X-Men 2 (2003)

Looking at the release date, I’d have seen this with Chris at Tottenham Court Road ODEON since I basically lived in his halls in Warren Street at that point because it was in Central London and had better water pressure. I didn’t have a wife yet or even a girlfriend to drag to all these comic book sequels so poor Chris would usually be roped in and we’d smoke afterwards and dissect the film. As with many action movies, watching this requires you to suspend your disbelief, much in the way Magneto suspended the X-Men jet in the air while somehow standing in a field at the exact spot that it was about to crash land.

I don't think I clocked at the time but both this and the last film I saw featured Anna Paquin (Rogue) and Aaron Stanford (Pyro), which doesn’t mean a lot but it’s weird it happened twice, especially since neither of them appear again on this list.

The sequel to X-Men is styled as X-2 for no reason I can discern, even as a reader of the comics, I can’t think of anything it refers to. It was the best of the trilogy but, as much as I loved Wolverine, I do wish they’d explored more of the seemingly infinite interesting X-People there are, instead of focussing the whole trilogy on the growly slashy guy, especially since they went on to make another three films about him. By the way, why is Wolverine never invited to the X-Men prom? They think he’ll spike the punch.

25th Hour (2003)

I thought this film was slick and smart and honest and I really fancied Rosario Dawson in it. She’s obviously gorgeous but I just thought her character was cool as hell and I would have readily accepted going to prison if she was my girlfriend. Edward Norton is an interesting leading man, isn’t he? High-pitched and not traditionally handsome and yet… Great actor. Great agent. Looking at this top notch cast - Philip Seymour Hoffman, Anna Paquin and Brian Cox also star, it’s clearly time for a rewatch. If anything at all comes out of me writing this blog, it’s that I get to review all the decent ones on the list. 

My first Spike Lee joint at the cinema after playing the soundtrack to Crooklyn in the car on repeat with Matt and Chris (your new favourite if you haven’t heard it yet) but this felt like a very different movie*. It was the first post-9/11 depiction of New York I remember seeing on screen and that definitely played into the sense of grief suffusing this film. 

Ready for another scintillating car game from me? Movies with numbers in their titles. Could you do 1-30? I’m struggling with 26 and I’m too proud to google. Frustrating because I have a 27 and a 28. Maybe I’ll have to wait to see if a future Iron Man reboot will use its atomic weight or if someone makes a multidimensional movie about bosonic string theory. Niche references. Desperate times.

*Of course it has a fantastic soundtrack too - name another film that features three Cymande tracks.

8 Mile (2003)

The Hip Hop Karate Kid. Don’t get me wrong, I lapped this up at the time. And Eminem rightly got a lot of praise for it because it’s a compelling story and he is a very competent rapper. Plus his ‘breakout’ scene in the final battle uses one of the smartest and most elusive hip hop samples of all time* so of course it sounds great. But let’s admit it; the guy can’t act. Have you noticed that in almost every scene where he’s talking, he’s looking straight ahead at something; a fire, a crowd, another conversation in the room, the road while driving. When he isn’t, the scenes just seem forced (there’s one where he’s shouting at Kim Basinger that’s particularly cringeworthy).

The film starred poor Brittany Murphy, who had a lot more to offer before her untimely death. I don’t know why I find it even sadder that this film scores higher than Clueless on IMDB. This was also the first big screen outing for a young Anthony Mackie, who shares a birthday with me and was destined for even greater things - who’d have thought that Papa Doc would one day be Captain America? Even in the comics, Sam Wilson wouldn’t take up the mantle until 2015, a year after Mackie first played the character in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Coincidence? Probably.

*At this point in time, no one knew the sample was three seconds of Jessica by Herbie Hancock slowed down. Bronco from The-Breaks.com finally figured it out in 2011.

City of God (2003)

This one blew my mind. I hadn’t seen anything like it, although I’ve seen films try to capture elements of this since. One of the best film soundtracks and to be honest I still think this is one of my most enjoyable cinema trips. Another recommendation from Chris and another visit to the Curzon on Shaftesbury Avenue. 

Chris’ girlfriend at the time burned me a CD of the soundtrack back in those halcyon days when people would print and cut out the album cover for the case. Of course it could well have been that she burned him or herself a copy of the CD when we lived together and I just played it all the time and took it when I moved out. Whatever the case, I've lost the disk now.

Seu Jorge was great as Knockout Ned and I’d hear from him again on record, on film and even live at the Albert Hall. A few of the other actors went on to star in a television spin-off* called City of Men, which was a more light-hearted serial seemingly existing in the same world, but they all played completely different characters, which is confusing. I missed it at the time but I see the same creative team also made a movie version, which I will now have to watch. The bonus is that even if it’s not great it’ll still give me a reason to rewatch the first. Win-win.

*I don’t know if it even counts as a spin-off. Although it shares directors, actors, setting and themes, the characters are different and the stories aren’t connected. Feels like there should be a slightly different word for that. Answers on a postcard.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

Me, my brothers and my (male) mates were extremely hyped for this masculine movie. Watching the battle of Helm’s Deep side by side with my comrades stirred feelings that were as powerful as they were hard to explain. I don’t know what it is about that part when they try to take down the Uruk-hai as he runs in with the torch to blow the wall. Maybe it’s a guy thing. The film certainly seems to be.

I guess ‘male friendship’ is one of the central themes of the books but yes, this is another LOTR sausage fest. This one, however, somehow manages to scrape through the Bechdel test due to a minor character in Rohan asking Éowyn where her mum is. Just as well the deadly spider Shelob (Tolkien’s vagina dentata according to some theorists) was punted forward into the next movie so I don’t have to think too much about the sexual symbolism and what it might say about the way the writers or filmmakers view women.

I’m probably not going where you think with this, but I’ve been thinking about Frodo’s dreams. The film opens with an action sequence that Frodo wakes up from. So does that mean what happens is canon within the story? As I see it, the four options are: he dreamt exactly what happened; Gandalf transmitted a viewer friendly version of what happened to him; he woke up from a less specific dream about Gandalf or they just cut to him waking up worried for dramatic effect after showing us what really happened. Either way, I don’t know if it’s lazy writing or clever, economic storytelling. It’s not just a dream, Frodo.

Road to Perdition (2002)

By now I had moved to Bounds Green, with my older brother in Palmers Green, we would meet in the middle in Wood Green (as far as I remember, Bounds was the only one that actually had a Green). I tagged along with Ben and his housemates to the ‘Hollywood Green’ Vue. Since we mysteriously got there way too early for the film, we spent an hour in the Wetherspoons beforehand, which is at least two hours in student drinking time, making this the first film I ever watched at the cinema completely hammered. 

Nevertheless, it was a great film and the first on this list with Paul Newman, who died a few years later.  Sadly, this was his last live action movie according to the internet. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was a big favourite of mine around that time. Like many people my age, I first saw his face on a bottle of salad dressing so it was nice to see what else he could do.

I had no idea the movie was adapted from a graphic novel, which was itself heavily inspired by the excellent Lone Wolf and Cub. The actor who played the son even went on to play Superman in a television show or two. You wouldn’t think of this as a comic book movie but there you go.

Memories are a little hazy but I remember the film being quite economical with dialogue. I guess I’d have seen American Beauty but wouldn’t have been au fait with the mise-en-scene of Sam Mendes yet (yes, I can use French cinema terms). It would take me a few more of his movies to notice his love of using rain, mirrors, windows, tables and Daniel Craig.

28 Days Later (2002)

I remember being so excited for this, seeing the adverts on the tube (and even a zombie Big Issue cover) in London but I’m fairly sure I watched this in Norwich with a bit of a crew. Loved and still love this film, from David Schneider popping up as the scientist at the start to my first experience of the marvellous Brendan Gleeson. I thought Naomi Harris was really cool and was impressed with Cillian Murphy and Christopher Ecclestone. The visual effects were powerful and efficient. It had an evocative soundtrack and great direction. Boyle had redeemed himself after The Beach.

A few years later, I got into John Wyndham and realised that the plot is basically the same as Day of the Triffids, but with a faster moving threat that doesn’t need to blind everyone first. That takes nothing away from my enjoyment of it. For any younger people reading, this was the film that gave everyone else the idea for zombie joggers.

I read that the test audiences didn’t respond well to the original ending in which Jim succumbs to his wounds so the studio gave them money to film a new more hopeful ending with an actual fighter jet flying overhead, which was apparently cheaper than a CGI one at the time. There’s an interesting and nuanced conversation to have here about the environmental impact of practical effects over using a computer that I’m not really prepared to start.

Die Another Day (2002)

What’s the equivalent of getting starstruck but for set locations? I remember sitting up straight when a shot, perhaps from a previous film, showed Bond’s Aston Martin driving out of the building next to my university, which was definitely nothing to do with MI6 (unless that’s just what they want us to think). While writing this, I discovered that the building opposite my doctor’s surgery was the set for the cigar factory so I’ve got that buzz again.

This was my first visit to Peckhamplex and maybe even the first time I’d been to Peckham. One memory that stood out was being confused for a second at the huge cheer in the cinema when former showjumper Oliver Skeete popped up on screen, but it was a real lesson for me on why representation matters. How often did dreadlocks appear on the big screen usually, especially in a Bond movie?

Although this was the last outing for Bronhom, bedraggled and bearded Bond was a new take at least, and the fact he was tortured to Madonna definitely rang true with me. It seemed strange at the time that the villain Zao was unable to remove the jewels embedded in his face but maybe there’s a Diamonds Are Forever, pun in there that I missed. Bond is literally saved by a bell from falling off a cliff at one point and do you think he lets that line go? Coming up with camp one liners for twenty films clearly taking its toll.

Spider (2002)

You could be forgiven for thinking this was trying to cash in on the year’s arachno-madness from Spider-Man but no spandex or pumpkin bombs here; it was a very East London psychological thriller from David Cronenberg, starring Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Richardson. 

This haunting film impressed me at the time but I have even more respect for it now. Apparently, neither Cronenberg, Fiennes, Richardson nor the producers received a salary for this film since it was underfunded and it only had a theatrical release in a few cinemas. I’m guessing Chris and I saw it at the Prince Charles or Curzon Soho and I’m even more grateful for him suggesting it now.

I remember feeling smart for recognising the canal and gas towers so I felt even cooler when a later Cronenberg film, Eastern Promises actually opened with a shot of my old front door. I thought about rewatching Spider to see if I recognised any more of Hackney and Hoxton but just read that lots of the other street scenes were actually shot in parts of South and West London. Plus, as much as I enjoyed this one, there are plenty more unseen Cronenberg films I need to get to first. The first film of his I watched was The Fly and then along came Spider. I hope I’m doing them in the right order.

Jackass: The Movie (2002)

To give some background, I had spent years building up to this by performing all sorts of stupid and painful stunts making skate videos with my brother and mates, plus we were already big fans of CKY so Jackass was very familiar territory. We went en masse and I dread to think what stupid things we decided to do on the way home. That Christmas, my mum bought me one of the few black T-shirts I ever liked, with the chest X-ray showing the toy car inserted into Ryan Dunn (RIP). Perfect for Halloween.

Aside from jumping off or into anything we could find, I think the silliest thing I did ‘for the good of the film’ was probably, after hanging on the back of a mate’s brother’s motorbike on my skateboard, obviously going too fast and coming off, the first thing I thought to do with my freshly skinned palms was to pour vinegar on the wounds to ‘clean’ them. A close second is firing an industrial staple gun into my own hip, although nobody was filming so who’s to say it even happened.

Brandon DeCamillo was probably the funniest on the original videos but I don’t think he enjoyed the limelight and seemed to step back as Jackass got bigger. I felt a little sorry for Ehren McGhehey, who looked like he was kind of bullied in an under the radar but under your nose way. He seemed like a sensitive soul desperate for approval, and perhaps unconsciously preferred to be the butt of the jokes as long as he was part of the group. If it was about insecurity or lack of confidence, it’s worth remembering that the show’s rockstar-like leads, Bam and Johnny Knoxville, or Brandon and Philip, weren’t even secure in themselves enough to use their real names. I guess ‘Hi, I’m Philip John Clapp. Welcome to Jackass’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Minority Report (2002)

This was somehow only the tenth highest grossing film of the year. I’m sure that was more because the title doesn’t contain the name of a franchise and not because it sounds like a leaked government document. In any case, more people this year watched six other films in my list, as well as Signs, Ice Age and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Well, luckily good folks like me went to see it and my strongest memory was how blue and oversaturated everything looked in the future.

Philip K. Dick, Steven Spielberg, Colin Farrell, Tom Cruise. I wouldn’t have been as familiar at the time but also Samantha Morton and Max von Sydow too. A great project with some fantastic talent. I’m not sure why I’ve never got round to a rewatch of this one. Maybe knowing that I will do it one day is enough... 

As an avid reader, especially of sci-fi, I must admit I find Philip K. Dick tough reading at times but boy is his stuff optionable. Screen adaptations we have alongside this so far are the Blade Runners and Total Recalls, A Scanner Darkly,The Adjustment Bureau and The Man in the High Castle. I was surprised we hadn’t seen anyone adapt Ubik yet until I read that Michel Gondry attempted and abandoned it in 2014 - dommage. For now, I’ll have to settle for a John Woo film I’ve just discovered with Ben Affleck called Paycheck and a Nicolas Cage one called Next. Tough when I also read that Minority Report was originally planned in 1992 as a follow up to Total Recall with Arnie in the lead. Can you imagine?

Men In Black 2 (2002)

AKA MIIB AKA Men In In Black. I think this was a date with F. and we enjoyed it as silly fun. I was very taken by my first glimpse of Rosario Dawson and I loved the pull back at the end to show how insignificant we all are like that old Louis Armstrong Guinness advert in reverse 

Big Willy Smith’s obligatory single stands out as the only thing not by Danny Elfman in the soundtrack. Perhaps there’s a neuralyzer solo at the end as it’s almost instantly forgettable. Shame about the lacklustre music considering two notable cameo appearances* from talented musicians no longer with us. The first being Biz Markie as a beatboxing alien. He appeared in one more film (again with Will Smith) before his untimely death in 2021 as an uncredited funeral guest. Perhaps more notably, this film also marked the last movie appearance of Michael Jackson, playing a keen MIB applicant who’s given the runaround by Rip Torn’s Zed. 

At the other end of the spectrum, Johnny Knoxville had his first movie role (aside from a few seconds of drooling in a bar in Coyote Ugly), which I liked in principle but I don’t know if his acting was quite there yet. He played both heads of a two-headed alien but he only got paid once. The thing I really wanted to see him star in wouldn’t come out until October though… 

They showed a teaser trailer for The Two Towers, which was the most excited I’d been for a new film since, well, probably Spider-Man earlier that year. While on comics, I recently read the first issue of the series Men In Black was based on and they take out a cult on a mad new drug; no aliens. Apparently they don’t exclusively deal with extraterrestrials; more generic paranormal stuff. And drugs. Oh and they just kill witnesses instead of wiping memories. 

*Or are they bit parts? I thought that a cameo was when an actor plays themselves but wikipedia says otherwise. Named after a carving that stands out of a gemstone, apparently a cameo is by a recognisable person who usually doesn’t speak, and a bit part has direct interaction with a principal actor and no more than 5 lines of dialogue. There you go.

Changing Lanes (2002)

Did anyone notice the last four films had gerunds in the title? How many films do? Next time you’re bored on a car journey and want a game to pass the time; think of films that have ‘-ing’ in them. You’re welcome.

By the director of Notting Hill*, this stars Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Affleck, whose car crash makes them both late for court and pits them against each other in a tale of revenge. Looking back, this was Nick Fury vs Batman; who was the most resourceful? That’s something that’s arrived with the later invasion of comic book movie franchises is the ‘comic character’ vs ‘comic character’ meme fuel, when two comic book character actors star in another film together, as movie stars tend to do. Is it the Gen Z six degrees of Kevin Bacon?

Of course this isn’t the first time we’ve seen him on this list, but I am almost certain that Samuel L. Jackson will be the actor that appears the most. It’s the cameos and bit parts that do it. Who is your most viewed actor? There’s another game for you. It could be Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Brad Pitt, Bill Murray, Matt Damon, Tom Hanks or even Kevin Bacon. But it’s probably Samuel L. Jackson.

*Not a gerund but it’s up to you if you expand the game to include any ‘-ing’ word to make it easier. I won’t judge you/know/care.

The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)

I was taken to see this on stage a couple of years before at either the Arts Centre or Maddermarket theatre. My mum imagined me having a more festive and theatrical future and hoped I would one day be part of the footlights so I was already very familiar with Oscar Wilde at this point. But after all that, I think I went to see this film with a girl I liked back in Norwich while very much not attending an Oxbridge university. I was clearly going to be a disappointment on many levels.

This was my second dose of Dench for the year and of course this also stars gorgeous Rupert Everett, who I am delighted to have just discovered was the visual reference for Italian comic book detective of the supernatural Dylan Dog. Of course, I had no idea of any of this at the time and just enjoyed being taken along by the sizzling script and I imagine probably feeling very smug for already being familiar. 

In the days when I used to save my cinema stubs in a scrapbook,* I remember writing the quotation “I can resist anything but temptation" next to this ticket. How very esoteric of me. I often wonder what it would be like if I had started taking my writing seriously earlier on but I was a very easily distracted teenager. The silver lining to holding off for so long is that I’ve spared the world from whatever embarrassingly earnest tosh I would have come up with back then. 

*At some point I must have decided to throw this out. Would have been really handy for writing this. Oh well. Memory is the diary we all carry about with us, as the man said.

Bowling for Columbine (2002)

Chris asked me if I wanted to watch this documentary at the Curzon and, since I’d never been to the Curzon and I liked how it felt going to see a documentary, I said yes. Sometimes we do something because it makes us seem clever or cool or grown up. I know that’s an ugly thing to admit but it’s quite a motivating power to learn about things. Looking back, an award-winning, sensationalist documentary like this seems quite basic now but that’s just it; a baseline for exploring more interesting and nuanced work. We’ve got to start somewhere.* I recently managed to watch Gus Van Sant’s Elephant from 2003, which responds to the same shootings in a different way - it’s both heartbreaking and terrifying and not for everyone.

As a scruffy, dirty teenager who liked quite a lot of things that were probably loud and obnoxious at the time, this film spoke to me since it put the adults in charge at the centre of the blame. I have my reservations about Michael Moore’s mealy mouthed manner now. You start to see through his emotional techniques after you’ve seen a few of his interviews but his argument is still clear. Easy access to firearms is at the root of gun crime. Obviously there are people who benefit from the sale of weaponry, but it’s a little mad that there are people without vested business interests in the weapons industry who need convincing of that.

I liked the use of the Beatles' Happiness is a Warm Gun on the soundtrack - especially apt since Lennon took the title from the cover of an NRA magazine. I never really thought about it until now that the opening line ‘she’s not a girl who misses much’ could just mean that Yoko Ono had a great aim.

*I typed all that before remembering I’d already seen a documentary at the cinema before. Anyway, point still stands.

Training Day (2002)

This was a spur of the moment one with my brothers, organised by my mate Edd and a very good shout. It was the first time I saw the best actor Oscar winner at the cinema, which only happens again twice on this list and neither men are white. It’s a sad state of affairs that they’re probably quite easy to work out. Considering the length and breadth of Denzel Washington’s work, at first I thought it was an odd choice to get an Academy Award for but he plays the charming, cruel and corrupt Alonzo with a real depth and pathos. 

Ethan Hawke is one of those actors who’s always been around but I can’t name much that I’ve seen him in. I actually hadn’t seen him in anything before this. Eminem turned this role down as he was making 8 Mile, which was fortunate, not just because otherwise I wouldn’t see Ethan Hawke on the big screen until 2015 but because I don’t think the role was in Mathers’ wheelhouse. The movie did not feel empty without him.

I don’t know how often Macy Gray turns up in movies but she was in this and Spider-Man in the same year and nothing else I can think of so I’m guessing she had a busy and exciting 2002. Speaking of music, although she has a speaking role and provides no music, the movie’s soundtrack was released on 11th September 2001 (released perhaps quite fittingly by Priority Records), although the film was postponed a month for reasons you can probably guess. This delay meant that by then we knew every lyric to the Pharoahe Monch track* that basically gives a synopsis of the film. Although one crucial and contentious element of the plot involving the cousin’s wallet wisely isn’t mentioned.

*I sometimes wonder why they bother making a radio edit of a song with a swear word in the title but then I remember it’s money. The reason is money.

Spider-Man (2002)

I’ve probably read a thousand Spider-Man comics and I have drawn the webspinner hundreds if not a thousand times. I even once wrote and sketched out my own fanfic comic about the wallcrawler losing his suit and eventually his temper (call me anytime, Marvel). I guess I’m saying that this was a movie I was very excited for. I’m old enough to remember thinking we were getting a James Cameron and Leonardo DiCaprio adaptation but I was glad it turned out the way it did. 

Tobey Maguire played a great geek - maybe at the time I found him a bit too nerdy, being more familiar with a 1990s adult Peter Parker. J.K. Simmons was an inspired bit of casting as the curmudgeonly newspaper editor who just wants the world to see Spider-Man for the menace he is, which I think we can all relate to. 

I hadn’t seen any Sam Raimi films at this point and I remember finding some of the camper parts a little jarring at first but I’ve definitely learned to embrace them. The slight body horror of organic web shooters makes sense now that I've seen more of Raimi’s work. I would have preferred a more ragged and comic-accurate Green Goblin but, in this current era of gushing fan service, I can certainly appreciate these sort of creative departures now. Willem Dafoe really could have just put on some green blusher and it would have been better than that plastic mask though. 2021’s No Way Home leaned into the idea of using his maniacal face I suppose, but by then I just wanted a comic book character to keep their mask on for once. Well, to each his own.*

I would usually come out of the cinema excited but must have been bouncing off the walls after this one. I’m sure this film in no way influenced me to jump off the kitchen roof of my student halls on my skateboard that same month.

*I thought this was a clever place to drop a Green Goblin quote from the rooftop scene where he’s drugged and tied up Spider-Man and inexplicably doesn’t remove his mask, but if I didn’t explain it, I worried it might go over everyone’s head (much like a mask does - I’ll stop now).