Movie industry folks are likely to be sleeping in tuxedos and formal gowns this time of year. Everyday it seems another movie award ceremony is held and seemingly millions of golden statuettes are doled out for the films released the previous year. But beyond the pomp and self-congratulation, 2002 emerged as the exciting culmination of nearly three decades of American filmmaking.
It was a year when old-school film legends stood beside a new generation of storytellers to push the boundaries of the medium. From Martin Scorsese’s powerful “Gangs of New York” to Paul Thomas Anderson’s blissful “Punch-Drunk Love,” we finally have a reason to celebrate what movies are capable of.
“Gangs” has been 30 years in the making — Scorsese originally slated the film as his follow-up to 1976’s “Taxi Driver.” The final result is a powerful history lesson. Daniel Day-Lewis possesses the screen with an authority that easily places his character in the annals of screen villains.
The young director of “Magnolia” has pointed to Scorsese as a big influence in his short career, but “Punch-Drunk” is all Anderson. There are images and moments in this movie that never leave the mind, and Adam Sandler blows away preconceptions with a rich and subtle performance.
Film veteran Brian DePalma gave us the flawed but challenging “Femme Fatale” while music-video upstart Spike Jonze proved his “Being John Malkovich” wasn’t just a fluke. Collaborating once again with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, Jonze delivered the endlessly entertaining “Adaptation.”
While “Fatale” was largely overlooked by American critics, DePalma created a film that experiments with the conventions of linear story-telling and editing. No filmmaker in the last two decades has done this with more style than DePalma. He has never challenged himself as much as he does with “Femme Fatale.”
 
 
Jonze, on the other hand, shows his own knack for spurning convention, juggling Kaufman’s “Adaptation” script with ease and confidence. Meryl Streep is great fun to watch. Chris Cooper is amazing. And Nicolas Cage gives a performance that almost erases all the Hollywood sins he has committed in the last few years.
More intimate movies also shined in 2002. There’s the obvious example of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” But there was also the easily missed “About A Boy,” which proved Hugh Grant is far more than the sniveling dope we’ve grown tired of.
Steven Shainberg mixed masochistic eroticism with classical romance in the pitch-perfect “Secretary.” Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader make the oddest, most loving couple of the year.
Director Todd Haynes also reshaped the film landscape with “Far From Heaven.” Haynes’ film never falters, challenging the way we view our cultural past and present as well as the way we watch movies.
Even blockbusters got a good name, thanks to the reigning king of crowd-pleasers, Steven Spielberg. “Minority Report” was a revelation: an escapist action film with real heart and brains. He followed this up with the two-hour smile of “Catch Me If You Can.” Spielberg finally shed himself of the insecure guise of “respectable” films like “Saving Private Ryan,” returning to the kind of films that make him… Steven Spielberg. His craft hasn’t appeared this effortless since “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”
It seems that critics join together annually in a sour dismissal of movies released the previous year. We’ve all heard it before: There are too many sequels and movies based on television shows. Opening weekend grosses are all that matters anymore.
We’ve heard about the demise of quality movies since “Jaws” put the term “box-office” on the tongue of every man, woman and child. The fact is, big-budget Hollywood garbage isn’t going anywhere. But when you look beyond the heap, you find that there are great things happening in movies.
If the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizes the possibilities, this year’s Oscar ceremony could truly rise above the usual self-aggrandizement affairs of the past.