A lot of people struggled with what to call this decade. From the aughties, the zeros, the nothings, the 00's, I think Time magazine got it right though when they called it the Decade from Hell. Let's face it, it simply has not been a good decade. Even if your situation is good, most people don't have to look far to find someone else that had the worst ten years of their lives. It was the kind of decade where tons of people got their graduate degree simply because they couldn't find a job. Want proof that it was a crappy decade? Follow me as I show you the movie that defined each and every year.

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2000 - Requiem for a Dream

The year 2000 left the entire world in a virtual hangover. All the mystery and excitement of a new millennium was revealed to be... well... hoopla. Y2K was absolutely no big deal. The world didn't end in any way, shape, or form. Nothing even really changed. The year 2000 was one of the biggest psychological let downs that the world had ever known. The feeling of malaise fell into everything, as people for a brief moment recognised their bleak existence. The greatest moment in a thousand years had come and gone, and nothing really happened. It is hard to stomach that kind of let down.

Requiem for a Dream was the perfect movie for the year. The film centred around Harry Goldfarb (Jared Leto) and his immediate friends and family. One by one, each is destroyed by addiction as they chase a seemingly reachable American Dream. In the end, they were each left with nothing, but shattered dreams and fractured lives. The realisation that the American Dream is all but dead was felt by the American collective conscience. Hope, as it turns out, can be crueller than despair. It is funny how people dwell on the bad times and not the good. 2000, as it turns out, would be one of the better years of the decade, even if it was kind of a bummer.

2001 - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The year 2001 was a wake up call. A dark, foreboding alarm that rang louder than most could tolerate. Terrorist attacks across the world increased and on September 11th, al-Qaeda brought it to the United States. The resulting blow to the American psyche was apparent. The day the World Trade Center fell wasn't just remembered, but the exact moment was etched into the collective American conscience. Forever joining moments such as the Challenger explosion and JFK assassination. Everyone has stories, memories, ties to the attack. Sometimes it takes a disaster to wake a nation.

Even though the Lord of the Rings came out in December, it represented the American sentiment better than any other film of the year. No one defines 2001 by the events before 9/11, only after. The Lord of the Rings offered a needed escape; a classic adventure defined by the struggle between the forces of good and evil. The Fellowship of the Ring gave people just that. A way to get lost in perhaps the greatest fantasy story ever told. You could say Frodo was just a prophetic representation of America being struck down by Ring Wraith terrorists on Weathertop, only to persevere and eventually overcome them. Then again that sounds really, really lame.

2002 - Bowling for Columbine

For all the emotion and turmoil that 2001 brought, it also brought a lot of unity to America. Well, you could call it unity, but it was more realistically over-fervent patriotism bordering on zealotry. Arabs quickly became the new black and any criticism of the government was seen as un-American and pro-terrorist. In 2001, only a few vocal advocates had begun to question the blind support of George W. Bush. Susan Sontag and Bill Maher are just two examples of strong minds that were quickly branded as un-American for their criticisms of Bush and the government. Emotions began to cool though and 2002 brought back a lot of bipartisan squabbling and much needed reflection. Over the course of the year, people realized just how many liberties Bush had actually taken in the name of safety. The US Patriot Act and Homeland Security had set up ways for the government to strip away civil liberties in order to combat the threat of terrorism.

The rebellious liberal spirit infused back into Americans and allowed for probably the most infamous propagandist filmmakers of all time to rise to fame. Loud mouthed, pompous, biased - all aptly describe Michael Moore. Don't get me wrong, the dude is a great filmmaker and tells a fantastic story; he just uses subterfuge, chicanery and straight up misinformation to make his selling points. Bowling for Columbine is probably his best work to date, although his debut film Roger & Me is far more poignant and far less "fantastic." Its success and spirit really helped define America in 2002. A nation again on the verge of a drastic split between Republican and Democrat. A schism that exists to this day as political issues became the defining forefront of American culture. The "war on guns" is just one of the facets that divide the two parties and Moore presented a very compelling argument for their banning with this portrait of one of America's darker events.

2003 - Kill Bill, Vol 1

I hate defining so much of our decade by a single man, but George W. Bush really did influence the entire direction of the American decade. In 2003, the same horn kept getting touted and Bush materialized many people's fears by becoming dangerously close to Caesar. In March, Bush launched a massive invasion of Iraq in an effort to finally win his father's war. Under the guise of hunting WMD's (that all intelligence would point to not existing) Baghdad was taken quickly and forcefully. It was a one-sided, effective military victory that would supposedly be over by May 1st when Bush pronounced to the world - "Mission Accomplished." What a fucking farce.

From the start to the still looming end, everything about Iraq was some convoluted mistake. Kill Bill, Vol 1 offered an escape, it offered awesome action, tight cinematography, and a hero you could believe in. No lies, no fakes. Tarantino's "The Bride" took to the American conscious in a violent storm. Part Spaghetti western, part Hong Kong kung-fu flick, part Wuxia-Chanbara, part anime, part American crime film - it was all fun. There were no pulled punches, it was unadulterated honesty and holy hell did America need it that year. We needed entertainment, we needed an escape, and by god we needed a hero. As the summer dragged on the war became a quagmire of foreign policy disaster and the "new" America saw itself live long enough to become the villain. Still no Osama, definitely no WMD's. At least we could count on Bill to be killed.

2004 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2004 wasn't much better than 2003. It was a bitter-sweet year filled with the Red Sox breaking their pennant curse, the Summer Olympics in Athens, and gays making massive ground in their civil movement. Then again it was also the year of Abu Ghraib, Blackwater scandals, and the death of beloved President Ronald Reagan. George Bush managed to get elected again despite increasingly slipping approval ratings. Democrats did take over congress which sent a clear message the Republican parties' sins were not forgiven.

Bush's re-election really proves that people can erase their minds and forget all the bad. Which hey, is just like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. When you forget all the bad things a person has done, it really helps you to remember just why you liked them in the first place. What it came down to is values. The Republican party was a dead horse, but it represented the things that made a vast majority of Americans happy. Family values, Christian philosophy, and the fierce independent American spirit. The things people had come to realize were of vital importance after 9/11. So fuck me blimey, when we totally went Jim Carrey and forgot that Bush was a lying hypocrite and reelected him. Things couldn't get much worse after all right? Maybe the second time around he might accomplish the goals his party promised. Maybe if we erased our minds and fell in love with him again we could do it right the second time around.

2005 - Sin City

So how did George Bush fair in 2005? Well with approval ratings nearing closer and closer to 40%, the answer was not very well. Do you know what its like to have every bit of hope squashed out of you? That's how many Americans felt in 2005. The Iraq War was still drawn out with constant insurgent attacks. Osama was still at large. WMD's definitely didn't exist. ...and for what? We were hated across the world. Our Republican president and Democratic congress proved they absolutely could not do a thing together. I can't think of a single piece of meaningful progress during this time.

Sin City matched the mood perfectly. When I think back to 2005 I don't think of happiness or sunshine. I picture rainy nights in a gritty city. I picture a world where all the heroes have to die because the evil is too great for them to overcome. Goodwill was a commodity, squandered and seen by few. Dark damn times, and it was only about to get worse. It is no wonder people flocked to Sin City where even the heroes only seemed to be a stone's throw from being the villain.

2006 - The Departed

I think of 2006 as 2005 +1. It was the same crap, stretched a little further. The same feelings, the same despair. Except you add on stagnant wages and a moderate dose of inflation. Gas prices doubled, which caused a general boil over on all prices across the nation. I watched the drink machine prices at work raise a nickel or dime every other week. Stuff I ordered at restaurants for years went up in price. Stocks began to fall and all the signs of a coming depression loomed. It really didn't take a college education or hindsight to see was coming. Most people were already trying to sell off their real estate and debating whether to break their 401k's.

The Departed was the ultimate movie to match the defeated mood of the year. One of the best crime movies of all time painted a picture where there were no winners. The concept of a good guy and a bad guy is rolled and stretched as the lines between good and bad are brought closer and closer together. Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg all gave astounding performances. Just as you thought you had a winner - everyone lost. The frustration, the futility, the feeling of 2006.

2007 - No Country for Old Men

Then of course there is 2007. Which is pretty much the same as 2005 and 2006 except the spiral downward was rampant instead of prolonged. Not only did America have an oppressive feel abroad, but domestically things went down the crapper. The unemployment rate began to sparkle, the real estate officially bubble burst, and companies began to show signs of failure. Lovely damn decade its been.

No Country for Old Men. What more is there to say. Everyman for themselves. Your heroes won't get there on time, but you can damn well bet the bad guy will. Many people flipped a lot of coins that year as they met their own versions of Anton Chigurh. Whether it was a 401k that disappeared overnight, high-risk real estate failures, or simply their job being lost. Times got very rough, very fast for many people. It was a really crappy year in a line of crappy years. What a decade so far!

2008 - The Dark Knight

Holy crap! Something good actually seemed to happen this year. The American people seemed arisen by the fact they would finally get rid of the most unpopular president ever and get someone in the office that could deal with a looming depression and issues that had been largely ignored for the last eight years. The question of the year was who could do it? The obvious figures were former First Wife Hilary Clinton, the hero of 9/11 Rudy Giuliani and the maverick John McCain. Out of nowhere though a young senator named Barack Obama began to take notice and in a whirlwind campaign for the ages took not only the Democrat nomination, but the whole dang election. Obama won the election simply by offering hope to an America that longed for it. Argue it any way you want, but that was the heart of the matter. Obama became a symbol of hope.

The Dark Knight and its complex take on heroes and villains seemed to fit the bill perfectly for this year. After all, the primary message of The Dark Knight was that people need something to fear and in something to hope. Ever since 9/11 America had its fear, but where was its hope? It certainly wasn't in the unpopular Bush and no other strong figures had stepped up to lead American. Our actors, musicians, and athletes produced nothing but embarrassment and scandal. Role models were nowhere to be found. It is no wonder Obama won, when he was the only one selling the one thing America wanted and needed. A figure to stand up and fight back, when everyone else seemed to just give in and become a part of the problem. Only time will tell if Obama will die a hero or live long enough to see himself become the villain.

2009 - The Hangover

Somehow 2009 has been more or less defined by what Obama hasn't done. In a single year, many people expected him to fix the economy, reform health care, rope in corporate America, legalize marijuana, solve the immigration problem, address gay rights, find the end of the rainbow in Iraq, fix gun regulation and establish world harmony. While he's still making headway in the most important areas, its amazing he's accomplished anything at all considering the numerous fronts and problems he was left to handle. I wish he could make some effort to address the easier issues - gay rights and the immigration problem - however I'll settle for what he has done. Most specifically, his foreign policies have made it easier to travel as an American again. However, its not enough yet. People are tired of all these issues. Issues that Congress and Bush ignored while chasing around baseball players for steroids and Janet Jackson's Superbowl nipple.

Which is why 2009 is the year defined by The Hangover. We've had enough misery. It's the morning after, we want to find our friend and go home. Go back to our happy little existence where our biggest issue is whether or not our President diddled some fat chick. Go back to fixing warm fuzzy problems like the environment. Enough of this dark, bleak human rights shit. We want some sunshine, dammit. The situation had gotten so deplorable, so ridiculous it couldn't be anything, but a dark comedy. 2009 is all about how American is going from a wolfpack of one to a wolfpack of some. Get ready 2010 because we're coming, and we probably won't remember a damn thing. Especially, the fact that there is a naked Korean in our trunk.

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Look. Things have to get better right? I mean outside of an invasion or the dead rising it can't get much worse. I'm curious to see what the next ten years will bring and definitely what movies I'll remember each year for. To the next decade! Thank God this one is over.

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