But movies are all that matters, and overall I had some good times. I finally got a DVD player, and I have grown to love the DVD. Plus I’ve got a couple great rental places around where I can get anything I want (new or old!) for 99 cents, and that’s fantastic! I actually hate to admit it, but I can barely remember 2002. For one it all blends together in my head, and for another my university work overshadowed everything. Argh! Sure, I can now enjoy films in spanish without needing subtitles and analyze girly poetry, but it has robbed me of my movie memories! Luckily, I saw “Die Another Day” twice, so I can replay that over and over in my head until May, when I can buy the DVD. Score!

As usual, the year was full of ups and downs. “Spiderman” was really cool, but it has some slow moments (especially since years of comic books have burned Spidey’s origin into my head, so I barely need a film to retell it to me). “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” was stupid, but it had Christopher Lee and a few moments of cool; regardless, I bought the DVD (for some reason). Hmm.

Actually, I got a lot of surprises. “The Ring” was a pretty good US horror film, though the Japanese original was much better and stripped the US film of any thrills it might have held for me. “Minority Report” was really bad. “Resident Evil” was good, “Van Wilder” was funny, and I liked “Ice Age” despite not normally digging Disney films. I had to see “Real Women Have Curves” for my Chicana Feminism class (ah, the joys of a literature major) and while it was very predictable, it was a very enjoyable film that I highly recommend. I liked seeing Frank the Pug in “Men in Black II” although I did not like seeing the movie around the pug. “XXX” was dumb, “Die Another Day” was fabulous, and “Jason X” was mindless entertainment. I honestly can not remember anything else.

I’ll end with a story: so I’m in Laughlin, NV, with the parents and my pug dog Jordan, celebrating their anniversary or something (that information was deleted from my head to make room for chicana feminist theory. And the theory stuff is still there, noooo!). And I was determined to go see a midnight show in the theaters at the Riverside casino, just because midnight shows rule. So I took my dad to see “Star Wars” because that sounded like fun (even though I had already seen it at the midnight opening with my mum and didn’t equate the film in any way with “fun”). But seeing in that loud theater, with my dad and about four other people in there, I had a really great experience! Somehow, I remembered how much I love movies, and how much I love talking about movies, and how incredible it is to be able, as humans, to come together in an enclosed space and all stay (mostly) quiet to appreciate the work or art (or crap) that we all came to see that at least should keep us occupied and at best change our lives! Wow! Why did this happen? The answer is obvious: the popcorn was laced with something. And such is the joys of movies! That wasn’t as emotional and awe-inspiring as I thought it would be, so let me end with this: 2002 was great, because it had Bond a movie about girls surfing. Let’s hope 2003 had more Pierce Brosnan and more girls surfing! I’ll be waiting at the theater!

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