The Best of the 2000s never ends, it goes on and on and on and on...
Unlike Al Capone in the Costner/Connery/DeNiro classic
The Untouchables, we're not here to recognize individual achievements with a baseball bat to the back of the head. We're just going to say a few words and let these people go along on their merry way because that's much nicer. I'd love to show clips of the work I am about to highlight, but YouTube is notorious for pulling movie clips all the time so I'll just urge you to seek this stuff out if it interests you. Or not, I don't care. I'm just winding out this blog to its inevitable conclusion, probably.
Anyways, here’s where we take a few moments to remember the great filmatic performances that some talented people made possible. Is it obvious how useless I think this is? And yet, IT MUST BE DONE. It is the way of things; the way of The Force.
Please note that films cited in parentheses represent a selection of that artist’s best work over the last decade and is not meant as an exhaustive list of everything they’ve been in (though it sometimes happens; "people be awesome").
And no, George, you and your stuff didn’t even make the list. In fact, you probably kept John Hurt, Ewan McGregor and the lovely Cate Blanchett off the list with your tired cinematic stylings. You and your pal Steve spent the last decade
spinning your wheels and
raping Indiana Jones over a pinball machine; you’ll get nothing and like it.
The Stanley Kubrick Trophy (Achievement in Directing)Nominees:
Brad Anderson (
Session 9/The Machinist/Transsiberian)
P.T. Anderson (
Punch Drunk Love/There Will Be Blood)
Wes Anderson (
The Royal Tennenbaums/The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou)
Joel & Ethan Coen (
The Man Who Wasn’t There/No Country For Old Men)
Kerry Conran (
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow)
David Fincher (
Zodiac)
Mel Gibson (
Apocalypto)
Spike Jonze (
Adaptation./Where The Wild Things Are)
David Lynch (
Mulholland Drive/INLAND EMPIRE)
Christopher Nolan (
Memento/Batman Begins/The Prestige/The Dark Knight)
Tarsem Singh (
The Fall)
Quentin Tarantino (
Inglourious Basterds)
Winner: Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze took Charlie Kaufman’s mobius strip of a script and somehow got Nicolas Cage to do a credible job in
Adaptation., then spent the rest of the decade chasing the white whale that was
Where The Wild Things Are. Let’s not forget that this is also the guy who directed the Sabotage video. I tried not to let that affect the voting, really I did, but seriously.
A word on some of the other nominees: In the 90s, Brad Anderson made some interesting romantic comedies. Changing genres, he spent the last decade turning himself into the closest thing we have to a modern-day Hitchcock, with films like Session 9,
The Machinist (you remember, the “Christian Bale lost all that weight between Batman films” movie), and
Transsiberian. We didn’t hear a whole lot from David Fincher, but
Zodiac was another solid entry for his IMDb page.
Benjamin Button? Eh. A veteran to the film world, Mel Gibson sure knows how to tell a story, and after subjecting millions to the sadistic filmed depiction of the death of Christ, decided to make
Apocalypto and tell an exciting story with no English dialogue. What can I say, the man knows his way around a camera. And guys like P.T. Anderson, the Coen brothers, and David Lynch are just too awesome not to make the list. Really, any one of these directors could have won this, which shows what a great decade for films the 2000s was. Even with all those crappy
Transformers and
Fantastic Four movies.
The Martin Scorsese Mean Streets Award (Rookie Director of the Decade)Nominees:
Nimród Antal (
Kontroll)
Shane Carruth (
Primer)
Kerry Conran (
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow)
Tony Gilroy (
Michael Clayton)
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (
Das Leben der Anderen [The Lives of Others])
Duncan Jones (
Moon)
Richard Kelly (
Donnie Darko)
Sarah Polley (
Away From Her)
Winner: Sarah Polley & Duncan Jones (tie)


Canadian actress Sarah Polley tried her hand at directing with the absolutely brilliant and heartbreaking
Away From Her, in a rookie-of-the-decade tie with
Moon’s Duncan Jones. I've typed extensively about these films elsewhere, they are both awesome.
The Orson Welles Paul Masson Wine Award (Best Actor)Nominees:
George Clooney (
Good Night, and Good Luck/Syriana/The Good German/Michael Clayton/Burn After Reading/The Men Who Stare at Goats/Up In The Air)
Chiwetel Ejiofor (
Dirty Pretty Things/Serenity/Inside Man/Children of Men/Redbelt)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (
Almost Famous/25th Hour/Owning Mahowny/Mission Impossible III/Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead/The Savages/Charlie Wilson’s War/Synecdoche, New York)
Sam Rockwell (
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind/Matchstick Men/Frost/Nixon/Moon)
Shane West (
What We Do Is Secret)
Winner: Philip Seymour Hoffman

Philip Seymour Hoffman has been making a name for himself for a few years now, but nowhere was his talent more evident than in the brilliant but difficult
Synecdoche, New York. But he should also get props for
Along Came Polly; otherwise the term “shart” may never have entered the lexicon. Also, his turn in the much-overlooked
Owning Mahowny was pretty great as well. Did I mention
Synecdoche, New York?
On the other nominees: As much as I both perversely enjoyed and am trying to forget
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Shane West gets some love for his turn as Darby Crash in
What We Do Is Secret. He made the role his own and took it so seriously he is now fronting the recently re-formed Germs. One of the decade’s breakout actors has been Chiwetel Ejiofor, and he’s never been better than in Stephen Frears’
Dirty Pretty Things. He was no slouch as The Operative in
Serenity, either, or
Redbelt, or…I’ll stop now. Suffice it to say, the man is solid. Sam Rockwell has been reliably bringing the quirk for a while now, but during the 2000s he’s really come into his own. Can you imagine anyone else as Sam Bell in
Moon? Try it. It doesn’t work. More on Clooney below.
The Errol Flynn Iconoclast AwardWinner: George Clooney

It almost pains me to say it, but just as Tom Hanks is to Jimmy Stewart, George Clooney is the Cary Grant of his generation. What that says for his generation…I’ll let you come to your own conclusions. But there it is. The guy’s got skill, he can seriously direct (
Good Night and Good Luck was amazing) and he uses his prestige to do whatever he wants (which tends to be interesting stuff). Look at his IMDb page; he hasn’t made a cash-grab piece of garbage in years (as long as you don’t count the
Oceans films, which aren’t so much a cash grab as they are an excuse for a bunch of Hollywood people to have fun on a film set and you get to watch the results).
The Katherine Hepburn’s Pants Trophy (Best Actress)Nominees:
Julie Christie (
Away From Her)
Laura Dern (
INLAND EMPIRE)
Tilda Swinton (
The Deep End/Thumbsucker/Michael Clayton/The Limits of Control)
Catinca Untaru (
The Fall)
Carice van Houten (
Zwartboek [Black Book]/Valkyrie)
Naomi Watts (
Mulholland Drive/ I ♥ Huckabees/Eastern Promises/Funny Games)
Winner: Naomi Watts

No one – NO ONE – in the business has a range of emotive expression that comes close to Naomi Watts. The audition scene from
Mulholland Drive alone is the single greatest bit of acting I saw this decade. Plus, she almost made me believe in
The Fakest King Kong Ever, and her performance in Haenke’s English-language
Funny Games remake was just heartbreaking.
Regarding the remaining ladies: Just like it’s not easy to credibly act like a crazy person, it’s equally difficult to portray getting old and losing one’s mind without the performance turning into parody. Julie Christie’s portrayal of a woman with dementia in
Away From Her was a career-defining performance, which is saying something when you’re talking about Julie Christie. Carice van Houten gets a lifetime pass for enduring a whole lot of (both literal and figurative) crap in
Zwartboek [Black Book]. I’m not sure what it is about David Lynch that brings out amazing performances from actresses, but Laura Dern was absolutely robbed of an Oscar nod for her turn in
INLAND EMPIRE. What’s left to say about Tilda Swinton at this point? I mean really. And whether it’s acting or not, mad props to Catinca Untaru in
The Fall. I really feel badly about not including Cate Blanchett on this list, but then she agreed to fight in the French Invasion of Normandy-I Mean Dover in that recent
Robin Hood movie, and the bad accent Steve made her use in that
Indiana Jones corpse-picking disqualifies her from the running. And I feel bad all the same, because this is her award, I mean it's the Katherine Hepburn's Pants Trophy, you know? Oh well.
The Edward G. Robinson “Where’s Your Messiah Now” Trophy (Best Supporting Actor)Nominees:
Willem Dafoe (
Shadow of the Vampire/Auto Focus/Finding Nemo/The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou)
Eugene Hutz (
Everything Is Illuminated)
Bill Nighy (
State of Play/Love, Actually/Underworld/Shaun of the Dead/The Girl in the Café/The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy/The Constant Gardener/Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest/Flushed Away/Valkyrie)
Mark Wahlberg (
I ♥ Huckabees/The Departed)
Christoph Waltz (
Inglourious Basterds)
Tom Wilkinson (
The Patriot/Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind/Batman Begins/Michael Clayton/John Adams/Recount/RocknRolla/Valkyrie)
Benedict Wong (
State of Play/Dirty Pretty Things/Sunshine/Moon)
Winner: Bill Nighy & Tom Wilkinson (tie)

Since I first saw him in
The Patriot, Tom Wilkinson has impressed me in every film, even when he had that terrible accent in
Batman Begins. But he really outdid himself with his turn as off-his-meds lawyer Arthur Edens in
Michael Clayton. (He was also really good as Ben Franklin in
John Adams and James Baker in
Recount for HBO.)
Not to be outdone is Bill Nighy, who made his first major mark in Richard Curtis’ romantic comedy
Love, Actually as a washed-up former rock star then proceeded to vary his roles by showing up in those
Underworld films,
Shaun of the Dead, and as Slartibartfast in
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And yes, he was great as Davy Jones in the last two (otherwise terrible)
Pirates of the Caribbean films, but for me his best work in the decade was in the TV films
State of Play and
The Girl in the Café. Brilliant actors. There was no way to choose between the two.
Notes on the other nominees: Few things in life have brought me more joy than Willem Dafoe as Klaus Daimler in
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I’m not even going to discuss it, there aren't words. Benedict Wong has been blipping on my character actor radar since I saw him in
Dirty Pretty Things, and he’s been turning up in everything from the BBC’s
State of Play to Danny Boyle’s
Sunshine. Hopefully, we’ll see more of his work in the future. Eugene Hutz is not an actor. He is the frontman of gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello. He is also the best thing (among many great things) about the film
Everything Is Illuminated. And in between saying “Hi” to various animals and running from killer plants, Mark Wahlberg decided not kill his career by proving he has some skill. For every
Shooter or
Max Payne that the guy’s made, he’s got career-defining roles in
The Departed and
I ♥ Huckabees that will ensure no matter how much crap he makes, someone will give him a job and if the material is good enough, he'll knock it out of the park. Christoph Waltz almost walked away with this one on the strength of Hans Landa alone, but the overwhelming weight of Nighy and Wilkinson simply could not be denied.
The Obligatory But By No Means Unnecessary (also: Sponsorship Still Available) Best Supporting Actress AwardNominees:
Maria Bello (
Auto Focus/The Cooler/Silver City/A History of Violence/Thank You For Smoking)
Marion Cotillard (
A Very Long Engagement/La Vie En Rose/Public Enemies)
Mélanie Laurent (
Inglourious Basterds)
Imogen Poots (
V For Vendetta/28 Weeks Later)
Amy Ryan (
Gone Baby Gone/Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead/Changeling)
Winner: Amy Ryan

Aside from her work in all these great films, I would just like to say that her role as Holly Flax on
The Office is probably the most inspired and ultimately heartbreaking televised work I’ve seen in a long time. Also, she was on
The Wire, so she’s got that going for her. I know this is for films and not TV, but it's my blog and I'll bend the rules if I want to.
The other nominees: Before Marion Cotillard won an Oscar for playing Edith Piaf in
La Vie En Rose, she was awesome as a vengeful femme fatale in
A Very Long Engagement. Maria Bello turned in some fine performances, like in
Thank You For Smoking,
A History of Violence, and especially
The Cooler, which is a film more people should know about. Mélanie Laurent…that one scene in the café with Hans Landa, the Jew Hunter was enough to put her on the list. I also liked Imogen Poots in
28 Weeks Later, but mostly because she’s real purty and her name is Imogen Poooooots.

She is hypnotizing me with her eyes!!!!
Next up, we chronicle the 15 best films of the decade that was (I told you it was a good decade for films), and then I decide whether or not this blog gets taken out back and shot or not.