.

Excellent

1. Talk to Her (Hable Con Ella)

It's hard to explain what this movie's about without giving something away.  Let me just say that it's one of Spanish director Almodovar's films, and it might be my favorite.  In the beginning a reporter begins a relationship with a female bullfighter, and from that point on this movie takes a sharp left turn into some serious weirdness.  If I had to reduce this movie to a theme it would be a search for intimacy, or our search to establish relationships with people who might be unable (or unwilling) to reciprocate our affections.  In terms of plot and narrative symmetry it's a deep dive, and I'll probably watch it again in the near future.  The camera work is also amazing.

Fun Fact: Geraldine Chaplin is in this.

2. The Way Home

A young Korean boy learns to appreciate his grandma and her way of life.  It's one of South Korea's highest grossing movies, and critics everywhere loved it.

On a more personal note, I thought I lived in a very rural part of Taiwan, but then I saw this movie.  At least we have electricity.  And running water.  And stores.

 Some Good Ones

1. The Sweetest Thing

Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate and Jason Bateman: 3 actors/actresses who've been in much funnier movies.  The Sweetest Thing attempts to inject more sex and toilet humor into the rom-com genre, but despite a couple funny moments the results are decidedly mixed.  Then again it was the early 2000s, and movies like The 40 Year-Old Virgin were built upon movies like this one.

2. The Sum of All Fears

Here's a thought: why is it always Nazis attempting to resurrect the Third Reich, or to create a fourth?  Why not a group of conspirators attempting to resurrect Imperial Japan?  Or would that topic be too sensitive?  And why?

Anyway, in 2002 it was Ben Affleck's turn to play Jack Ryan.  In The Sum of All Fears Ryan is caught between U.S. and Russian leaders on the brink of nuclear war, and as usual Ryan has to uncover a conspiracy before the world ends, or before the President is killed, or before the Lambada - also known as "the forbidden dance" - becomes popular once again.  Critics at the time - among them Tom Clancy - were not loving this movie, but I thought it was OK.

3. Whale Rider

I was teaching a group of Paiwan kids today, and one of them started talking about how his ancestors beheaded people, and why they don't do so now.  Life is fun that way, and when you look around you realize that we're surrounded by tribal cultures, wherever in the world we happen to be.  If this isn't immediately obvious it's because they choose to keep to themselves, as I suppose "we" do in our own way.

Whale Rider follows a Maori girl as she contends with a headstrong grandfather.  I really enjoyed this movie, even if it didn't end the way I wanted it to.  Something in me wanted that girl to vanish in the end, just so her grandfather could learn how much that kind of pride really costs.  The whale, in other words, seemed like a cop-out.

Another thing I liked about this movie was Cliff Curtis.  After seeing him play such a hateful individual in Once Were Warriors it was nice to see him play a caring, concerned father in Whale Rider.

Fun Fact 1: Rachel House, one of Taika Waititi's collaborators, is in this movie.

Fun Fact 2: The director, Niki Caro would go on to direct North Country, another overlooked movie.  In 2020 she directed Disney's Mulan reboot.

4. About a Boy

Every time I see Hugh Grant I think about that time he got caught with a prostitute.  No judgment here - provided we're all of age everybody's human - but I can't help but remembering.  

Fame is a funny thing.  You could be Hugh Grant, you could be that handsome, and still feel isolated enough to go messing around with hookers in L.A.  Again, everybody's human, and he's probably a much happier person now.

In About a Boy he plays a womanizing bachelor who befriends a young boy.  And who is that young boy?  Nicholas Hoult, who is much better known in 2021.  It's a decent movie - even with the overbearing narration - and the ending isn't as predictable as you'd... predict?

5. Ghost Ship

Sure, dumb title, but it's a good movie.  It borrows a bit from The Shining, it borrows a bit from The Thing, but this film about a haunted ship was well put together.  Critics at the time hated it but it worked for me.

6. Dahmer

Jeremy Renner stars as the famous serial killer.  It's not exactly action-packed but it's an engaging character study.

The Kind of Exploitation Picture Hollywood and Hong Kong Don't Seem to Do Anymore

1. Naked Weapon

Maggie Q parades around in a series of skimpy outfits while assassinating people.  Wire work and cgi aside, what Naked Weapon really reminded me of was 70s films like The Killer Elite or Switchblade Sisters, movies that knew they were bad but realized that a certain amount of shock value goes a long way.  A lot of the dialogue in this movie is terrible, but Maggie Q is beautiful and the fight choreography is pretty good.

Fun Fact: Maggie Q's costar in this movie, Anya Wu, is married to one of Confucius' descendants.

Bad, but Does That Surprise You?

1. The Santa Clause 2

I was only halfway paying attention to this, but let's see what I can remember:

A. Santa Claus (Tim Allen) has to find a Mrs. Claus (i.e. get married) or he'll lose his Santa powers

B. He has around a month to do so.

C. Elves make lame toys that no actual kids would actually want.  Those shitty jumping dinosaurs and old timey trains might amuse Amish kids, but what about kids longing for a Sega Dreamcast?  A PlayStation 2?  A Nintendo GameCube?

D. There's some kind of "league of legendary beings" which consists of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Sandman (NOT the Spider-man villain), Father Time, the Tooth Fairy and a black woman who I THINK is Mother Earth.  Could this "league of legendary beings" stand up to the Avengers?  To the Justice League?  That's a blog post for another day!

E. Santa's son got onto the naughty list.  Uh oh.

F. Conveniently enough for Santa, while he's dealing with his son's naughtiness he realizes that the principal of his son's school is smokin' hot.

G. While Santa is away from the north pole trying to get laid/married, his elfin underlings create a faux Santa Claus out of toy components.  Whoa.

H. The faux Santa turns out to be a fascist who wants to invade Poland... or maybe just put ALL the kids on the naughty list.  The horror!

I. In an attempt to wrest control of the north pole from the true Santa (thus making him the "anti-Santa" in truly biblical fashion), he in turn creates an army of toy soldiers.  And as it turns out these toy soldiers are far and away the most memorable things in the movie.  Why?  Because THEY ARE FREAKING NIGHTMARE FUEL, if anything in any children's movie ever was.  Really, they're worse than the rabbits choking inside the tunnels in Watership Down.

J. Santa (predictably) saves the day just after faux Santa commits suicide in his bunker.  Or maybe he's captured by north polar communist partisans, and executed by firing squad.  Either way, the movie doesn't end well for him.

2. Mr. Deeds

Product placement?  Yup.  Jokes that fail to land?  Yup.  Boring, irrelevant romantic subplot?  Yup.  Occasional funny moments?  Yup.  I can't blame Adam Sandler for this one.  He knows who he is and he knows what he's about.  Besides, the dude is RICH.

Fun Fact: This movie is a remake of the 1936 Frank Capra film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.  The "greeting card poet," Mandrake Falls and most of the plot were borrowed from the original.  The original was, however, more a commentary on the need to maintain small town values in the wake of the Great Depression.

Some Bad Ones

1. Star Trek: Nemesis

Hey, it's Tom Hardy!  This was his third movie and his first major role.  He plays a younger clone of Captain Picard, leading a team of Romulans against the Federation.

Aside from that, yawn.  This movie is boring.  I was never that into the Next Generation version of Star Trek, and this movie reminded me why.  Talk, talk, talk, arbitrary explanation, talk, talk, talk.  You could say that each crew member of the Enterprise is outfitted with his or her own suit of plot armor, to be removed only when a death makes something more dramatic.

I think that at its best the Star Trek universe offers a more science-based conception of the future, but that scientific basis is nowhere evident in this film.  The bioweapon that Tom Hardy's character wields, the transporter technology, holograms, faster than light travel, faster than light messaging, artificial intelligence, cloaking technology - it all seems to operate in the most random manner possible, seemingly bending to the will of whatever the plot wants it to do.  By the end of this movie even something like Star Wars, with all its futuristic/archaic technology, comes off seeming relatively plausible.

Fun Fact: The critical and financial failure of this movie nixed plans for a fifth Next Generation film, and prompted the J.J. Abrams reboot in 2009.  I suppose I can thank this movie for that.

2. Drumline

Zoe Saldana and Orlando Jones are MUCH better actors than the rest of the people in this movie.  Really.  So much so that it's distracting.  They'll say something, and then some other actor will say something, and the difference in delivery will take you right out of the movie.

I also have trouble understanding why the school marching band - ANY school's marching band - is such a big deal.  I get that they all want to do a good job, but the hazing?  The waking up at 4:30 in the morning?  The obsession?  I don't know, I'm just not seeing it.  Maybe this is some Southern thing that I've never heard about, but where I come from the school marching band was never that big a deal.  Especially not, you know, compared to football.

According to the internet almost everybody loves this movie except me.  Maybe there's something I'm not getting.  Maybe it really is that ridiculous.  Maybe I've seen Whiplash too many times, and this movie suffers by comparison.

3. Crossroads

Yes, we're all sympathizing with Britney Spears lately, and no, she's not a good actress.  Once again Zoe Saldana gives the best performance in a movie full of bad performances, this time with Dan Aykroyd as Britney's mechanic father.  Nothing says "star vehicle" like road trip, and in this one Spears embarks on a road trip to meet her estranged mother.

Fun Fact: At the time this movie was often compared to Mariah Carey's Glitter.  I can attest to the fact that Crossroads is a much better movie.

Ugh.

1. A Walk to Remember

Mandy Moore and... some guy star in this Christian faith-affirming romance.  I despised every person in this movie, and Mandy Moore most of all.  I kept wishing they'd all wake up in a barren warehouse room somewhere, with Jigsaw's doll staring down at them, telling them that their day of reckoning had arrived.  Alas, this never happens.

I deserve an award for sitting through most of this movie.  I really do.

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Some Other Movies From 2000 (2)

Some Other Movies From 2002

Up into the 2000s now are we?  In case you're wondering if I ever go outside, I'd like to tell you that yes, I do go outside - very often.  I took part in a triathlon last weekend, I exercise six times a week, and no, I don't still live in my parents' basement.

Watching 4-7 movies per week has put me in the year 2002.  Given that I wrote the Some Other Movies From 1980 entry in September, and that for each entry I watched at least 15 movies, this means that between that entry and this one I've watched over 165 movies, and that's not even counting films that I've seen in theaters.

But perhaps I digress?  Or maybe that was the one time I failed to do so.  Anyway, on to historical/biographical info...

In 2002 I was living in both Taichung, Taiwan, and Seattle, in the great state of Washington.  I was very definitely a dad at that point, married for two years, and on the way to graduate school.  I can't recall anything about my movie watching habits during that time, though I can remember seeing The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers, Spider-Man, Signs, and the first Ice Age in theaters.  I could be wrong, but I believe I saw all of those movies in either the Tiger City shopping mall or the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store in Taichung, Taiwan.  I recall being somewhat disappointed by Spider-Man.

Aside from the above-mentioned movies, other big movies of that year included Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Die Another Day, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Minority Report.  Of those 2002 blockbusters I think Minority Report was the obvious winner, and that Star Wars Episode II and Die Another Day (a Bond film) represent the worst their respective franchises have to offer.

Some Good Ones

1. 24 Hour Party People

Steve Coogan stars in this pseudo-documentary about the Manchester music scene.  I'm not into any of the bands discussed in this movie, but it's well acted and has some clever twists.

2. Undisputed

Two problems with this movie: 1) Ving Rhames' character, with all his money, wouldn't have ended up in a prison like Sweetwater over rape.  Without an actual video, his lawyers would have had that conviction whittled down to something much less substantial.  And 2) How is he going to reclaim his title after his incarceration anyway?  They would have taken away his boxing license, and without a sanctioned bout his lost title would have remained beyond reach.

The above said, Undisputed is a good prison boxing movie.  Ving Rhames and Wesley Snipes were in great shape, and the movie's thoroughly involving.  The direction stumbles a bit at the outset, but anyone who likes boxing films will enjoy this movie.

Fun Fact: That director, by the way, is Walter Hill, the same guy who directed 48 Hours.  As you might be aware, I'm not a big fan of his work, but he does a decent job here.

3. Bowling for Columbine

For a much more informed look at gun control, I recommend the book The Politics of Gun Control.  It says many of the same things as Bowling for Columbine, but in a much more organized, much less manipulative fashion.

As documentaries go, Bowling for Columbine is literally and figuratively all over the map.  It makes some good points, but these points are often obscured by strange rants about American history, and by Michael Moore's need to place himself in front of the camera as much as possible.  I think it's worth seeing, but I'm sure there are better gun control documentaries out there.

4. Highway

How old were Jake Gyllenhaal and Jared Leto in 2002?  In this movie they look all of 16.  However old they were, they're good together in this pseudo-eulogy of Seattle's grunge scene.  The movie's set in 1994, and Seattle is where the pair end up after eluding vengeful mobsters.

5. We Were Soldiers

Mel Gibson stars as a soldier (general?) leading an elite helicopter squadron during the Vietnam War.  When you think about it, Gibson's been involved in several wars; the First War of Scottish Independence (Braveheart), the Revolutionary War (The Patriot), the First World War (Gallipoli), the Second World War (Hacksaw Ridge), and the Vietnam War (both this movie and Air America).  Aside from Air America, I would have to affirm that all of these movies - if not the wars they portray - are very, very good.

6. Infernal Affairs

I've seen The Departed SO many times.  In case you didn't know, Infernal Affairs is the Hong Kong police drama from which The Departed was adapted.  Infernal Affairs moves a lot slower than the Hollywood version, but it's a good film with a slightly different ending.

7. Irreversible

From a storytelling standpoint, this is the polar opposite of Trapped (see below).  With this movie all bets are off, the story's told backward, and the viewer is left to draw his or her own conclusions.  As one of the two men say in the beginning of the film, "There are no crimes, only actions."

This said, parts of this movie are really hard to watch.  Irreversible is sometimes bundled in with the other "New French Extremity" films, so be warned and bring a strong stomach.  Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassell (two of my favorite actors) deliver strong performances,  and it's both as arty and as philosophical as one would expect.

I find that when critic Roger Ebert used the words "offensive" and "unwatchable" to describe a movie, I usually end up enjoying it a great deal.

8. Jackass: The Movie

Dudes do stunts.  In the course of said stunts dudes often get hurt and/or puke.  Some of the stunts are funny.  Many of the stunts aren't.  Still, if you're bored enough this movie's not bad.

9. Murder By Numbers

Sandra Bullock is GREAT in this movie.  It's definitely not Se7en, but her performance as a detective is some of the best work she's ever done.  Ryan Gosling is in this movie too, and like Jared Leto and Jake Gyllenhaal in Highway he looks all of 16 here.

Some Bad Ones

1. Orange County

I was a bit drunk when I watched this, so I figure that if any comedy was going to be funny that would have been the time.  The whole getting into college motif seemed very tired to me, and the misplaced container of piss gag seemed even MORE tired.  Yeah, it's probably Jack Black's funniest movie, but that's not saying much.

2. High Crimes

Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman, and Jim Caviezel star in this military courtroom thriller.  The first half's not bad, but in the second half the plot grows too convoluted for its own good.  Worst of all is the movie's ending, which is just dumb.  Military training?  Who?  When?  Where?

3. Trapped

The trouble with movies like this is that there's a certain morality implied.  Everyone, even the bad people, behave within certain limits.  So you know, for example, that Kevin Bacon's never really going to rape Charlize Theron, for the simple reason that such a rape would alienate this film's target audience.

Trapped is the story of a kindnapping.  They arrive at Theron's house, they take her daughter, and you can probably guess the rest of the plot from there.  Theron and Bacon do their best with a formulaic script, but the direction often puts style over substance.

4. Van Wilder

The dog's name is "Colossus," for chrissakes.  Van Wilder hasn't aged well, but fans of Deadpool might enjoy certain similarities between that movie and this one.  Ryan Reynolds has been a lot funnier in other movies, and gags involving incontinence were already tired back in 2002.

5. The Count of Monte Cristo

Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce star in this film adaptation of Dumas' novel.  It's faithful to the book, lumbers along in uninspired fashion, and you'll probably have forgotten most of the details soon after it's over.  Caviezel would give a more memorable performance in 2004's The Passion of the Christ, and Pearce would star in the much better remake of The Time Machine the same year that The Count of Monte Cristo appeared.

If you haven't read the book, I'd recommend it.  It would be a far better use of your time than watching this film.

Fun Fact: This was Henry Cavill's second movie.  He plays Guy Pearce's son.  ...or does he?

6. The Adventures of Pluto Nash

I think they were going for 48 Hrs. in space.  Eddie Murphy plays a nightclub owner on the moon, with Randy Quaid as his robot bodyguard and Rosario Dawson as his rather obvious love interest.  One can only imagine that Dennis Quaid is continually haunted by the possibility that his career will, at some point, begin to resemble that of his older brother.

Fun Fact: According to this movie, in the future Hillary Clinton will be on the money, and Trump Realty will be selling housing on the moon!

7. Showtime

Buddy cops star in a reality show.  There's a lazy kind of logic in the casting - Eddie Murphy replaying his roles from 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop, Robert De Niro as the hard-boiled tough guy, Rene Russo as the show's producer, and even William "TJ Hooker" Shatner as the show's director.  But as action comedies go this movie is neither exciting nor funny.  It's not as disastrously bad as The Adventures of Pluto Nash, but it's certainly not good.

One So Bad It's Kind of Good

1. The Transporter

Semi-retarded action movie set in the south of France, with Jason Statham starring a transporter of ill repute.  The plot makes little sense, but that's all part of the fun.  

If you're looking for a good "driver movie" I think Drive has them all beat, but then again that movie's like apples to The Transporter's oranges.  Also in this movie's defense, Taiwanese actress Shu Qi is adorable.

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"The Year's Best Science Fiction" (20th Annual Collection) edited by Gardiner Dozois (2002)

The 21st annual collection has already been reviewed here.  This anthology is just as big, and features many of the same authors.

This book came out at the same time as Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.  There's a long discussion of that movie in the introduction, and it's amusing to read the author's reflections on a possible superhero movie fad in the context of (only) Spider-Man, the first two X-men films, and Tim Burton's Batman.

1. "Breathmoss" by Ian R. Macleod

Islamic lesbians on another planet.  Really, that's the entire premise.  Beautifully written, but aside from puberty very little happens.  The description of the "gateways" near the end flies in the face of Relativity, and dampened my enthusiasm for the story.  Not so much science fiction as fantasy.

2. "The Most Famous Little Girl in the World" by Nancy Kress 

Two women find themselves at odds after one of them is abducted by aliens during their childhood.  I'm not entirely sure what the author was trying to get at with this story.  Her entry in the following year's anthology was much better.

3. "The Passenger" by Paul J. McAuley 

"Hard sci-fi" story about salvage workers who find a small girl aboard a damaged spaceship.  There's an ambiguity about this one that I really liked.  Hopefully I can track down some of the author's novels. 

4. "The Political Officer" by Charles Coleman Finlay

Political intrigue inside a wormhole.  Reminded me of Frank Herbert's Dragon in the Sea, and also his ConSentiency series.  Masterfully written story by an author new (at the time) to the genre. 

5. "Lambing Season" by Molly Gloss

Kind of a Western with an alien visitation thrown in.  Not very good.

6. "Coelacanths" by Robert Reed

No idea what this one's supposed to be about.  But it's very weird, and as far as I'm concerned that's a mark in its favor. 

7. "Presence" by Maureen F. McHugh

Genuinely moving story about an elderly couple and a temporary cure for Alzheimer's.  One of the best stories I've read in a long time.

8. "Halo" by Charles Stross

Generations and cultures clash in the midst of a "smart solar system."  The ending is bungled, although the story is full of interesting ideas.  I'd be curious to know what the author does with longer narratives.  Would his novels be as overwhelmingly dense?  Or would his ideas find fuller realization in a longer format? 

9. "In Paradise" by Bruce Sterling

Love story set in a surveillance state.  As of 2017 this story isn't quite so science fiction-y, but it's both well-written and entertaining. 

10. "The Old Cosmonaut and the Construction Worker Dream of Mars" by Ian McDonald

Quantum computing, AI, and the colonization of Mars.  There is a point beyond which a wealth of details make a good story tedious, and this story passes far beyond that point.  I'm also doubtful that the VR setup featured in the story would work given the distances involved.  Even at light speed, transmissions in either direction would take about 3 minutes at closest approach. 

11. "Stories for Men" by John Kessel

Quite possibly the best story in this collection.  The battle of the sexes continues in a matriarchal lunar colony.  This one owes a lot to Fight Club (one of the characters is even named Tyler Durden), but the author puts his own spin on the quest for manhood.  Much better than Kessel's entry in the 21st annual collection.

This one also brought John Varley to mind, but it's more subtle than any of Varley's stories.

12. "To Become a Warrior" by Chris Beckett

Not really a science fiction story, but still a solid tale of a young man falling in with the wrong crowd.

13. "The Clear Blue Seas of Luna" by Gregory Benford 

Incredibly pretentious story about the terraforming of the moon.  Could have done with less poetry.  Apparently this author was a "big deal" in 2002, despite the fact that I'd never heard of him.  Is his novel Timescape any good?  If I come across it I suppose I'll give it a go. 

14. "V.A.O." by Geoff Ryman

Cyberpunk story featuring a group of elderly hackers trying to solve a series of crimes.  Very good, though a bit dated now.

15. "Winters are Hard" by Steven Popkes 

A "modified" Montanan goes to live among wolves in a newly created nature reserve.  I liked this one a lot, and there's a truly weird plot development about halfway through.

It seems to me that this is the kind of story that would have made a younger Frank Herbert proud.  A concern for ecology, morally ambiguous characters, and body modification.  All the ingredients are there. 

16. "At the Money" by Richard Wadholm

Forgettable story about Hispanic stock traders in the future.  Half of it's concerned with market fluctuations, and the other half is concerned with made-up commodities.  According to the short intro the author is/was from Seattle, and this was one of his first published stories.

17. "Agent Provocateur" by Alexander Irvine

Well-written entry about the Butterfly Effect, but not really science fiction.

18. "Singleton" by Greg Egan

Damned if this isn't the hardest "hard sci-fi" I've ever read.  Quantum computers, the "Many Worlds interpretation," and artificial intelligence.  It's not a bad story, but the couple that give birth to the "Singleton" are a bit hard to relate to.  What they do is so far removed from natural childbirth (and child rearing) that one wonders how they could get through the average day without suffering some kind of existential breakdown.

19. "Slow Life" by Michael Swanwick 

Three astronauts discover a sentient lifeform on Titan.  More conventional than any other story here, but still very good. 

20. "A Flock of Birds" by James Van Pelt

A man watches birds during the post-apocalypse.  Would he really have that much difficulty identifying that one bird?  No, not if he knew birds.

21. "The Potter of Bones" by Eleanor Arnason

Furry, four-breasted space lesbians learn about Evolution.  It's terrible!

22. "The Whisper of Disks" by John Meaney 

Decent story which, given the short bio that precedes it, is largely autobiographical.  Interesting up until the very end, but the various story threads don't come together the way they ought to.

23."The Hotel at Harlan's Landing" by Kage Baker

Forgettable story about angels doing battle for the fate of mankind.  Brought to mind a number of bad movies and equally bad TV shows.

24. "The Millennium Party" by Walter Jon Williams

3-page long story about people who have brains that are the working equivalent of thumb drives.  About as memorable as story #23 above.

25. "Turquoise Days" by Alastair Reynolds

Humankind comes to terms with an alien life form on another planet.  Reminded me a lot of Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom's The Jesus Incident, although this story has at its center a certain dichotomy between good and evil that, in my opinion, weakens the narrative. 

And no, not every science fiction concept has been done better - and earlier - by Frank Herbert!  I'm sure that other authors have done similar things.  It's just that Herbert is the one that kept popping into my head.