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!

Movies by year: 2000

(Keep out of the dark - there are spoilers there!)

Happy long weekend! I went to the beach, it was glorious. And while I was there, I gave some thought to my favourite movies of 2000.

Guy Ritchie gave us another complicated one with Snatch; Hugh Jackman *snicked* his way into my heart in X-Men; George Clooney (our generation's Cary Grant/Clark Gable) brought us on an odyssey in O Brother, Where Art Thou?; Tom Hanks demonstrated once again his awesomeness in Cast Away; M. Night Shyamalan gave us Unbreakable (and yes, I liked it, shut up).

And a thug appeared on our screens and showed us how it's done.

Everyone take a deep breath...

On Saturday Peter Capaldi burst from the TARDIS in a flurry of confusion to start the new season of Doctor Who, and he was glorious.

Let’s talk about it. Be warned, SPOILERS ahead!

Movies by year: 1999

(Never give up, never surrender... to the spoilers below!)

1999 was a mixed bag with some really stand-out films. The 'found footage' style of filmmaking had a smash with The Blair Witch Project, The Matrix changed the way we thought about sci fi and effects, Guy Pierce and Robert Carlyle were at each other's throats in Ravenous, M. Night Shyamalan became a massive love-him-or-hate-him director with The Sixth Sense, Rene Russo showed off her curves in that transparent dress in The Thomas Crown Affair, Mystery Men proved not all heroes are the expected ones, and The Boondock Saints gave us the antiheroes we didn't know we were missing. But this is the one I can watch over and over again:

Movies by year: 1998

(Oi, spoilers ahead!)

What to tell you about? Such a big pool this year - heartstring-plucking with Meet Joe Black, What Dreams May Come or Practical Magic? Weird and bizarre with Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas or The Big Lebowski? Critical darlings The Truman Show or Saving Private Ryan? Gritty and inventive with Run Lola Run, Snake Eyes or Dark City?

How about overwhelming and a bit confusing?

Too soon: Robin Williams

via 9gag.com

Tonight I went to see Guardians Of The Galaxy with a couple of friends, and I thought I might write something about it. But once the film was done and we started checking our devices, I realized it would have to wait - we learned of Robin Williams' passing.

Movies by year: 1997

(Definite spoilers ahead, be warned!)

Another year with too many amazing movies to count. Some were big productions - The Saint, Men In Black, Contact, Event Horizon, Gattaca, Starship Troopers. Others were more intimate, squeaking under the mainstream - Jackie Brown, Grosse Pointe Blank, In & Out, The Edge, Wag The Dog. All worth seeing, for different reasons. My favourite was big but weird:

Cottage trip half over :(

Well, after three or four nights of gorgeous stars, we're now overcast. Not bad though, I mean it's still beautiful, but rain in the night is becoming a thing. Not surprised, just sad we probably won't get a good night watching shooting stars before we go back.

Movies by year: 1996

(Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to avoid the spoilers to come!)

There were some great films in 1996, a few too many to get into actually. I saw a preview screening of From Dusk Till Dawn, which is two movies mashed together; Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas were terrorized by lions in The Ghost And The Darkness; Fargo took us all by surprise (and made us all avoid Minnesota in the winter); Richard Gere thought he was the star of Primal Fear but we all know it was really Edward Norton's breakout role; and if we didn't already know about the evils of drug addiction, Trainspotting hit us over the head with it with an amazing cast.

But there was one movie that was just more fun than the others:

Cottage report: Friday night

So it cottage season, and I'm just going to bed - we've been up here since Thursday around 7ish - and there were SO many mosquitos that I got basically sucked dry by the time we got from the dock up to the house. We got settled in and basically decompressed for a few hours before pulling out the media player and watching a few shows and movies, and had a relatively early night (went to bed at 1:30am).

Movies by year: 1995

(Can you keep a secret? So can I - look out for spoilers!)

1995 - what an amazing year for movies! Astronauts had a problem in Apollo 13; Kevin Spacey took the screen by storm in both Se7en and The Usual Suspects; Terry Gilliam's insane masterpiece Twelve Monkeys hit the theatres; Hugh Grant stammered his charming way into our hearts in The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain; Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan were adorable in French Kiss; and a little Canadian film called Blood And Donuts wormed its way into my heart. But an angel told us all a secret just before we were born...

Movies by year: 1994

(It's not that hard, once you know the vowels - look out for spoilers!)

There were some pretty good films in 1994, so this was a hard choice. Tim Robbins got busy livin' in The Shawshank Redemption; Brad Pitt made death sexy in Interview With The Vampire; Hugh Grant became everyone's sweetheart in Four Weddings And A Funeral; Jean Reno was slick in Léon: The Professional; Tom Hanks ran in Forrest Gump; Quentin Tarrantino revived John Travolta's career with Pulp Fiction. But none of these were my favourite. That would be...

Movies by year: 1993

(Sigh no more - you get no spoiler warnings this time!)

1993 was a real mixed bag - we went from comedy (the Bill Murray/Harold Ramis genius piece Groundhog Day; Mike Myers's beat-poet in So I Married An Axe Murderer; the return of our favourite dark family in Addams Family Values; Kevin Kline figuring out the White House in Dave) to historical drama (Liam Neeson saving lives in Schindler's List) to action/suspense (dinos running amok in Jurassic Park; Doctor Richard Kimball running amok in The Fugitive; aliens running amok in Fire In The Sky) to animation (Tim Burton's masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas). Enough to make your head spin! But we got a classic piece of romance/comedy/tragedy in one film:

Edge Of Tomorrow: stupid name, awesome film.

Okay, let me get this out of the way first - I've never met Tom Cruise, but the impression in my mind is of a little kid who just wants everyone to like him. Which is both sweet and slightly creepy. Which is a shame, because it makes me forget that I quite like his acting. Like, every time. Whenever I see him in something, it hits me again with a jolt, 'oh yeah, he's a good actor!'

So, about this movie. (Spoilers ahead guys!)

Movies by year: 1992

(Some spoilers ahead my darlings, be warned)

I didn’t go to the movies very much in 1992 — I was at University for half of it and penniless on the West coast for the other half. Still, it was an interesting year for films. Alien 3 had Ripley finally dying (wasn’t so permanent though, was it? Also, Paul McGann!); the two yout’s had a slick defence team in My Cousin Vinny; Tarantino made a messy splash with Reservoir Dogs; Gary Oldman was mesmerising while everyone else’s accents were awful in Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Orlando brought gender-bending to a whole new level; and it turned out there was crying in baseball in A League Of Their Own. But I want to tell you about a little film called:

Movies by year: 1991

(Be warned, possible spoilers ahead)

1991 was an interesting year with interesting films. David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch weirded us all out, The Commitments grew to a crescendo and flew apart, The Silence Of The Lambs put the lotion on its skin, scissors freaked everyone out in Dead Again, Raul Julia and Angelica Huston perfectly embodied the heads of The Adams Family, and I saw Hugo Weaving for the first time in Proof (Russell Crowe too, but I didn't care about him). But I have an easy favourite for this year:

Packrat tendencies

I'm a packrat. And a clotheshorse. Some of my friends joke that I'm actually a hoarder.

But sometimes I suspect they're not really joking.