OVP: Previously, in 2002

 2002: A Look Back

We are kicking off our 19th Oscar Viewing Project retrospective after finishing up 2020 this past weekend.  As I mentioned this past weekend, I'm not entirely certain how quickly I'm planning on moving through this one (though I suspect we'll do at least two articles a week meaning we're looking at a maximum of early October to be done)-we've been moving at a breakneck speed, and with this 2002 kickoff, we've finally caught up to my viewing habits which was my goal when we started doing these so quickly.  I only do our ballots once I've seen every film nominated at the Oscars, and right now I have no other years that we haven't profiled already that I can claim that about.  I'll prioritize getting a few more screenings in in the coming weeks (don't worry-we won't have any gaps here) so we'll have a post-2002 game plan, but I'm excited to finally be caught up as it's been a lot of work getting here.

That's enough behind-the-scenes.  Now I want you to sit back, relax, and transport yourself to a world where the party in the White House actually picked up seats in Congress (one can dream), bribery was running rampant at the Olympics, & K-Mart was filing for bankruptcy.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Box Office

This is what the Top 10 at the (Domestic) Box Office looked like:

1. Spider-Man

2. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

3. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

5. My Big Fat Greek Wedding

6. Signs

7. Austin Powers in Goldmember

8. Men in Black II

9. Ice Age

10. Chicago

2002 is an interesting year for me, as it is the first year we've profiled where I was living 100% in my small rural hometown with my parents & little brother.  While I was allowed to watch R-rated movies & could drive (figure out my age if you must), I was at the mercy of the local movie theaters who only played a certain kind of fare.  As a result, I'm surprised that I have in fact seen every one of these movies, and with the exception of Goldmember, I saw them all in theaters.  It's comforting to see movies like Signs, Chicago, & My Big Fat Greek Wedding mixed amongst the franchise flicks, though Spider-Man coming out above even The Two Towers and Chamber of Secrets (something I had forgotten had happened) was perhaps our biggest sign that we'd soon be overwrought with superheroes.

There were 24 $100 million movies and at least a couple of them I'll cop to having never seen, specifically xXx, The Sum of All Fears, and Scooby-Doo (which I honestly might have seen but have no memory of, as teenage John definitely would've had a thing for a blonde Freddie Prinze, Jr...if my brother is reading this and can confirm I saw this movie, I'd be appreciative).  Overall, though, I saw a lot of the popcorn flicks at the time as going to the movies was something I did virtually every week in high school.

The Films I Missed

While I've seen all of the Oscar nominees, I haven't seen every film in 2002.  In addition to the films I just listed, there are a few films that were in contention at precursors that didn't make it to the Oscars.  Some of the bigger names include Nicholas Nickleby, Secretary, The Banger Sisters, Punch-Drunk Love, and White Oleander.  I am still deciding how much I want to invest in terms of time here to filling in gaps, as there are a lot of prestige films from 2002 I could seek out (I saw a lot of blockbusters, but as I mentioned I didn't get the chance to see a lot of independent film at the time, and so there's some gaps if they didn't get into Oscar's good graces) but not a lot of them look super interesting to me.  For sure White Oleander and Punch Drunk Love are going to be on the bench before we reach our My Oscar Ballot conclusion, but if there are non-Oscar nominated films that you think are worth my time, please make sure to speak up in the comments.  All that being said, we'll be kicking off with Best Makeup later this week.