Vintage '02
Tuesday, June 9, 2020 at 9:00AM Our "Year of the Month" or, rather, first half of the month, is 2002. We've already talked Frida and Unfaithful , Viola's first bigscreen breakthrough, and Nicole's Best Actress win. We also introduced you to the Smackdown Panelists who'll be talking about the Best Supporting Actress race on June 17th so here's more context for that year in pop culture time...
Great Big Box Office Hits:
The leggy sleeper hit My Big Fat Freek Wedding, M Night Shyamalan's alien-invasion movie Signs, and the animated Ice Age were the top three "original" hits. Sequels or franchise launchers, were, as ever in our modern era, the very biggest hits with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, and the then-latest Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter installments as the top four titles. The musical adaptation of Chicago was also a smash. And the major Oscar favourite. More on that after the jump...
Oscar's Best Picture Nominees:
Chicago (13 noms / 6 wins) battled it out with Roman Polanski's highly acclaimed Holocaust drama The Pianist (7 noms / 3 wins) for the top Oscars. The Academy ended up splitting Picture/Director to accomodate both. Rounding out the Best Picture list were Gangs of New York (10 noms / 0 wins), The Hours (9 noms / 1 win), and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (6 noms / 2 wins).
WHAT IF?
2002 is a fascinating case study in everyone's modern game "what would also have been nominated had the current rules been in place allowing for up to 10 Best Picture nominees?". Would love to hear your theories! A strong case could be made for Talk to Her as a rare foreign language nominee (since Almodóvar's hard-to-describe masterpiece had momentum and snagged a Director nomination and a Screenplay win. Otherwise the what-if story is murkier. Adaptation was well liked by the acting branch but awfully strange for Oscar's early Aughts taste, Road to Perdition and Frida both had plentiful craft nominations but people seemed cool on it them as whole movies. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a populist juggernaut but awfully slight for Oscar's typical taste. Far From Heaven was well regarded but the Academy wasn't generous given what it deserved with only 4 nominations; hell, even the acting branch was stingy with Todd Hayne's gorgeous Sirk homage. About Schmidt had precursor attention but stumbled on nomination morning with only two citations. Catch Me If You Can and Y Tu Mama Tambien are very popular NOW but were they popular enough then given the barely-there Oscar results (2 and 1 nomination respectively).
Films That Endured (in some way) That Were Neither Oscar Nominees Nor Blockbusters
The comedy About a Boy, the sadomasochistic sexual drama Secretary, Spike Lee's 25th Hour, the one-shot arthouse classic Russian Ark, and JLos romcom Maid in Manhattan all had staying power (of some kind or another). Three famous titles from abroad Brazil's City of God, Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs, and the UK's 28 Days Later all started collecting fans in 2002 but they didn't hit the US until 2003 or 2004. City of God was an Oscar hit the following year, Infernal Affairs was remade into an English Language Best Picture winner (The Departed) and 28 Days Later proved hugely influential igniting a zombie craze that still hasn't subsided.
Nathaniel's Top Ten of 2002 (adjusted for current tastes)
- Far From Heaven
- Y Tu Mama Tambien
- Talk to Her
- 25th Hour
- Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
- Late Marriage
- The Hours
- Monsoon Wedding
- Spirited Away
- Lovely & Amazing
...and I've just rewatched Chicago so perhaps it should move into the top ten. It's aged so well but more on that later.
Magazine Covers for Context...
(You can click to enlarge)
As you can see popular covergirls were Kirsten Dunst, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Jennifer Aniston, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, and Eminem.
Mix Tape (Select Hits of '02 to get you in the right headspace)
"Work It" (Missy Elliott), "Just Like a Pill / Get the Party Started / Don't Let Me Get Me" (P!nk), "Dirrty" (Christina Aguilera), "Can't Get You Outta My Head" (Kylie Minogue), "No More Drama" (Mary J Blige), "Whenever Wherever" (Shakira), "Don't Know Why" (Norah Jones), "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" (Britney Spears), "Hella Good" (No Doubt), "Gone" (NSync), "Hands Clean" (Alanis Morrissette), "Long Time Gone" (Dixie Chicks), "Complicated" (Avril Lavigne), and "A Thousand Miles" (Vanessa Carlton), and "Lose Yourself" (Eminem) from 8 Mile which is one of only two songs this century to hit #1 on the Billboard charts AND win the Oscar (the other is Lady Gaga's "Shallow" from A Star is Born).
More Music
American Idol premiered on Fox as an instant smash franchise and gave the world Kelly Clarkson during its freshman outing. "The Eminem Show" was the year's top selling album. The year's biggest surprise smash, as albums went though, was the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack which won Album of the Year at the February Grammy's and cracked the top ten biggest sellers of the year when all was said and done. 2002 was also a year of classic bands splitting up: Supertramp, NSync, Culture Club, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Hole, and Salt-N-Pepa among them.
TV:
The West Wing (Season 3) and Friends (Season 8) won the top Emmys in September but CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Season 2) was the #1 ranked program in the land. Jennifer Aniston won Best Actress for Friends and Stockard Channing won not one but two acting Emmys for Supporting Actress in a Drama (West Wing) and Supporting Actress in a Miniseries (The Matthew Shephard Story).
In other television happenings of 2002, The Wire began its acclaimed run on HBO, Joss Whedon's Firefly began and ended its cult-beloved run on Fox, MTV wrapped up its animated series Daria , and The Rosie O'Donnell Show also aired its last episode. 2002-era Nathaniel was wildly depressed at the cancellation of the awesome forever undervalued marital/family drama Once & Again starring Billy Campbell, Sela Ward, and the then-tiny Evan Rachel Wood, who wouldn't return to a TV series principal role until WestWorld in 2016.
Literature
Popular books included Alice Sebold's afterlife drama "The Lovely Bones," Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Klaus's "The Nanny Diaries", Ann Patchett's hostage drama "Bel Canto," Sarah Waters victorian crime novel "Fingersmith," Neil Gaiman's fantasy "Coraline" and David McCullough's Pulitzer winning biography "John Adams" . They have all since been adapted for televison or film, "Fingersmith" twice over, including the sensational South Korean film The Handmaiden (2016).
Stage
The Pulitzer Prize for drama went to Suzan-Lori Parks "Topdog/Underdog" which was also up for the Tony for Best Play. The Tony Award wins went to Edward Albee's incredible "The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?" (play) and "Thoroughly Modern Millie" (musical) the latter of which catapulted the ever-delightful Sutton Foster to instant fame (and the first of two Tony wins). Bernadette Peters and Gregory Hines hosted the Tony Awards that year. Unbeknownst to the those of us watching, Hines already had cancer and he would die a year later at just 57, a great loss to musicals.
Showtune to Go!
Our favourite number from Thoroughly Modern Millie...
Reader Comments (35)
Nathaniel, I "protested" outside Warner Brothers studios in Burbank on the cancellation of "Once and Again", along with 20 other dorky people. Evan Rachel Wood had her Mom drive her by to say thank you, and Billy Campbell also stopped to say "Thank you.".
I love these look backs at the years gone by.
2002 is such a wonderful film year. Other films I’d say that have lived on culturally from this year are Punch Drunk Love, Secretary, The Piano Teacher, Morvern Callar, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Scooby Doo, Sweet Home Alabama, The Bourne Identity, Ice Age, Harry Potter 2, Solaris and Rabbit Proof Fence (in Aus at least)
"Far From Heaven" is a modern classic- great cast, script and direction- Haynes manages to both pay hommage to Douglas Sirk and go to the places he would never have been able to explore. The cinematography, costumes, art direction and score are also perfect- yes I love this movie
I have really fond memories of this year in film. I think Talk to Her and Adaptation for sure would have made it in. Even if they weren't loved broadly, they had enough support and critics, in a world of 5-10 nominees, would have really spoken up for them. I think the early aughts taste would have been broader if there was an expanded category. I think Frida would probably round out the category given the strength of Miramax's campaigns.
Not sure how you're doing TV years, but if you're aligning it with emmy years then Friends was the number 1 show on TV in 2002 (CSI took the throne for the 2002-2003 season). It was a big part of its "we help America laugh and heal after tragedy" campaign.
My Top 10 of 2002 (my own eligibility rule is "first time screened to a paying cinema audience anywhere in the world, festival showings don't count") -
1) City Of God
2) Far From Heaven
3) The Warrior
4) 24 Hour Party People
5) Adaptation
6) Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance
7) 25th Hour
8) 28 Days Later...
9) Dirty Pretty Things
10) The Rules Of Attraction
And my acting nominees (excluding Supporting Actress for the moment, obviously) -
Leading Actor
1) Nicolas Cage - Adaptation
2) Timothy Spall - All Or Nothing
3) Jack Nicholson - About Schmidt
4) Steve Coogan - 24 Hour Party People
5) Al Pacino - Insomnia
Leading Actress
1) Julianne Moore - Far From Heaven
2) Meryl Streep - The Hours
3) Julianne Moore - The Hours
4) Lesley Manville - All Or Nothing
5) Shannyn Sossamon - The Rules Of Attraction
Supporting Actor
1) Barry Pepper - 25th Hour
2) Dennis Quaid - Far From Heaven
3) Seu Jorge - City Of God
4) Leandro Firmino - City Of God
5) Chris Cooper - Adaptation
forever1267 -- i love you. This story just made a huge grin creep across my face.
Joe G -- yeah, its probably confusing because tv years are always essentially one half of one and one half of the other, calendar wise.
My top ten
1. Lord of the rings the two towers
2. My big fat Greek wedding
3. Spider-man
4. Signs
5. Minority report
6. Catch me if you can
7. Adaptation
8. Chicago
9. Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets
10. Insomnia
There's a lot of Jennifer Connolly love on those magazine covers.
mark -- yeah, an Oscar win is often a career peak... even if it's near the beginning of a career.
@Nathaniel: a minor correction: 2002 was far from the beginning of Jennifer Connelly's career - remember, she was starring in films such as Labyrinth and Dario Argento's Phenomena in the mid-80s! (But mebbe you mean her career as an adult). Anyway...
BTW really looking forward to 2002 smackdown and love how much time/space you devote to each Smackdown year as a whole. It makes it all so much more fun and more meaningful by adding in all that context.
rob -- i meant as an adult. Her breakthrough was also her peak (which is sadly often the case for actors).
Nathaniel: Glad to see my two ffavorite films of 2002 included in your top 10. ("Far from Heaven", your #1 and "Lovely and Amazing", which you've pegged at #10). Hope that last one isn't the title that gets knocked off to make room for "Chicago".
As for other 2002 films I loved,.the two that come to mind immediately are Zeffirelli's fascinating whatt-if, "Callas Forever" (with the wonderful Fanny Ardant), and the wildly immersive 18th century semi-fantasy, "Brotherhood of the Wolf".
God, I remember 2002 like it was yesterday. Honestly, makes me a little sad that Kirsten Dunst is on all these covers. Hollywood was really invested in her, and it seems like after Marie Antoinette (which, IMO, is her best performance and Sofia Coppola's greatest movie), show business just lost interest in her. Which is truly a shame, since she's so talented.
Jennifer Connolly is truly one of the world's most beautiful women. I remember there being Oscar buzz for her in 2003 for House of Sand and Fog, but obviously that never materialized. She never really got another role to showcase her talents after A Beautiful Mind.
I would imagine Frida (lock), Talk to Her, Adaptation, and MAYBE Catch Me If You Can or My Big Fat Greek Wedding would've snagged best picture nominations if they had a 10-wide film. Talk to Her is an undisputed masterpiece, and I remember watching that film and not really being able to verbalize or communicate what I had just seen. Part of me, however, wonders if today Twitter would find its narrative problematic, or even a bit "icky". Regardless, it's a one-of-a-kind marvel.
What was Tom Cruise doing to get all those magazine covers in 2002 besides getting divorced?
My favorites from this year:
1. Punch-Drunk Love
2. 25th Hour
3. Far From Heaven
4. Catch Me If You Can
5. Adaptation.
6. Talk to Her
7. The Hours
8. Panic Room
9. Spirited Away
10. Morvern Callar
Gilmore Girls really was the best show on tv you weren't watching!
My Top 10:
1. Time Out
2. Far from Heaven
3. Russian Ark
4. Auto Focus
5. Storytelling
6. Chicago
7. The Hours
8. Igby Goes Down
9. Punch Drunk Love
10. The Two Towers
Runners Up: Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Catch Me If You Can, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Y tu mama tambien, Spirited Away, Insomnia, Lovely and Amazing
Two words: Spirited Away
That is all
I think Oscars would have chosen:
Adaptation
Chicago
Far from Heaven
Frida
Gangs of New York
The Hours
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Pianist
Road to Perdition
Talk To Her
My top 10 is (until now):
1. Russian Ark, Aleksandr Sokurov
2. Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki (is oficially in my 2001 list but let´s play Oscar rules)
3. May, Lucky McKee
4. Irréversible, Gaspar Noé
5. Adaptation, Spike Jonze
6. Dolls, Takeshi Kitano
7. Chicago, Rob Marshall
8. Far From Heaven, Todd Haynes
9. The Magdalene Sisters, Peter Mullan
10. The Pianist, Roman Polanski
Tom G.: CRUISE was getting a divorce, dating Penelope Cruz , coming from one of his best work with Vannila Sky (so underrated) , starring in a Spielberg blockbuster ( Minority Report) and getting ready for two other of his finest work in The Last Samurai and Collateral. Scientology apart I do think he is overdue an Oscar, too bad he seemed to lose interest since 2004; his 1996-2004 career is something to be honored (JM, Magnolia, EWS, etc)
I must have seen Lovely & Amazing a dozen times. Nicole Holofcener & Catherine Keener is one of my favourite collaborations :). Put Chicago in your top 10 but don’t bump Lovely & Amazing :).
Four words: gangs of new york
A great year for movies. my personal top ten:
1.Talk to her
2.The hours
3.The man without a past/The piano teacher
4.Spirited away
5.The pianist
6.Far from heaven
7.The two towers
8.Gangs of New York
9.Adaptation
10.Russian Ark
in a year of 10 nominees for BP, i guess:
Talk to her (Director nod+Screenplay win)
Frida (6 nods and Mir*max behind it)
Road to perdition
Adaptation (3 acting nods + Screenplay seems like a strong combo to ignore)
My big fat greek wedding (in the vein of Four weddings and a funeral, and it was the biggest indie hit of the year)
My top ten for the year were:
Far From Heaven
Chicago
The Hours
JackAss
The Kid Stays in the Picture
About Schmidt
Talk To Her
The Quiet American
Rabbit Proof Fence
Femme Fatale
Happy to share number 1 with you @nathaniel!
As someone whose film obsession was just beginning to burgeon in 2002 (I was 11), I harbor great nostalgia for this year. I remember being at a sleepover and my friend was raving about "Chicago." I knew I had to see it! "The Two Towers" would have been my favorite at the time, but now I think it's "The Hours."
I also think Adaptation. would be in. The Jonze/Kaufman collaboration was hotly anticipated (well, relatively) after Being John Malkovich and the film's response was fairly strong.
Lots of fond memories in this post (Signs! About a Boy! Infernal Affairs! Friends Season 8!). Thanks for the look back as always.
My sets of nominees for 2002 were as follows (some of them might need to be changed):
BEST PICTURE
ADAPTATION
CHICAGO
THE HOURS
THE PIANIST
SPIRITED AWAY
SIGNS
FAR FROM HEAVEN
MINORITY REPORT
HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS
UNFAITHFUL
BEST DIRECTOR
Stephen Daldry - THE HOURS
Rob Marshall - CHICAGO
Roman Polanski - THE PIANIST
M. Night Shyamalan - SIGNS
Steven Spielberg - MINORITY REPORT
BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Adrien Brody - THE PIANIST
Nicolas Cage - ADAPTATION
Richard Gere - CHICAGO
Mel Gibson - SIGNS
Sam Rockwell - CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND
BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Nicole Kidman - THE HOURS
Diane Lane - UNFAITHFUL
Julianne Moore - FAR FROM HEAVEN
Nia Vardalos - MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING
Renee Zellweger - CHICAGO
BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Chris Cooper - ADAPTATION
Ed Harris - THE HOURS
Alfred Molina - FRIDA
Dennis Quaid - FAR FROM HEAVEN
John C. Reilly - CHICAGO
BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Drew Barrymore - CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND
Julianne Moore - THE HOURS
Michelle Pfeiffer - WHITE OLEANDER
Meryl Streep - ADAPTATION
Catherine Zeta-Jones - CHICAGO
My 2002 Oscars would probably something in the line of...
Best Picture: Bowling for Columbine
Best Director: Pedro Almodóvar, Talk to her (but Rob Marshall was close second)
Best Actor: Adrien Brody, The Pianist
Best Actress Maribel Verdú, Y tu mamá también
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Cámara, Talk to her
Best Supporting Actress: Catherine Zeta Jones, Chicago
Best Original Screenplay: Talk to Her
Best Adapted Screenplay: Chicago
Best Animated Feature:Spirited Away
Best Documentary Feature: Bowling for Columbine
Best Foreign Language Film: Talk to Her
Best Film Editing: Bowling for Columbine
Best Cinematography: Chicago
Best Production Design: The Pianist
Best Costume Design: Chicago
Best Score: Talk to Her
Best Original Song: "Lose yourself", 8 Mile
Best Sound Mixing: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Best Sound Ediing: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Best Visual Effects: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Best Make up: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Kelly Garrett: thank you for the shout out to de Palma's Femme Fatale, probably in my top 10 of the years in Picture, Director, both leads (Banderas and Romajin-Stamos), Screenplay and Film Editing... probably the most underrated film of 2002 (regretfully, a trend with de Palma, whose career interests me more than Tarantino's, who basically has inspired his whole career on de Palma's)
I forgot to add, re: Hero and City of God... I move them to the years of general Oscar competitions and not include them on 2002, otherwise the overall distribution I mention would radically change, specially with a Hero sweep (Picture, Director, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, VFX, Foreign Film) and City of God scoring Film Editing.
@Jesus Alonso Isn’t it tricky to categorize release dates sometimes. City of God is on my 2003 top ten and Hero on my 2004 top ten!
Kelly, in my book, Zhang Yimou's "Hero" is the best film of the XXIst Century (from what I have seen).
I know that it is an (extremely) unpopular opinion, but my number 2 is Tom Hooper's "The King's Speech", which I admire and caught me completely by surprise, after not having cared that much for "The Damned United"... to complete a top 10 of the century... so many candidates: City of God, Borat, Colossal, 1917, The Death of Stalin, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, L'Inconnu du Lac (Stranger by the Lake), Parasite (it grows on me, even if I did not give it number 1 or even 2 last year), Mad Max: Fury Road, The LEGO Movie, Snowpiercer, Talk to her, Pain and Glory, The Skin I live in (difficult to choose only one XXIst Century Almodovar), O Brother where art thou?, The House that Jack Built, BlackKklansman, Hairspray... and many more. I have an ecclectic taste and certainly no fear to go against stream.
TALK TO HER deserved to win Best Picture.
Just one word... Awesome
I'd forgotten how good a year for movies 2002 actually was - it was before I started making top 10 lists, but if I had to make one now it would probalby look thusly:
Far From Heaven
Solaris
LOTR: The Two Towers
Y Tu Mama Tambien
City of God
About a Boy
The Quiet American (so very underrated, deserves a rewatch)
Infernal Affairs
Spirited Away
TIE: Minority Report / The Bourne Identity / Bend it Like Beckham - none perfect, but all memorable and rewatchable
And,as I just ranted on Claudio's post, even though this puts me in a distinct minority among cinephiles, I have an overweening hatred of #3 (Talk to Her). Ye gods, how I hate it.