It’s not quite over yet, but it is safe to say 2002 had plenty of ups and downs. In cinema, movies such as “The Lord of the Rings,” Harry Potter,” “Austin Powers,” “Men in Black,” the Hannibal Lecter series and “Star Wars” all came through with lucrative franchise additions. TV heroes and sleuths Spider-Man, the Powerpuff Girls and Scooby Doo made movies, and Yoda proved he’s a mean, green alien with a lightsaber.

Adam Sandler juggled drama, an animation voice-over and yet another version of the “Hanukkah Song” with three different lead roles in films this year.

In music, 2002 was a time for change, as musicians such as Eminem, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Beck, Nas and Shania Twain all found new, if not improved, voices for their music. While Lance Bass’s space dreams went pop, fellow ‘Nsyncer Justin Timberlake made a “Justified” effort to distance himself from the group for a while.

Though the band might not be welcome in Ames anytime soon, Phish reformed just two years after deciding to go on hiatus, and released a new studio album.

Eminem’s “The Eminem Show” has become the first solo artist since Alanis Morissette in 1996 to hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts for the year, while his movie “8 Mile” surprised many with a strong showing in the box office.

In one year, Snoop Dogg dropped “Paid the Cost to be the Bo$$,” went crazy with “Girls Gone Wild,” and, most impressively, kizzicked the wizzeed habit. The rest of the rap world changed as well, as it coped with the loss of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay and picked up the latest posthumous 2-Pac and Aaliyah albums.

Speaking of posthumous albums, Courtney Love finally let Nirvana’s last breath, “You Know You’re Right,” slip out of the box in its new greatest hits album. As if slamming another door in grunge history, 2002 was the year former Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley passed away.

Where’s all that swearing coming from? MTV provided more evil entertainment with a second season of “The Osbournes,” which spawned a music career for Osbourne daughter Kelly, and this year began to follow Sharon’s bout with colon cancer. Not content with staying on the side while MTV got the glory, E! began its own show and made Anna Nichole Smith a household name. Both “American Idol” and “The Bachelor” found huge success in 2002, and reality television proved to be alive and well.

Video games reached a new level of sex and violence, as “Grand Theft Auto 3: Vice City” brought a new chapter of sniping and blowing up cars to the Playstation Two and “BMX XXX” became the first game with real nudity and plenty of profanity — for gamers over 18, of course.

For better or for worse, 2002 was a year unlike any before it. Here are some Daily staffers’ picks for best and worst of the year 2002.

— Jeff Mitchell

Jeff Mitchell, A&E Editor

With Beck turning back to his introspective side to create, in my mind, one of the best albums of all -time, it didn’t really matter what was going on in the pop radio world this year. Some of my old favorites came back from slumps, as the Red Hot Chili Peppers released “By the Way” in the wake of the mediocre “Californication,” and Avail came out of the blue with a slickly-produced (it took something like a month) punk album. In the local scene, Bi-Fi bands such as Organ Donor, Frankenixon and Poison Control Center produced good albums, and the 515 crew rallied together to create the Fallout Shelter. Is it just me, or does that quick shot of Stone Sour’s Jim Root walking at the camera in the “Bother” video give anyone else nightmares? Either way, Des Moines’ biggest export, Slipknot, is branching out. A lot of good stuff is going on in Central Iowa’s music scene — just enough to be able to forget about a disappointing year in pop music, and pop stars for that matter.

Top three albums:

“Sea Change,” Beck

“Front Porch Stories,” Avail

“Kinky,” Kinky

Best single: “By the Way,” Red Hot Chili Peppers

Best concert: All, Armstrong, Someday I, Wretch Like Me at El Toreon, Kansas City

Best movie: “Minority Report”

Best actor: Robin Williams in “One Hour Photo”

Best actress: Natalie Portman in “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones”

Worst album: “No Pads, No Helmet … Just Balls,” Simple Plan

Worst movie: “About a Boy”

Megan Hinds, Assignment A&E Editor

2002 was the year underground hip hop and soul artists finally got their due on the mainstream music scene.

A plethora of intelligent and talent-filled albums hit the market this year, including gems by Jurassic 5, The Roots, Blackalicious, Dilated Peoples, Talib Kweli and Common — just to name a few.

2002 also was the year we lost Jam Master Jay, a true visionary in the world of hip hop.

Top three albums:

“Power In Numbers,” Jurassic 5

“Unplugged 2.0,” Lauryn Hill

“Instant Vintage,” Raphael Saadiq

Best single: “Your Body Is A Wonderland,” John Mayer

Best concert: “Smokin’ Grooves 2002”, featuring Lauryn Hill, Jurassic 5, The Roots, and Outkast at the Target Center, Minneapolis.

Best book: “Good In Bed,” Jennifer Weiner

Best movie: “Comedian”

Best actor: Kevin Spacey in “The Shipping News”

Best actress: Jennifer Aniston in “The Good Girl”

Worst album: “Ballin’ Boy,” No Good

Worst movie: “John Q”

Cavan Reagan, Editor in Chief

It’s hard to describe the changes the last year have thrown upon me, but I fear they’ve greatly affected the tastes I could once consider refined. Once upon a simpler time, it was only the highest of pseudo-intellectual entertainment forms that I would publicly admit amused me. Now, I find myself trading in those media for the tunes that make for a nice pole dance at the clubs and the flicks that should be advertised as a way to spend two hours with your brain turned off.

Maybe it’s this new job I have. Maybe it’s the compounded stress of my upcoming graduation and a frightening job search. Maybe I’m just stupider since I turned 21. But something in this last stretch of 2002 has shifted my tastes toward the low-key, silly, relaxing, nonsensically brainless forms of entertainment.

Still, when asked to pick the best of 2002, I’ve safely fended off the dimwitted picks from this list. It was easy to pick the best of the best, but the competitors for the worst of everything took a bit more thinking. While these are hardly definitive, they are what’s been able to get me by during a rather chaotic year.

Top three albums:

“Scarlet’s Walk,” Tori Amos

“Lost in Space,” Aimee Mann

“Inside Wants Out [re-release],” John Mayer

Best book: “Yellow: Stories,” Don Lee

Best movie: “Signs”

Best actors: Elijah Wood and Ian McKellan in “The Lord of the Rings”

Best actress: Emily Watson in “Red Dragon” and “Punch-Drunk Love”

Worst movie: “The Rules of Attraction”

Trevor Fisher, A&E Senior Reporter

I’m not about to sit here and go on about how great the year in entertainment was — it wasn’t. Just when we thought the teen pop phase was dying out, not only does Justin Timberlake release a solo record but so does Nick friggin’ Carter. And J.Lo released another album — is it ever going to stop? Music did get a breath of fresh air with the garage rock sounds of bands like The Strokes and The White Stripes, and even though I didn’t like the rest of the record, “Get Free” was a fantastic song from The Vines. “Glass” was a blistering release from Indianola metal outfit Index Case and Why Make Clocks’ label debut takes some getting used to, but is an absolutely beautiful record. But what really made my year? The return of Jason, a new “Friday the 13th” movie to hold me over until Jason vs. Freddy.

Top three albums:

“Glass,” Index Case

“Down II,” Down

“Fifteen Feet and Twenty Degrees,” Why Make Clocks

Best single: “Get Free,” The Vines

Best movie: “Road to Perdition”

Worst album: I don’t know, didn’t Ja Rule release an album this year?

Worst movie: “Jason X” (It was still highly entertaining though)

Erin Randolph, Daily Staff Writer

Ames’ own Bi-Fi Records released a lot of great albums over the past year. Worth checking out are Frankenixon’s “Depth Perception,” a prog-pop masterpiece with haunting keyboards and beautiful vocals, and Organ Donor’s “Midwest/Italia,” a personal diary of heart-rending lyrics set to music.

Top three albums:

“Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground,” Bright Eyes

“The Used,” The Used

“Kill the Moonlight,” Spoon

Best movie : “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”

Best actor: Tom Hanks for “Road to Perdition”

Best actress: Jennifer Aniston for “The Good Girl”

Worst movie: “Crossroads”

Worst actor: Adam Sandler for “Mr. Deeds”

Worst actress: Britney Spears for “Crossroads”

Amber Billings, Managing Editor

The best concert I saw this year was 311 at the Tabernacle in Atlanta on March 18, which was my Valentine’s Day gift from my boyfriend. It was the fourth time I had seen 311, but I had never seen them play as well as they did that night and have the crowd so into it. It was great to see a Midwest favorite like 311 be just as popular in the South.

Top three albums:

“A Rush of Blood to the Head,” Coldplay

“Power In Numbers,” Jurassic 5

“Come Away With Me,” Norah Jones

Best single: “Hella Good,” No Doubt

Best concert: 311 at the Tabernacle, Atlanta

Best movie: The Ring

Best actor: Tom Hanks in “Road to Perdition”

Best actress: Emily Watson in “Red Dragon”

Worst album: “Justified,” Justin Timberlake

Worst movie: “The Rules of Attraction” or “The Sweetest Thing”

Christian Dahlager, Design Editor of Special Projects

Conor Oberst is a genius. It’s that simple. As the defining member of both Bright Eyes and Desaparecidos, Oberst leads two of modern music’s most captivating acts — an intensely personal alt-country-folk outfit and a blistering socio-economic rock band, respectively. Oberst captures the hopes and insecurities that both plague and drive the members of a young generation unwilling to remain blind to the crumbling social, political and economic infrastructure of the United States. And he can write a damn good love song, too.

Maybe it’s a Midwest thing, but Minnesota band A Whisper in the Noise’s “Through the Ides of March” — recorded by indie great Steve Albini — is exceptionally beautiful indie rock that combines cello, violin, piano, samples and yes, even french horn to create an album that guesses what recent Radiohead might have sounded like had they grown up in the Twin Cities.

Top three albums:

“Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground,” Bright Eyes

“Read Music, Speak Spanish,” Desaparecidos

“Through the Ides of March,” A Whisper in the Noise

Best single: “Like I Love You,” Justin Timberlake

Best concert: Ben Folds and a Piano, Seven Flags, Clive

Best movie: “The Rules of Attraction”

Best actor: Adam Sandler in “Punch-Drunk Love”

Best actress: Kirsten Dunst in “The Cat’s Meow”

Worst album: “Reanimation,” Linkin Park

Worst movie: “Master of Disguise”