Year in review (Part 1)

Jumping on the bandwagon with only a few days left in the year, I've decided to do a multi-part piece on some of the best and worst things (in my opinion) to come about in the last 365 days. So, to kick things off I'm going to chime in on the category I love best: Cinema!

Best Picture

As of right now I'm going with X-Men 2 (I'm such a fanboy), keeping in mind that I haven't seen Return of the King, which I'm sure will blow me away. Why? Well because I don't remember being that excited to see a movie since....well...ever. Hell, I'm still excited. If this were any other year I'd be screaming about how this or that is the most important film of the year, but frankly nothing hit me that way, so I'm going with the kid inside.

Runners up: Identity, Pirates of the Carribean, Finding Nemo, 25th Hour

Worst Picture

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, hands down. I can handle a movie with a bad plot. I can handle a movie with bad acting. I can handle a movie with bad special effects. I can even handle bad directing. However, when a film has all of those things (and much more) it just becomes unbearable. Were there movies worse than this? Perhaps, but I didn't see them taking up three screens at my local theatre.

Runners Up: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, House of 1000 Corpses

Best Comedy

Elf wins this one, probably because it's the only movie that kept me laghing, and still makes me laugh thinking about it.

Runner Up: Love Actually, Bruce Almighty

Worst Comedy

The Cohen Brothers film, Intolerable Cruelty wins this one.

Runner Up: A Guy Thing

Best Animated

Finding Nemo. Period.

Runner Up: Animatrix (There were some great shorts in this release)

Worst Animated

Treasure Planet

Runner up: Animatrix (And some really bad ones as well)

Best Horror

28 Days Later takes the cake. The best horror movie to come along in decades.

Runner Up: The Ring, Wrong Turn (A been-there-done-that plot overcome by good direction.)

Worst Horror

They (Wes Craven's offering to the theatres) had an interesting plot, but drops the ball when it comes down to it.

Runner Up: Darkness Falls

Biggest Surprise

I'm going to say Underworld. Despite it not getting great reviews, I absolutely loved this film, except for one shot at the end, which was too cliched even for a vampire movie.

Runner Up: The Rundown (Despite a not so great plot, The Rock turns in a great performance proving that, yes, wrestlers can indeed act.)

Biggest Disappointment

It's a tie! The Matrix Reloaded, Intolerable Cruelty, and Kill Bill. The directors of these movies all put out extremely excellent pictures before this, and to my horror I didn't enjoy any of these films.

Runner Up: Insomnia

That's pretty much it for theatre releases. I know, I'm missing a few categories, but I promise, it'll be bigger next year.

Added bonus!

Best DVD (New Release)

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Special Edition. The one with the creepy little Gollum statue. Fans couldn't ask for more, because it's all there! This package has everything you could want from a DVD.

Runners Up: The Lion King Limited Edition, Back to the Future Trilogy (They're both new to the format!)

Best DVD (Rerelease)

The Alien Quadrilogy. Fans get to have their cake and eat it too with this rerelease. Two versions of each film, and hours upon hours of bonus features will keep you busy well into next year.

Runners Up: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Casablanca

Authors notes: I should add these in as honorable mentions, mainly because the release dates on imdb.com say 2002, but I watched them this year, so I can't be certain when they were released in theatres:

Igby Goes Down
Moonlight Mile
The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys

Hands down the three best dramatic pictures I watched this past year.

Have any disagreements, want to voice your opinion, or just wnat to harrass me? email me at dedpool1979@aol.com!