Movies by year: 2004

(Aim for the head - spoilers ahead!)

We're up to 2004! And what a year for film it was. Wes Anderson came back with my favourite of his (so far), The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou; M. Night Shyamalan also returned with the mixed The Village; we had a variety of heroes with Hellboy, The Incredibles and Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow; and Daniel Craig made dangerous waves in Layer Cake. But my favourite had a bit of everything:

Movies by year: 2003

(I love spoilers, don't you? There are some here, be warned!)

There were some big blockbusters in 2003. The Return Of The King closed out The Lord Of The Rings trilogy with a splash; we got our first look at Johnny Depp's Keith Moon/Pepe LePew amalgam in Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl; Pixar gave us the amazing Finding Nemo; The Italian Job was super slick; and X2: X-Men United brought us an explanation for Wolverine's claws. But there were a couple of smaller films that I can't decide between so we'll just talk about both:

Sssshhh - listen!

Why do we talk to ourselves when alone? Perhaps it's because somewhere, in the bottom of our minds, we know there's someone listening. Spoilers ahead.

Movies by year: 2002

(Sssh, the spoilers will hear you!)

Films seemed to stop pulling punches in 2002, and we got a lot of 'both-sides-of-the-coin' sort of selection: 28 Days Later and Bubba Ho-tep redefined Zombie culture in very different ways; The Bourne Identity, xXx and Undercover Brother were three completely different takes on the spy genre; Minority Report, The Transporter and Catch Me If You Can gave us great long-form chases; Secretary and My Big Fat Greek Wedding showed us very different ideas of love; and Hugh Grant reinvented himself with About A Boy.

But there was a little one that came and went without much fuss, though it deserved more...

Yikes and away - it's Robin Hood!

This weekend's episode of Doctor Who fell directly into the 'light and fun' category. There are spoilers ahead...

Movies by year: 2001

(What was that? Was that a spoiler? Look out!)

2001 saw the beginning of not one, not two but THREE successful franchises, that also happened to be very good (The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone and Ocean's Eleven; Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson brought Derek Zoolander and Hansel to the stage; Jake Gyllenhall starred in the game-changer Donnie Darko; Audrey Tautou stole the hearts of everyone in Amélie; and the controversy around the fake reviews of A Knight's Tale kept me from giving it - or Heath Ledger - a chance (turned out it was a lot of fun, and Ledger was kind of awesome).

This little film came and went quickly, but it made quite an impression...

Rogue rusty pepperpot

This weekend brought us the second episode of the season of Doctor Who, and we find out if it was just a fluke last week. Look out for spoilers!