As we approach "Oscar Season" I can feel my household becoming tense and giddy all at once, so I thought I should review the best movies of 2002 that I didn't see and submit to you, loyal reader, my Top 10 Movies I Haven't Seen for 2002. The only movie I saw in the theatre last year was the re-release of E.T. My daughter was convinced (by a certain US Press staff member) that she really wanted to see it, so I took her to prove to her that she didn't want to see it and that the theatre is not a nice place to go. It was her first movie theatre experience and we spent about 40 minutes in the lobby because a four year old can't sit still for 90 minutes and because I couldn't stand watching cops use gun safety techniques with their digitized walkie-talkies any longer. Much to my dismay, she enjoyed the movie and the theatre experience. I see it as her first signs of rebellion against me.

I have seen a few movies from 2002 on video. This year I saw Spider-Man, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys and Sum of All Fears. I can assure you that none of these films will sneak into my Top 10 Movies I Haven't Seen list for 2002. Firstly, they are disqualified because I saw them. Secondly, they sucked. I thank the Patron Saint of Hollywood Consumerism that I only paid $2.50 to rent them. Okay, okay, Spider-Man was mildly entertaining (I had had a couple beers), I'll watch Jodie Foster in almost anything (preferably a thin shirt but ...Altar Boys had a few moments of good black humor) and the same is true of Morgan Freeman (although a regular shirt is fine). I can't think of any other movies I saw that were released in 2002, so the field for the Top 10 is really wide open. Let's get to it.

10. Adaptation- I'm sorry but Nicholas Cage will always be the guy in Raising Arizona to me. John Goodman, on the other hand, has transcended that movie and now is the guy in The Big Lebowski to me. Strange how things work out, isn't it?

9. Minority Report- Will technology take over our lives and invade our privacy right down to our own thoughts and future actions? I don't know. All I know is that your IP address is and if I were you I wouldn't eat that extra slice of pizza you'll be eyeing tonight. I mean really, look at you.

8. Y Tu Mama Tambien- I love subtitles, I always have. I probably just have low self-esteem and reading a movie gives me the exhilaration of feeling smarter than illiterate people. Anyway, I figure a movie about two teenagers fighting over an older woman belongs in the top 10 especially if I get to read it because then it would be just like being at home reading the letters in Penthouse. The only reason this is not higher on the Top 10 Movies I Haven't Seen is because sitting at home reading the letters in Penthouse has become quite monotonous.

7. Far From Heaven- That's exactly how I think of the movie theatre, far from Heaven, which is why I haven't seen any of these movies. This personal ban of watching movies in the theatre began about seven years ago and I am proud to say that the number of times I have slipped into my old theatre going self can be counted on one hand. Hell, four of those were re-releases of movies that I saw as a child(the aforementioned E.T. and the Star Wars Trilogy). The one and only new movie I've seen in the theatre in seven years was (please forgive me) Good Will Hunting. I think I could even make the case that I went to see that under extreme duress because I was coerced by a hormone induced argument about how we never go out anymore. So we went out, sat in the dark and didn't talk for two hours. Somehow that was better than staying home, sitting in the light and not talking for two hours.

Even though I don't go to the theatre, I used to watch a lot of movies on video because it's not that I don' t like movies; I like movies. I hate the theatre, I hate the price versus content worth and I hate being told what to like. Being Sir-Rent-a-Lot makes movies seem a lot better because now I judge every movie I see on whether it was worth $2.50 total instead of $8 or greater. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie for which I would shell out $20 dollars (2 tickets plus a coke) to have the privilege of viewing with very tall and loud strangers in a smelly and uncomfortable seat, but I've seen a hell of a lot that are worth $2.50 to see on my own couch. I bet even Far From Heaven is worth $2.50. I will probably never find out, but I bet it is.

6. Road to Perdition- I figure when a Tom Hanks movie title sends me to the dictionary it's a shoo-in to the Top Ten.

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers- I haven't even seen the first Lord of the Rings movie but I can tell from the buzz on the internet that this stuff must be great. Other things I have learned from the internet:

1. There is some female tennis player named Anna that is really hot but not that good at tennis.
2. There is some female singer named Britney that is really hot. She used to be a girl, but she's becoming a woman by having sex with the likes of Fred Durst.
3. There is some female entertainer named J. Lo that is really hot. She may or may not be marrying some guy I'm supposed to care about.
4. These three and all other women want me to have a larger penis and it can be obtained naturally through the continual use of magical pills that Jack received at market for trade of a cow.

4. Bowling for Columbine- I love Michael Moore, I really do. He poses many good questions about some serious issues that have arisen in our free capitalist society. If he could answer even one of those questions he'd be elected King.

3. Rabbit-Proof Fence- I had never heard of this movie until I started researching this article. I understand that it's a very sad true story about Australians taking some Aborigine girls away from their mother, moving them 1500 miles away to become servants for some white folks, their escape and journey back. It really does sound sad. But the title made me happy because it reminded me that 2002 was the first year we kept the local groundhogs out of our garden. Our fence was good and indeed rabbit-proof, but I think the real difference this year was the purchase of a groundhog trap. We relocated three groundhogs and I'm excited for the new crop of up-and-comers who will be taking their first car rides in 2003. It's always fun to take a curve a little extra fast knowing that the groundhog in the back of the car has never felt g-forces before. So really, in a way my story is similar to the movie in that I am snatching groundhogs away from their mother, taking them far away (you have to take a groundhog at least 5 miles away or he can find his way back), and dumping them off to assimilate into new surroundings. The only real difference is that the movie is sad, but my story is happy.

2. My Big Fat Greek Wedding- I don't really like weddings, especially if they involve big fat sorority girls who think they are hot because their friends are hot, but I have been imagining this movie to be about food, which eventually gets turned into, that's right, number two. Had it had been titled My Big Fat Greek Beer Wedding it would have been a contender for number one.

1. Blue Crush- Girls on surfboards gets number one. Every year a "Girls On Boards" movie is released it will make number one on this list, that is my promise to you. The movie looks pathetic so I can only hope that the DVD has a version where the soundtrack plays over the dialog through the whole thing, but somehow I think I'll have to create a mix CD to play while I'm watching it.

While doing research for this article I realized that I also saw Signs last year. Even though it was ineligible because mine eyes had fallen to gaze upon its moving frames, there was really no danger of it making the Top 10. Nonetheless, I'd like to sum up the brilliant subtext of the movie for you in an analogous skit:

Old Man #1: When my wife died, I lost my faith.
Old Man #2: Really? That's terrible.
Old Man #1: Yeah, but then I survived the Holocaust and regained my faith.
Old Man #2: Fascinating.
Old Man #1: How about some coffee?
Old Man #2: Sure.
The End.

As you can see, it really made you think. Unfortunately, it just made me think about what I missed on television during those two hours.

Okay folks, that's it for my Top 10 Movies I Haven't Seen for 2002. Hopefully you have been turned on to a movie you didn't know you wanted to see and you'll go spend inordinate amounts of money to go see its Oscar push re-release in the theatre, thus feeding the Hollywood machine's instincts to hideously overpay a select group of filmmakers and performers while taking fewer and fewer chances of actually creating art every year. Have fun!