Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl: Helen Mirren as QE2 in "The Queen"

Some links worth reading and debating over the holidays:

1) It's debatable whether the current decade began January 1, 2000 or January 1, 2001. Likewise ripe for debate  is the Times of London's 100 Best Movies of the Decade. Unsurprisingly the list skews British and includes Stephen Frears' The Queen  (Helen Mirren, as QE2, pictured), a poignant portrait of the crowned head of England.

While lists of "vital titles" (as we call 'em around the house) are useful to movie geeks who want guidance with what to watch, more interesting to me than ranking the movies of the decade is teasing out their meaning. Movies of the first decade of the new millennium are distinguished in their interest in how technology informs and deforms human relations (Cache, Grizzly Man, The Lives of Others, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Not unrelated to this is how advances in technology have made possible certain effects-laden films (think The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gladiator). Your thoughts? Nominations for vital titles?

2) Over at Scanners, the erudite Jim Emerson gently mocks moviegoers who complain about the ambiguous endings of films such as Lost in Translation (what did Bill Murray whisper to Scarlett Johansson?) and No Country for Old Men (how do you interpret Tommy Lee Jones' dream) by compiling a list of "11 worst ambiguous endings," tongue firmly in cheek. Your nominations, sarcastic or otherwise?

3) While basting the bird, you might want to talk turkey, and consider this list of Thanksgiving-themed films from a 2007 Flickgrrl blog post. Which titles am I missing?

Happy holidays.