2001: Now THAT'S more like it!

Ah...much better. Now's the time to point out that, officially, the first year of the 21st century was really 2001. So let's just say that the 20th century in film ended with the whimper of dying harp seal, while the 21st started off with the mighty roar of a mildly syphilitic lion.

1. The Royal Tenenbaums

I know that "real" Wes Anderson fans are supposed to like Rushmore the most, and the smart-ass pick is Life Aquatic, but goddamn it, my favorite is still The Royal Tenenbaums. It's the movie that most successfully balanced Anderson's whimsical artificiality with earnest emotional catharsis. Few film moments in the decade packed the richly-earned wallop of Chas Tenenbaum's quivering voice saying "It's been a hard year, Dad." And Anderson's artifice is here at its most rewarding, from the intense detail of that fantastic opening sequence to the funny, sharp digressions sprinkled throughout the film: Dudley Heinsbergen, the disastrous Tenenbaum v. Gandhi tennis match, Pagoda...and, of course, we can't forget Margot Tenenabaum meeting her brother at the gangplank. And this from a guy who generally finds Gwyneth Paltrow about as appealing as red tide poisoning.

2. The Man Who Wasn't There

THE underrated Coen brothers movie. Written off at the time as some kind of half-assed Miller's Crossing, this movie features the Coens at their most empathetic and contemplative. The film noir trappings aren't simply another slick genre goof. The Man Who Wasn't There is an examination of the alienating forces at work in post-war America that made film noir possible, and one man's struggle to define himself in the face of them. Considering the Coen's penchant for deliberately obscure endings, the graceful, elegiac finale of Man is even more impressive.

3. Ghost World

This movie is so deliberately low key, that it ends up getting slept on by a lot of people, but for me, it's one of the most haunting films of the decade. Mostly because of director Terry Zwigoff's absolute mastery of the banal: every detail of his gray little suburb feels lived in and, at the same time, drained of life. That palpable atmosphere makes Enid Coleslaw's fitful attempts at entering an adult world that she can't bring herself to take seriously even more recognizable. Steve Buscemi's Seymour is a creature of pure tragi-comedy, and a perfect encapsulation of the "geek" mentality: he's a person at once invigorated and entrapped by his petty obsessions. As the poor bastard says "Maybe I don't want to meet someone who shares my interests. I hate my interests." Could any other movie have a middle-aged misanthrope have sex with a sexy 18-year-old, and have the viewer end up feeling like the guy is being used?

4. In the Bedroom

Another super low key movie that's easy to forget in the avalanche of films to sift through for the end-of-decade retrospective. It's also a movie chock full of closely-observed moments and visual poetry. The grieving parents in the office of the district attorney charged with prosecuting their son's killer, looking at the pictures on the shelf of the man, his wife and their dogs: the DA doesn't have children, and can't know the parent's pain. That wreath of smoke twisting out of the killer's chest wound, catching the headlights of a nearby car. The breath-taking crack of Sissy Spacek's hand on Marisa Tomei's face.

5. Memento

Christopher Nolan's breakout film, and a marvel of stylistic gimmickry complimenting thematic content. It's easy to focus on the ingenious backward plot structure, that manages to generate genuine suspense even after it begins at the end of the story. But the real triumph of Memento is how it comments on the nature of memory and the necessary human capacity for self-deception, using the structure to underline the point.

Movies that take a giant shit on the Greatest Generation: 2001 saw the release of two awful movies about World War 2. Michael Bay's monstrous Pearl Harbor and the painfully botched retelling of the battle of Stalingrad, Enemies at the Gate. The latter includes one of most hilarious sex scenes in film history, with Jude Law furtively banging Rachel Weisz in a Red Army dugout. The look on her face is priceless: either her vagina is broken, or Jude Law's penis is made out of hornets.

Worst film I've ever seen in the theater: Scary Movie 2. Blame my sister.

"Modern Classic" I just can't get behind: Mullholland Drive. Like most David Lynch movies, I can' appreciate what he's going for, but still not find it terribly engaging. But that lesbian sex scene is definitely a modern classic of film nudity.

Oscar-winning, universally-beloved movie that actually sucks out loud: A Beautiful Mind. Goddamn, two in a row, and both starring Russel Crowe, no less! Ron Howard is in the exact middle of the directorial PH scale. He is the cinematic personification of beige.

Credit sequence in a biopic that's so good it makes the rest of the movie superfluous: Ali Too much of Michael Mann's Mohammed Ali biography is disappointing boilerplate, but the very first minutes are a galvanizing array of impressionistic images that build the world of Cassius Clay frame by frame. Sam Cooke rocking a black nightclub. A young Clay jogging down the road, getting bird-dogged by a cop car. Clay's father painting a portrait of an aggressively Caucasian Jesus. It's the sort of approach that's hard to sustain over the course of a whole movie, but that kind of non-linear, musically-edited energy should definitely be a feature of more biographical films.

Best British bad-asses: Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast, and Ian Holm in From Hell. I'm on record as saying that Ben Kingsley usually bites it as whatever mannered, stick-up-the-ass yutz he's playing, but he's flat out awesome as psychotic criminal Don Logan. Less funny, but somewhat more terrifying is Ian Holm as Jack the Ripper in the otherwise crummy Hughes brothers movie From Hell. His black-eyed monologue while cutting out a woman's heart conveys the lucid, controlled madness of the character.

Worst British bad-asses: the parade of Brits trying their best to sound like American crackers in Blackhawk Down. It's ridiculous: Ewan MacGregor, Jason Isaacs, Ewen Bremner, Ioan Gruffudd, and the Australians (who are honorary Brits, after all) Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana, all doing some sort of vague, twangy accent for no discernible reason.

Stupidest action scene: the flying bus in Swordfish. Novel! Bold! Retarded!

Line of the Year: "You taste like burger. I don't like you anymore." --Wet Hot American Summer