They are the Naughts, not the Nils...

Or at least that's what Jethro would call them.
And he was a rocket scientist.

Thought it was aughts

Yes, Marty has been en fuego the last couple of years, much the way Chris Hitchens has been. I will forgive him his championing of Gore, which I will now officially write off as "purely personal." (His Gore-love led to the unforgivable canning of Michael Kelly, though.) I once subscribed to TNR (for roughly 15 years), but I let the subscription lapse when all the "Yeah, Gore!" stuff got to be too much. Ironically (I guess that's what you'd call it), pretty much the only person who ever writes anything worth a damn for 'em these days is Peretz, but the little pisher editors in his employ do their best to keep him off the pages. (I check out TNR online from time to time, reading what I can without a subscription, and the blurbs for many of their subscription-only pieces pretty much give away the game that most of its writers are reflexively anti-Bush, in the most juvenile way.)

You can use since the turn of the century or in this decade in conversation. Everyone will know what you are referring to...

What we'll call them after 2010 is anyone's guess.

Last time around it was known as the ‘ought's from the word nought (which means nothing).

ace: Which guy in Barcelona do you identify with most?

Peretz was a big Gore booster (Gore was his protege after all), but P. really hated/hates Kerry. Which is neat.

Just call them the "Naughties," snicker once lightly, and then slap yourself really hard for snickering at that stupid name.

But still call them the "Naughties," because you can't help but appreciate anything that lets us take ourselves a bit less seriously.

I have been calling the years after the ninties the decade of the zero's.

Barcelona one of my favorite films. Dialogue like that ain't easy to write. Ted and Fred's various discussions are truly great.

Whit Stillman (writer/director) also did The Last Days of Disco, which was pretty good. I've never seen his first film, Metropolitan.

Guy can sure write, though.

As for which character I identify most with, it is, unfortunately, Ted. I always aspired to be Fred, though. And in my journeys in Europe, I always managed to offend people like Fred.

Metropolitan - Studying for college finals, decided to walk to a local theater and sit through a movie, any movie - just needed something to help turn off my brain for a bit. Sat down for Metro not knowing/caring a thing about beforehand, somthing I never do. Turned into one of my best, favorite moviegoing experiences. Up there with Raiders of Lost Arc as a kid for me.

Stillman writes the fuck out of his stuff. Read somewhere he took 4 years on the script to Barcelona. And while I don't think people really talk like he writes - real people aren't that literary - I don't care. (Much the same way I don't think people really talk the way Mamet writes.) It's just so good.

Stillman may be my favorite modern fimmaker (though if Was Anderson ever gets over his own cutesy 'creativity', he'll give him a fight) and I think he must also be a conservative, his characters struggling with how to live moral or worthy, meaningful lives amidst 'feels-good' amorality - the only real struggle left in our cushy, nature conquered, American lives.

Anyway, don't think Metro's out on DVD yet, but if you can find it, it's wonderful.

"What we'll call them after 2010 is anyone's guess."

The Bush years.

And Stillman rules, but Last Days of Disco sucked.