This is one of the better monologue kickoffs that David Letterman has ever delivered. That first line is perfect, and what a laugh it gets! And his facial expressions — his eyes especially — before he says the first word are brilliant.

I could write a small book about my selection of the 70 best films of the first 21st Century decade (i.e., 2000 to 2009), especially if I explain my reasons for listing each one. But this is just an article so let’s forego the whys and wherefores and get down to brass tacks, understanding, of course, that this is just a 10.5.09 moving-train assessment and 2009 obviously hasn’t played out yet.

(l. to r.) Elias Koteas, Anthony Edwards, Mark Ruffalo and John Carroll Lynch during a pivotal second-act scene in Zodiac.

And the brassiest tack of all is David Fincher’s Zodiac — my choice for the best film of the last ten years. (I’m speaking, of course, of the DVD/Blu-ray director’s cut.) Because it plays its game of obsession so exactingly and meticulously and with such staggering confidence, and with nothing but superb performances top to bottom. And because the film takes all this and amplifies it into a kind of infinite hall-of-mirrors equation by being as obsessive as Jake Gyllenhaal‘s Robert Grayson character, if not more so.

But that’s it — I don’t have all day to do this and I can’t and won’t provide summaries of my reasons for choosing all 68 films. Some other time.

I decided I had to include 37 films in my final best-of-the-best list. Here they are in order of preference: (1) Zodiac, (2) Memento, (3) Traffic, (4) Amores perros, (5) United 93, (6) Children of Men, (7) Adaptation, (8) City of God, (9) The Pianist, (10) The Lives of Others, (11) Sexy Beast, (12) No Country for Old Men, (12) There Will Be Blood, (13) Michael Clayton, (14) Almost Famous ( the “Untitled” DVD director’s cut), (15) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, (16) Dancer in the Dark, (17) Girlfight, (18) The Departed, (19) Babel, (20) Ghost World, (21) In the Bedroom, (22) Talk to Her, (23) Bloody Sunday, (24) The Quiet American, (25) Whale Rider, (26) Road to Perdition, (27) Open Range, (28) Touching the Void, (29) Maria Full of Grace, (30) Up In The Air, (31) The Hurt Locker, (32) Million Dollar Baby, (33) The Motorcycle Diaries, (34) An Education, (35) Man on Wire, (36) Revolutionary Road, and (37) Che.

The two strongest years of the last decade were 2000 and 2004, with 15 films of a great or near-great stature coming from the former and 14 from the latter. The weakest year of the decade, I feel, was 2008 with only three making the cut. Here’s the rundown, but understand that the films listed for each year are just tossed in and not listed in order of preference:

2000 (15 films): Sexy Beast, You Can Count On Me, Wonder Boys, Before Night Falls, Almost Famous (“Untitled” DVD director’s cut), Erin Brockovich, Amores perros, Dancer in the Dark, Girlfight, Gone in 60 Seconds (guilty pleasure), High Fidelity, In the Mood for Love, Memento, The Tao of Steve (2nd guilty pleasure), Traffic.

2001 (5 films): A Beautiful Mind, Ghost World, In the Bedroom, The Royal Tenenbaums, Y tu mama tambien.

2002 (11 films): 24 Hour Party People, Talk to Her , Bloody Sunday, 8 Mile, Adaptation, Bowling for Columbine, Changing Lanes, City of God, The Pianist , The Quiet American, Whale Rider, Road to Perdition.

2003 ( 8 films): Los Angeles Plays Itself, Bad Santa, The Fog of War, Master and Commander, Shattered Glass, 21 Grams, Open Range, Touching the Void.

2004 (15 films): Sideways, Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, The Incredibles, Fahrenheit 9/11, Bad Education, After Sunset, Man on Fire, Collateral, Downfall, Man on Fire, Mar adentro (The Sea Inside), Maria Full of Grace Million Dollar Baby, The Motorcycle Diaries, Napoleon Dynamite.

2005 (7 films): Grizzly Man, The Aristocrats, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, A History of Violence, Match Point.

2006 (5 films): United 93, The Departed, Babel, Children of Men, Notes on a Scandal.

2007 ( 8 films): Zodiac, Michael Clayton, I’m Not There, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, The Lives of Others ], 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Orphanage.

2008 (4 films): Man on Wire, Revolutionary Road, Che, WALL*E

2009 (3 films so far merit best-of-decade status): Up In The Air, An Education, The Hurt Locker.

We’re coming to the end of the first decade of the 21st Century. I’m going to post a list of…oh, 25 films, I suppose, that I consider the best among the last ten years. I could tap out a list of the best 100 without breaking a sweat, but we may as well be tough about this. There are two ways to assemble such a list. One is to deliberately exclude excellent films that were commercially popular, and the other, obviously, is to only choose films that were great but which the mob ignored. I may make a list of both kinds. In any case, I’m asking for lists from the readership as a way of starting the process.

This account of a guy having some kind of seizure during a recent New York Film Festival screening of Lars von Trier‘s Antichrist is another in a long line of of overly susceptible “weak sister” reactions to disturbing films. Among adults, I mean. We’re all impacted big-time by heavy films in early youth, but then you get older and begin to figure how things work and how to take films in stride.

There were similar reactions to screenings of Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho in 1960 and to William Friedkin‘s The Exorcist in ’72. I remember sitting close to a revolting girlyman during a repertory screening of Roman Polanski ‘s Macbeth back in the ’80s, and how he couldn’t stop flinching, twitching and groaning during the violent scenes. A woman threw up at a screening of the second Bourne film (the one Paul Greengrass directed) that I attended. It happens.

The only thing wrong with this analogy is that Antichrist doesn’t come close to being in the same pulverizing realm as Psycho, The Exorcist and the last act of Macbeth.

Have any serious film hounds ever had physically convulsive reactions to any films? I never have but maybe it’s more common than I realize. I’m asking.

The key phrase in Michael Fleming‘s report about Michael Mann‘s next film, a period war romance based on Susana Fortes‘ “Waiting for Robert Capa,” says that Mann “intends to make a gritty, low-budget film.” In other words, I’m surmising, Columbia has told him “yes for but for a price.” I think that creatively this will prove an excellent thing. Good filmmakers are always inspired by financial limitations.

It’s also interesting that there are strong similarities between the story, largely set during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s and dealing with a hot-and-heavy affair between war photographers Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, and Ernest Hemingway‘s For Whom The Bell Tolls. Mann wanted to make an adaptation of the classic novel a couple of years ago with Leonardo DiCaprio in the Gary Cooper role.

Every time a plane I’m on slowly glides downward and eventually lands, I find myself slipping into a mood of calm and acceptance. Or do I mean relief? Always a pleasant moment, in any case. I’ve posted this, in part, because was taken by the inability of the high-def video to “see” the propeller blades the way they actually look to the eye. For what it’s worth, this is the conclusion of yesterday’s prop-hop from Shreveport to Dallas/Forth Worth.

I was given ten minutes of Carey Mulligan time late this morning. Three minutes of standing around and chit-chatting with her publicist and seven minutes of actual taping time. I don’t want her playing girlfriends any more. She needs to be the star of the next few films, and it would be nice if she could speak with her natural British accent every so often.

Well, Sharon’s Waxman‘s 9.29 Wrap report about the coming dismissals of Universal co-chairmen David Linde and Marc Schmuger was right. They’ve been whacked, all right, with Universal marketing chief Adam Fogelson and production president Donna Langley taking their place with the same titles. Sorry about Linde and Schmuger’s fate. They had good taste, made good films and did Universal proud in one other teeny-weeny respect — their time at the helm resulted in the studio’s two most profitable years, according to studio chief Ron Meyer.

I have an 11:45 am one-on-one with An Education star Carey Mulligan, and then the N.Y. premiere this evening followed by an after-event. And a lot more in-between. No more filings until mid-afternoon.

This is one of the oldest cliches in the book, but my Shreveport experience last weekend reminded me once again that rural Southerners — maybe I’m talking about Southerners of all shapes and sizes — seem to generally be warmer, friendlier, easier-going people than blue-state urbans. More personable, kindlier, more ready to chat…nicer. I met some really serene people down there, and…well, that’s it. The only problem is that a good number of them are Republicans.

I’m a serious fan of the first 85% of Mike Nichols‘ Wolf, to such an extent that I might actually buy the Bluray. Its negative reputation, which I realize is accepted doctrine, is all because of the last 20 minutes, which had an obvious studio-mandated smell about them. I’m serious in calling it my favorite werewolf movie of all time as it’s obviously the most adult and sophisticated and, as far as it goes, semi-believable.

Jack Nicholson in Mike Nichols’ Wolf

Nichols’ film, aimed at 30-and-overs, probably wouldn’t have a prayer of being made today. I feel I’ve already seen the forthcoming Benicio del Toro version.

A friend told me I can’t post this because the pitchforkers will kill me, but the fact is that many European governments and cultures have more liberal standards about the age of consent than this country. I personally feel that 18 or thereabouts is the right age, but the facts are the facts. I’m only mentioning it because it provides a context by which an adult European-born male might have a different mindset about this than a U.S.-born male. Not an excuse for anything or anyone, but simply a basis for looking at you-know-what from a different perspective. Three, two, one…