As I was typing out the movies in my 2002 rankings, and got to about the mid-50s, I thought "How much longer do I have to go?" I could tell I wasn't near the bottom yet, but I knew that in 2003, I had ranked only 58 movies before my ranking deadline -- not from memory, but because I'd only just posted about it a few weeks earlier. In the last ten years or so, my annual numbers have only tended to go up or drop by a handful of titles at most, so it was stunning to me to discover that I ranked 80 movies in 2002 -- and 22 fewer than that only a year later.
I can't really account for it in terms of my life experiences. In both 2002 and 2003, I spent most of the year dating my last serious girlfriend before I met my wife. We got together at the beginning of March in 2002 and broke up at the beginning of November in 2003, meaning about two months in both years that I was not together with her. Yet our habits must have changed between the two years, because I consumed far fewer movies the second year. Hmm. It's not a specific choice I remember.
Other things I noticed about this year was the handful of movies I watched, on the down low, at my new job, my first job in IT, when I didn't have enough to do and worked in a back room where my boss almost never came. There were a handful of movies I was able to sneak in under these circumstances, spread kind of evenly throughout the list, which I downloaded through Kazaa, an old file-sharing service where I also picked up some songs I really liked.
The first two movies I ever saw at the drive-in as an adult -- Scooby-Doo and my worst of the year, Bad Company -- were also watched in 2002. Which was also my first full year as a Los Angeles resident, having moved in May of 2001.
Here is how I ranked my 2002 movies at the start of 2003:
1. Adaptation
2. Chicago
3. 25th Hour
4. Kissing Jessica Stein
5. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
6. Bowling for Columbine
7. Y Tu Mama Tambien
8. About Schmidt
9. Auto Focus
10. Igby Goes Down
11. The Quiet American
12. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
13. Full Frontal
14. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
15. One Hour Photo
16. About a Boy
17. Blue Crush
18. Signs
19. The Cat's Meow
20. Reign of Fire
21. 8 Mile
22. The Kid Stays in the Picture
23. Minority Report
24. Scooby-Doo
25. Ice Age
26. Insomnia
27. Punch-Drunk Love
28. Brotherhood of the Wolf
29. Star Trek: Nemesis
30. Monsoon Wedding
31. Catch Me If You Can
32. Far From Heaven
33. Pumpkin
34. Moonlight Mile
35. Lovely & Amazing
36. Spider-Man
37. The Time Machine
38. Stuart Little 2
39. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
40. Austin Powers in Goldmember
41. The Hours
42. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
43. Like Mike
44. Jackass: The Movie
45. The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
46. Lucky Break
47. The Rookie
48. Changing Lanes
49. The Bourne Identity
50. Men in Black II
51. The Importance of Being Earnest
52. Treasure Planet
53. Stolen Summer
54. All About the Benjamins
55. Lilo & Stitch
56. The Powerpuff Girls Movie
57. Red Dragon
58. Dragonfly
59. Resident Evil
60. Narc
61. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
62. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
63. Snow Dogs
64. Death to Smoochy
65. Gangs of New York
66. The Rules of Attraction
67. Birthday Girl
68. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
69. Big Trouble
70. The Good Girl
71. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
72. Storytelling
73. Hollywood Ending
74. 40 Days and 40 Nights
75. Secretary
76. Blood Work
77. Two Weeks Notice
78. A Walk to Remember
79. Eight Legged Freaks
80. Bad Company
And here is how I rank those movies today on Flickchart. This is out of 5916 films, which is the same number as when I did this post for 2003 about a month ago. I guess it's been a slow three weeks on Flickchart. Following the ranking is the percentage of the ranking out of 5916 and the number of slots they rose or fell compared to the other movies from that year on my Flickchart. A positive number indicates a comparative rise of that many slots, a negative number a fall.
1. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (55, 99%) 4
2. Adaptation (58, 99%) -1
3. Kissing Jessica Stein (140, 98%) 1
4. Chicago (155, 98%) -2
5. 25th Hour (197, 97%) -2
6. The Cat's Meow (341, 94%) 13
7. Y Tu Mama Tambien (383, 94%) 0
8. About Schmidt (589, 90%) 0
9. Ice Age (593, 90%) 16
10. Bowling for Columbine (760, 87%) -4
11. Signs (784, 87%) 7
12. Full Frontal (808, 86%) 1
13. Reign of Fire (845, 86%) 7
14. Blue Crush (849, 86%) 3
15. The Quiet American (866, 85%) -4
16. About a Boy (943, 84%) 0
17. Auto Focus (1028, 83%) -8
18. Minority Report (1140, 81%) 5
19. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (1218, 79%) -5
20. Brotherhood of the Wolf (1614, 73%) 8
21. Punch-Drunk Love (1618, 73%) 6
22. 8 Mile (1659, 72%) -1
23. The Kid Stays in the Picture (1775, 70%) -1
24. One Hour Photo (1883, 68%) -9
25. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2089, 65%) -13
26. Spider-Man (2174, 63%) 10
27. Igby Goes Down (2208, 63%) -17
28. Stuart Little 2 (2251, 62%) 10
29. Catch Me If You Can (2283, 61%) 2
30. Insomnia (2470, 58%) -4
31. Far From Heaven (2564, 57%) 1
32. Star Trek: Nemesis (2578, 56%) -3
33. Monsoon Wedding (2612, 56%) -3
34. The Importance of Being Earnest (2988, 49%) 17
35. Jackass: The Movie (3059, 48%) 9
36. Lucky Break (3095, 48%) 10
37. Moonlight Mile (3182, 46%) -3
38. The Time Machine (3258, 45%) -1
39. The Bourne Identity (3261, 45%) 10
40. Stolen Summer (3315, 44%) 13
41. Dragonfly (3446, 42%) 17
42. Lovely & Amazing (3455, 42%) -7
43. Red Dragon (3485, 41%) 14
44. All About the Benjamins (3561, 40%) 10
45. Like Mike (3563, 40%) -2
46. Treasure Planet (3576, 40%) 6
47. The Hours (3679, 38%) -6
48. Pumpkin (3752, 37%) -15
49. Lilo & Stitch (3754, 37%) 6
50. Resident Evil (3761, 36%) 9
51. The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (3785, 36%) -6
52. Changing Lanes (3929, 34%) -4
53. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (3989, 33%) -14
54. The Powerpuff Girls Movie (4000, 32%) 2
55. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (4066, 31%) -13
56. Scooby-Doo (4082, 31%) -32
57. Austin Powers in Goldmember (4144, 30%) -17
58. Gangs of New York (4188, 29%) 7
59. Birthday Girl (4678, 21%) 8
60. Death to Smoochy (4735, 20%) 4
61. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (4875, 18%) 7
62. Narc (4894, 17%) -2
63. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (4899, 17%) -2
64. Men in Black II (4930, 17%) -14
65. Big Trouble (4958, 16%) 4
66. The Good Girl (5069, 14%) 4
67. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (5070, 14%) -5
68. The Rookie (5116, 14%) -21
69. Bad Company (5186, 12%) 11
70. Secretary (5212, 12%) 5
71. Snow Dogs (5269, 11%) -8
72. Storytelling (5479, 7%) 0
73. Blood Work (5537, 6%) 3
74. Hollywood Ending (5538, 6%) -1
75. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (5557, 6%) -4
76. A Walk to Remember (5574, 6%) 2
77. The Rules of Attraction (5661, 4%) -11
78. Eight Legged Freaks (5697, 4%) 1
79. Two Weeks Notice (5744, 3%) -2
80. 40 Days and 40 Nights (5778, 2%) -6
Five best movies I've seen since closing the list (alphabetical): Equilibrium, Infernal Affairs, Irreversible, The Pianist, Rabbit-Proof Fence
Five worst movies I've seen since closing the list (alphabetical): The Chateau, Fear Dot Com, Master of Disguise, Swept Away, 29 Palms
Biggest risers: Dragonfly (+17), The Importance of Being Earnest (+17), Ice Age (+16)
Biggest fallers: Scooby Doo (-32), The Rookie (-21), Austin Powers in Goldmember/Igby Goes Down (-17)
Average percentage on Flickchart: 47.74% (6 of 6)
The first thing worth commenting on is that the farther distance I get from these movies, the less well I remember their impact on me. This feels kind of like the wild west compared to other recent years. A full 22 of the movies, more than a quarter, moved up or down by double digits compared to how I ranked them nearly 20 years ago, and this year also has two of the biggest differentials so far in the 32 spots and 21 spots Scooby-Doo and The Rookie dropped. While the former is a case of reassessing it more recently when I watched it with my kids -- meaning I could see flaws I had ignored on that fun night at the drive-in -- The Rookie is simply a case of not correctly remembering how much I disliked it, which was a lot less than I remembered. I only ranked these films on Flickchart seven or so years after seeing them, so that was when I fixed on a semi-permanent impression of them.
Another notable detail is that this is the first year I've looked at (remember I started in 2007) where my highest ranked movie on Flickchart is not the film I ranked highest at the time. Although in a straight-up duel between Adaptation and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, I would almost certainly pick Adaptation, the fact is that the latter sits three spots ahead of the former, due largely to the vagaries and inexactitudes of the Flickchart process.
The reverse of that is that my worst movie in 2002, Bad Company, is not very close to being the worst now. Incidentally, this was the other movie I saw at the drive-in with Scooby-Doo, which certainly didn't help its prospects at the time like it did for its double feature partner. There are now 11 movies worse than it, which I can only attribute to it winning some random duel and catapulting upward in my chart. In truth, while I do think of it as a bad movie, I'm surprised I saw it fit to saddle it with my number last of that year -- in retrospect anyway.
All three of my risers are films that I now think I like better than I actually did. Dragonfly and The Importance of Being Earnest are just mediocre-plus movies for me, with Dragonfly bearing the novelty of my having seen it at a test screening -- in other words, a screening done to gauge audience reaction, with the possible intention of making changes before the final film is released. In fact, I don't actually know what resemblance the Dragonfly I saw bears to the Dragonfly you saw -- presumably they both star Kevin Costner. Anyway, I obviously hold it in higher esteem, in retrospect, than I did at the time. I always liked Ice Age, but it has invariably dropped some in my mind in the wake of something like five sub-par sequels, only one or two of which I've seen. Curiously, you'd think that would have the opposite effect of dropping it lower on Flickchart, but it still stands tall.
One other thing of note is how middle heavy this list is. Although only the bottom nine movies are lower than the tenth percentile on Flickchart, the overall percentage is the lowest of any of the years I've looked at so far. My top five are all in my top 200 on Flickchart but it drops off pretty precipitously from that point.
I could probably analyze this more but I've taken enough of your time already. We'll look at 2001 in July.
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