Distant (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2002)

8/10
I've only seen one Nuri Bilge Ceylan movie, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, which I enjoyed very much. This one is very good too, about a man who loses his job and stays with his wealthier relative. The focus of the film is on both men's aimlessness. Yusuf, put out of a job by the economic climate, has an aimlessness that's a little more "real" - he has no education, no skills and no money. Mahmut, his relative, has more money and some skills (he's a photographer) but is equally unmotivated - in the career he hates, with his ex-wife, and with his lover.
Their relationship comes to a "head" (as much as anything can come to a head in this movie) in a particularly brilliant sequence. Mahmut can't find a missing watch. Yusuf claims he hasn't seen it. Mahmut finds the watch, but doesn't tell Yusuf - in fact, he makes it apparent that he's gone through Yusuf's stuff "looking" for it. Mahmut is so emotionless he can't even bring himself to accuse Yusuf to his face of the theft he knows Yusuf didn't commit. So he dishevels Yusuf's bag hoping to draw him into a confrontation. Yusuf instead departs without saying a word to Mahmut, apparently unperturbed.
What the movie shows is two men more or less crushed to nothingness by factors both external and internal. It ends on an ambiguous note but there's no mistaking the sadness that runs through the whole movie and both its main characters.

Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2002)

8.5/10
The only other Aipichatpong Weerasethakul (that was from memory, did I get it right?) movie I've seen was Uncle Boonmee last year. As I was watching Blissfully Yours, made almost ten years earlier, I found myself thinking "well this is okay, but it's no Uncle Boonmee". As the movie wore on, I changed to "well this is quite good, you can definitely see signs of the skill he showed in Uncle Boonmee". Then it was "this is tremendous, do I like it more than Uncle Boonmee?". Then the movie ended and I still don't know. So the movie was - a little clunky to start with but finds its rhythm (I would say right after the opening credits, 45 minutes into the film) and the final 30-45 minutes are just magically hypnotic. Slowly being seduced by or falling under the spell of a movie is one of the most enjoyable pleasures in cinema for me and Blissfully Yours nailed it.

Rabbits (David Lynch, 2002)

8/10
Back in 2002 David Lynch released a series of eight 5-7 minute shorts on his website, each one seemingly an episode of a surreal "sitcom" titled Rabbits. Unused clips were later featured in his film Inland Empire, to beguiling effect. Your mileage and patience for these shorts probably depends on your tolerance for Lynch at his most overtly bizarre - the characters (three humanoid rabbits) speak in non-sequiturs, but recurring words and themes suggest the lines might be pieced together to form actual conversations. I thought it was fun and creepy, although anyone looking for a deeper significance may only come away annoyed. They're up on Youtube for now (with Spanish subtitles but no matter) if anyone's interested.

National Lampoon's Van Wilder (Walt Becker, 2002)

2/10
There were a couple of funny bits (I had to laugh at the eclair scene, come on) but for the most part it was just bad. And surprisingly racist, or at the least aggressively stereotypical. Ryan Reynolds was like a fourth-rate Jim Carrey circa Ace Ventura and the plot was just completely absurd. And really, Tara Reid as the "it girl"?

28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002)

8/10
Wasn't really sure what to expect from this but I was surprised to find out it's not really a zombie movie...well there's zombies, but obviously the main message is how man's greatest danger to himself is himself and all that, which has been done before, but it was done very well here too. A pleasant surprise.