Thinking a bit more about Matt Damon's problems as an actor, I've come to the conclusion that he just doesn't know how to use his voice. Neither, really, do Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, Edward Norton, or any of the young actors whom we're now supposed to accept as leading men, despite their thin, high voices. Is it simply because these guys were trained in television and independent film, not on the stage? Watching—and hearing—a classically trained actor like Christopher Plummer in Syriana, you think to yourself: Damn. But what's Ben Affleck going to sound like when he's eighty years old?

These guys aren't untalented, of course, and some of them are excellent actors. But I'd be interested to see if anyone can nominate an American actor under the age of forty whom you'd be glad to hear, rather than see. (Johnny Depp's forty-two, by the way.)