While the '00s -- or the Aughts, or whatever you want to call the decade almost past -- end at midnight Thursday, they leave a spectrum of legacies for us to consider heading into the '10s. Not a lot of them were very good for movies, unfortunately, but filmgoers can still find some pretty significant influences in all the debris and disappointments. And love them or hate them, some of the most important influences came in convenient character form. Read on for an assortment of the essentials, and of course add your own after browsing.
[In order of appearance]
· Leticia Musgrove (Monster's Ball, 2001)
Prior to Halle Berry's death-row widow -- who seduced her husband's executioner between whipping her obese son's hide -- it wasn't quite so fashionable for mainstream glamour actresses to go in search of uglified indie roles that might help validate them through awards-season attention. After Letitia changed Berry's life (however briefly), a similar tack worked for Nicole Kidman (The Hours), Charlize Theron (Monster), Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) and Kate Winslet (The Reader). And those were just Oscar winners; Naomi Watts (21 Grams), Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) and who knows how many others carried their films to prominence on the strength of performance and Oscar-worthy self-degradation.
· Jar Jar Binks (Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, 2002)
Yes, fans, I know the mincing, much-hated Gungan prat was introduced and received the majority of his franchise screen time in 1999's The Phantom Menace. Which is exactly the point: Prior to 2002, despite George Lucas's reedting, souping up and indiscriminately plundering the Star Wars universe to within an inch of its life, fans had to mount a global repudiation of Jar Jar Binks before the aloof filmmaker ever took their considerations to heart. Clones's reduction of Jar Jar to a minor role -- plus its reinstatement of C3PO as comic relief -- proved that even if Lucas wasn't always listening, he could be gotten to.
· Joel Barish (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004)
It was some kind of miracle that Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman got to make another movie after their maligned 2001 collaboration Human Nature. But there it was: Eternal Sunshine, their classic experiment in love, memory, medicine and narrative that has endured to become many critics' favorite film of the decade. As its principals shared a screenplay Oscar, the film's semi-autobiographical lead character made the '00s safe for both Gondry (who'd revisit similar themes on his own, and not quite as successfully, in The Science of Sleep) and Kaufman, whose Synechdoche, New York emerged as one of the most confounding and underrated films of this or any decade. Moreover, Barish's downbeat romantic represented the last (the only?) memorable character Jim Carrey would play in the '00s -- and maybe even a career peak.
· Ennis Del Mar (Brokeback Mountain, 2005)
There's not a lot more that can be said of Heath Ledger's lovesick Wyoming cowboy, who signaled a sea change in Hollywood's approach to gay characters at the movies. Beyond his political implications, however, Del Mar was just the perfect role for Ledger: Masculine yet sensitive, brooding but not especially self-aware, old soul in a young man's body, and a milestone of heartbreaking grace. Naturally he would be overlooked by Oscar voters, who conveniently waited until after Ledger's death in 2008 to officially recognize him. But forget the statuette -- it's what he did for Ang Lee's camera that makes him immortal.
· Effie White (Dreamgirls, 2006)
Say what you will about the quality of the film or the durability of Jennfier Hudson's performance as Effie, who would roll from rags to riches to rags to... something as a mega-voiced third of the superpower girlgroup. But Hudson's success in the role permanently rewrote the Hollywood myth of discovery, upending such sacrosanct legends as Lana Turner at Schwab's Drugstore with the queen- (and/or king-) making power of American Idol and other talent competitions. And to think: Hudson didn't even win. In any case, Effie anchored Idol and its peers in a legitimacy that made them all the more appealing to those dreamers who believe that someday this, too -- the screen idol -- can happen to them.
· Daniel Plainview (There Will Be Blood, 2007)
Beyond the obvious meme-friendly, scenery-devouring batshittery that ends viewers' time with Daniel Day-Lewis's oil-baron sociopath, the conclusion of There Will Be Blood persists as one of the '00s great triumphs of imagination. Just when Iraq- and Bush-obsessed critics had begun assigning deep political meaning to Plainview, Day-Lewis and director Paul Thomas Anderson turned on a dime to lock down the apolitical gothic horror masterpiece they knew they were making all along. That ruthless subversion of complacency and expectation not only helped affirm Blood as the decade's best film, but also established the gold standard for what a filmmaker and his star can and absolutely should aspire to as character-driven cinema slumps into the '10s.
· Speed Racer (Speed Racer, 2008)
Speed Racer wasn't the unmitigated failure a lot of folks considered it to be. For starters, its radical, foreground/middleground/background editing style should have done for montage what Avatar does for performance-capture. But on a more immediate level, the Wachowskis' $100 million bomb proved how even the makers of The Matrix weren't immune to the effects of poor casting, hubris and insularity. This lesson will not be forgotten as studios continue crying poor into the '10s. Serviceable as Emile Hirsch was as the title character, Speed Racer himself mostly just symbolized the pinnacle of big-budget folly -- especially with Iron Man and The Dark Knight showing just a few months later how aesthetic heft can actually enhance mass-pop accessibility.
· Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City, 2008)
Another '00s powerhouse with roots in the '90s, it wasn't until Sex and the City's heroine made it to the multiplex that her potential was fully realized. On HBO and later in syndication, small-screen Carrie was one of dozens of protagonists with whom viewers had a serialized relationship. That she was an independent, smart, affluent woman no doubt reinforced her influence with her audience. But it also made her introduction to the movies a genuine event. Carrie wasn't a tossed-off, interchangeable romcom shrew or a candidate for male-aided self-actualization. She (and her brand, of course) arrived fully formed for female viewers who love her and her friends and crave more. With $415 million globally in the bank and a sequel on the way, they'll get it. And assuming Hollywood is listening, it's probably just the beginning. Though that might be a big assumption.
· Neytiri (Avatar, 2009)
I also don't know what more to say about Zoe Saldana as the Na'vi princess who aids Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) transition into Pandoran life, except that her motion-capture dazzler is the first performance of its kind, and its emotional, technical, and maybe even awards-season success should insure that many actors after her will try it for themselves. We'll see -- in another 10 years.