Here they are. Be advised, 2002 was not a good year for me, movie-speaking, to get to the theaters. Certain films dominate, and while I wanted to see some films, I never got the chance. Please don't point out to me that I missed such and such. I probably did.

BEST PICTURE
Black Hawk Down

BEST ACTOR
Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York

BEST ACTRESS
Cameron Diaz, Gangs of New York (not much competition here)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christopher Walken, Catch Me If You Can

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Pernilla August, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (she provides an emotional impact that the rest of the film needs)

BEST DIRECTOR
Sam Mendes, Road to Perdition (bonus award to the late, great Conrad Hall)

BEST PRODUCTION/SET DESIGN
Gangs of New York

BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

BEST SCRIPT
David Self, Road to Perdition

BEST SCORE
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

THE GOOD TRY AWARD
Signs

THE "I PAID MONEY FOR THIS?" AWARD
Men in Black II

WORST PERFORMER
Chris Kattan, Undercover Brother

BEST SCENE AWARD
Frank Sr. and Frank Jr. have their last conversation, Catch Me If You Can

FUNNIEST MOMENT AWARD
Doogie Howser Turns Violent, Undercover Brother (I'm sorry--that killed me, Neil Patrick Harris is da man).

BEST BEGINNING
Gangs of New York

BEST ENDING
Signs

WORST ENDING
The Ring

BEST PREVIEW
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

BEST VILLAIN
Maguire, Road to Perdition

BEST COMIC RELIEF
Frank, Men in Black II (the only good thing about the movie)

Here's 2003:

BEST PICTURE
Several solid films. The third Lord of the Rings was wonderful, I greatly enjoyed Identity and Master and Commander...but A Mighty Wind has a special place in my heart.

BEST ACTOR
Too showy performances here--Nicolas Cage in Matchstick Men or Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean? I'll go with Cage.

BEST ACTRESS
The film was erratic, but I'll say Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Ray Liotta in Narc: The man just dominates the film and when you compare it to his work in Identity, you can see how much he put into it.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Allison Lohman in Matchstick Men. Wow!

BEST DIRECTOR
Peter Jackson created a masterpiece in Lord of the Rings. He da man. The only other option for me would be Christopher Guest, who had a vastly different masterpiece in A Mighty Wind.

BEST PRODUCTION/SET DESIGN
Lord of the Rings is impeccable, but I prefer to honor Master and Commander, which perfectly captured being at sea.

BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS
Now, this IS Lord of the Rings.

BEST SCRIPT
Identity was a marvelous film. If you guessed the ending (every ending), you're a liar. Try again.

BEST SCORE
It's A Mighty Wind. A 17 track CD.

THE GOOD TRY AWARD
The Life of David Gale, I assume is well-intentioned, and features a wonderful performance by Kevin Spacey. Its politics, however, are muddled, and I felt the plot a tad hackneyed.

THE "I PAID MONEY FOR THIS?" AWARD
Johnny English, no doubt

WORST PERFORMER
Colin Farrell, Daredevil. Farrell had a plum chance to make a great villain and instead turns in a cartoon.

BEST SCENE AWARD
The very long action scene in The Matrix Reloaded was mind-blowing.

FUNNIEST MOMENT AWARD
Hard to say...A Mighty Wind is really more amusing than laugh-out-funny...How about Legolas killing the Elephant Dealy-O in LOTR and Gimli saying "That still only counts as one!"

BEST BEGINNING
Films had a trouble with good beginnings. Identity wins by a landslide.

BEST ENDING
Again, a lot of films had trouble in this regard, so it's easily Identity. Matchstick Men comes in second though.

WORST ENDING
There were a lot of bad endings...Terminator 3, The Matrix Reloaded, X2, Daredevil, The Life of David Gale...I'd go with Matrix Reloaded, an ending that made me literally go "Huh?"

BEST PREVIEW
It's silly, but A Mighty Wind.

BEST VILLAIN
Your friend and mine, Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith, The Matrix series.

BEST COMIC RELIEF
Frankly, Johnny Depp qualifies as comic relief, and he easily wins.

Wait, wait, wait. Exactly how was X2's ending bad?

Sorry, sorry, I meant disappointing. I dislike films that look you straight in the eye and say "SEQUEL! SEQUEL! LET'S HAVE A SEQUEL!" There was just too little information given, too few things resolved.

What happened in the ending was, however, very good. Compared to say, Daredevil's wussy conclusion, it was a masterpiece. Or Life of David Gale's stunningly illogical one. Or Matrix Reloaded's wacky "to be continued." Or Terminator 3's frighteningly nonsensical ending.

I dislike films that look you straight in the eye and say "SEQUEL! SEQUEL! LET'S HAVE A SEQUEL!"

I have to disagree, but that's because I'm one of these continuing story geeks. If a story is too big to do in one moive, and doing a TV miniseries would hamstring your creativity (Stephen King's The Langoliers anybody?), then why not?

Or Terminator 3's frighteningly nonsensical ending.

The irony of that is, the ending is about the only part of the moive I liked.

Oh, I do "like" the ending of T3, it just doesn't make any sense.

I also sort of agree with you on your continuing story comment (especially about The Langoliers, ick), but there's just something about X2's ending that left me cold. Spider-Man did basically the same thing, leaving the door wide open (hell, so did X-Men), but I found them more palatable. Maybe it's just a matter of personal taste.

I guess. My reaction to the end of X2 was "Oooooooohhhhh SWEET!" cause I knew what storyline they were gona do next, and it gave me what we geeks like to call a Nerdgasm.

Good point...although it's gonna take some fancy writing to make that story work the way they did it in the film.

Mike: Well they made God Loves, Man Kills work OK, so I'm optimistic.

Hey, I noticed you have a category misisng. Best Soundtrack. My pick personally would be a tie between Daredevil (Moby, Evanesence, Nappy Roots, Fuel...) and Kill Bill Vol. I (The RZA Rules!)