The end of a decade brings out the End Of Decade lists. I have little qualification to talk about the Best Movies of the Decade. Better critics than I have already put their lists together; I could only re-arrange the order.
So the following list does not contain the Best Films of the Decade. But it has films that all meant something to me, personally. Call them my Signature Films of the First Decade of the Second Millennium. Or something snappier.
Part Two: The Post College Years: 2003-06
In 2003 I saw the first film that I got in an Internet argument over: Kill Bill. A combination of what I liked least about Quentin Tarantino’s style (not knowing how, or when, to edit) with what I liked least about samurai movies (gushing blood) made for an appalling ninety minutes. Strangers told me I was a barbarian for not picking up on, or appreciating, all of Tarantino’s subtle references. I knew they were references, guys; that doesn’t make the film any good. Still don’t like it.
I joined Netflix in late ’03. Netflix deserves its own special chapter in the history of film in the 21st century; what it’s done for the at-home viewing experience is nothing short of remarkable. I remember waiting for Catch Me If You Can, my first Netflix movie, with uncertainty. Was it going to show? Would it be in watchable condition? Netflix was new enough at this point, remember, that it could have all been a complicated scam or a poor business model. Today, as the dominant platform for watching DVDs at home, it’s hard to imagine a time when this was in doubt.
(Catch Me If You Can: diverting, not great)
Netflix exposed me to the best (Lawrence of Arabia, North by Northwest, Collateral, The Italian Job) and worst (Terminator 3, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Italian Job) that the last seventy years of film had to offer. It’s made me a more sophisticated student of film. It’s also given me plenty to blog about.
Finally, this was also the period when big-budget superhero flicks came back in style. With Spider-Man and X-Men opening the door earlier in the century, DC waded in with their heavy hitters. I saw Superman Returns on Independence Day in 2006, giving it a B for effort and a C-minus for output. I debated its merits and failings with Matt McG. at a rooftop barbecue later that afternoon. “It would have been a much more satisfying movie if Batman showed up on that Kryptonite island,” I remarked.
I was hearkening back to my memories of Batman Begins in 2005: a more mature and satisfying look at the superhero movie than I’d ever seen. Batman Begins was innately satisfying to me because it used the conventions of Serious Film – clever cinematography, good pacing, characterization, dialogue – to tell a story about a Comic Book. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man was good, sure, but it still had the flamboyance of a comic book splashed on screen. In the hands of Chris Nolan, however, you could believe that this Batman guy was real.
Part three on Friday, if I feel like it.
Winner: The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin. Le Guin’s strength has always been to illustrate the odd quirks of human society by depicting them through the eyes of aliens. In lesser writers, this might come across as a condemnation; with Le Guin, it’s simple re-evaluation. How does the commodification of labor, food, comfort, shelter and everything else we take for granted in a capitalist society shape us? It may be the most efficient means of distribution yet discovered (as I believe), but it is if nothing else odd. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed makes that clear.
Winner: Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane. A tough one, really. All the Harlan Coben and Lee Child novels were roughly equivalent – good, diverting, fast-paced but ultimately just a little too contrived to merit a Best In Year title. But Lehane has a smooth, strong style like the pull of gravity. His tale of two federal agents investigating a disappearance in an insane asylum keeps the reader rattled, uncertain and hooked all the way through. Read it before the movie comes out.
Winner: No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy. Stephenson’s penchant for long-winded asides, though entertaining and informative, keeps his novels from being the focused vectors of craft that they ought to be. And Bulgakov’s whirlwind satire of Stalinism vaults confusingly – though whimsically – from point to point. It’s McCarthy’s highly regarded novel that earns the top slot. Though all of his best novels concern the absurdity of human plans in the face of mortality, No Country makes those plans easily accessible to a modern audience (how to steal two million dollars of the mob’s money). And he gives mortality a face and a name, in the person of Anton Chigurh.
Winner: Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain. I wanted to give it to one of the political depth charges I read this year – Bacevich’s The Limits of Power, Sharlet’s The Family, Chalmers Johnson’s Nemesis. Ultimately, however, they all padded their word counts with exhaustive details that showed the depth of their research but sacrificed the grace of their story. Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, on the other hand, paints a vivid, unflattering and engrossing picture of the transactions going on in each restaurant kitchen in America. It’s a wild ride, and Bourdain deserves the fame this book has brought him.
Winner: Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson. Perhaps I’m cheating somewhat here, as I never finished Red Mars as a teenager. But that gave Robinson the greatest burden to fight against. I knew what to expect from Powers, Bester, Varley and Zelazny going in, but I had low expectations for Robinson. “I couldn’t slog my way through this before,” I thought, “what hope do I have now?” Boy, was I off. A sweeping, detailed, realistic and ultimately very human look at how a disparate group of humans might terraform our neighbor planet.
Winner: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz. Picking up this critically acclaimed novel, I was expecting a dense bildungsroman set in the Dominican Republic, one of those Important Novels that everybody reads but nobody enjoys. Instead, Diaz treated me to a breezy trip through three generations of laborers, hustlers, players and geeks. He sprinkles his anecdotes with note-perfect references to sci-fi and early 80s RPGs as well – and trust me, I would have noticed if he got them wrong. Read it, love it.
Winner: Emergency, Neil Strauss. Jack and Jill I should have known would let me down; more than enough critics have heaped their derision on James Patterson for me to be wise. And my inability to plow through How The Mind Works says as much of my short attention span as Pinker’s dense, myopic writing style. But Emergency was pitched to me as 
Winner: One Shot, Lee Child. Really, any of the Lee Child books could have answered here. Jack Reacher, his sullen, hulking ex-MP hero, is like Sherlock Holmes meets Jack Bauer: competent enough to take anybody down with his hands or with a gun, but usually capable of outwitting them first. Perfect beach or airport reading.
