Now that I mention it, I've been thinking a lot about character actors recently. One of the pleasures of watching a lot of movies is learning to recognize the lesser-known actors you'll often see three or four times a year in random films, and being as pleased to see them as you are when you meet a friend in the street. Character actors rarely, if ever, give a bad performance; they usually aren't cast for anything but talent, for one thing, so when you're in the presence of a great character actor, you can relax and feel assured that you're about to see a finely crafted little vingette, even in mediocre roles.

My discovery of the year was Brian Cox, who has been around for a long time but whose career seemed to reach critical mass in 2002 (he appeared in The Rookie, The Bourne Identity, The Ring, Adaptation, and 25th Hour), and who was given two extended speeches that I'll treasure forver: his harangue on the drama of everyday life, as screenwriting guru Robert McKee in Adaptation, and his vision of the life that "came so close to never happening," as Edward Norton's father in 25th Hour.

So far as other character actors go, it's nice to see that Chris Cooper, with his Oscar nomination for Adaptation, is finally slipping across that vague boundary that separates character actor from star; William H. Macy and James Cromwell are among his more recent predecessors. That boundary is a fascinating one; only time will tell where John C. Reilly will end up.