Throughout December, I have reminisced about my fondest
in-cinema memories of the 00s and catalogued the films that I am
most eager to encounter or
revisit. Sure, I longed to catch up on
everything that eluded me earlier, and to reassess films for which I suspect, for better or worse, that
my first appraisal might have missed the mark. But this goal was hopeless and, I think, unhealthy:
it's good to have things to look forward to, and lingering prospects for reacquaintance. It's silly to treat
the end of any year as a now-or-never deadline for artistic enrichment. Besides, the 100 films I have collected here,
whatever I omitted through neglect or misjudgment, are as thrilling a time-capsule as I could ever want of a decade's ecstatic pleasures.