...In which our heroine makes another list.

I always struggle making year-end lists for film because I never get around to seeing everything I want to in a timely manner. I still need to view A Single Man and Crazy Heart, but I've seen the large majority of everything else this year.

It was a weak year for film, I must say. There were a lot of good films, but even on my list, I think there's only one or two great films. Nothing has polarized me the way Slumdog Millionaire, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Pan's Labryrinth, or Children of Men did in the past couple Oscar races. Any other year, and some of these films wouldn't make the list.

10. Avatar, Directed by James Cameron
I'll say that the plot and dialogue is laughably bad and recycled for most of the film. It's nothing new, but James Cameron is such an adept storyteller, you don't care, you're too busy being immersed in the world of Pandora. I don't know that I'll ever want to watch this film again, because nothing at home can mimic the in theatre, 3-D experience. But I included it because I really do think the technology and the gorgeous 3-D used is the next great leap forward in filmmaking. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

9. The Hangover, Directed by Todd Phillips
Yes, I'm serious. It's hard to do stupid guy comedy well, but this film managed to. Even my mom liked it. There were some truly inspired parts to the script - Mike Tyson! - and I laughed a lot, thanks in no small part to Zach Galifianakis. Sometimes you just need some low-brow comedy, and why not watch one that's a little better than the rest of the herd.

8. A Serious Man, Directed by the Coen BrothersI've had some time to consider this film, and I like it a lot more than upon initial viewing. It's one of the Coens darkly comic works - more Fargo than No Country for Old Men - but it's not as good as either of those films. Michael Stuhlbarg is excellent in the lead role, and I give it major points for a jaw-dropping ending as well the best filmed depiction of what being stoned is like.

7. District 9, Directed by Neill Blokamp
What a good year for sci-fi. This was the best of the bunch, and shows the ingenuity goes further than millions of dollars like some other film on this list. The application of alien lifeforms in South Africa was a really interesting move in terms of script, and Sharlto Copley plays a great stranger in a strange land. And any film that can be disgustingly gory, and later on, exceedingly touching, is doing something right.

6. Up, Directed by Pete Docter
Seven. That's the number of times I started crying during this, which I'll maintain has no business being a kids movie. This is far from my favorite Pixar film, but I thought the blend of cute stuff for kids with a heavier emotional tone showed what they're best at. A waste of 3-D though, I should've seen it normally.

5. The Road, Directed by John Hillcoat
The biggest travesty of the year is that this isn't getting more attention, especially Viggo Mortensen's performance. I had read the book, so I thought I was prepared for the bleak apocalyptic landscapes and dark dark dark subject matter. I wasn't, and most of the film I sat there either crying or feeling like my guts were slowly being ripped out. This was an exceedingly tough watch, even for my cynical, film school self, but it was also the most beautiful apocalypse put to film. The little boy, Kodi-McPhee Smit, is also marvelous for such heavy material at his age.

4. An Education, Directed by Lone Scherfig
This falls into the 1% of chick flicks that don't suck. I really hope Carey Mulligan wins Best Actress, because without even opening her mouth, the way she holds her shoulders, her awkwardness, the sly smile - she explains being what a teenage girl is really like. Every time this film steered into the land of convention, it quickly twisted right back out. I'm as much of a sucker for 1960s stuff as I am for Peter Sarsgaard, who as the older man who courts school girl Jenny, always has enough charm to make a 30 year old dating a teenage acceptable. But my favorite relationship in the film is between Jenny and her parents, played by Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour. They aren't ever perfect, but they try their best. That sounds familiar.

3. The Hurt Locker, Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
I really hope this is the year. A woman needs to win a Best Director Oscar, and I love Kathryn Bigelow. This is a great film to do it - a gritty drama about a bomb squad that needed a woman's touch to turn it from a political show of machismo to an interesting, heartbreaking character study. This is an uneasy watch too, full of tension, but that tension makes it feel all the more real. Jeremy Renner continues to show a lot of promise as an actor and is a hard to love and hard to hate lead character.

2. Drag Me to Hell, Directed by Sam Raimi
The best American horror film in at least 15 years, and all with a PG-13 rating! Raimi is a wonderful filmmaker, and knows that the biggest scares are left unseen and sometimes, just need to be heard. The misdirection, the surround sound, the pop-out gags - it was all genuinely scary. The seance scene is one for the Raimi archives, right up there with the laughing deer head. I didn't even hate Justin Long in it. Kudos to a horror film for going for it to - the final girl does in fact get dragged to hell. It warmed my heart so.

1. Inglourious Basterds, Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Quentin has redeemed himself in my eyes. This is a great war film, with lots of little geeky film snob references throughout. Hans Landa is a fantastic villain, and I hope Christoph Waltz wins the Oscar. I would've liked more of Brad Pitt as Aldo Raine, and more of the Bear Jew, and maybe less Shoshanna, but they are minor issues. I loved the bursts of violence in contrast to long, drawn out conversations that Tarantino loves. The opening and closing twenty minutes are as perfect as film gets. The "Cat People" sequence gave me chills. An outstanding film, and my second favorite thing Tarantino has ever done.

Worst of the year is without a doubt Jennifer's Body. So, so terrible. The biggest disappointment was Funny People.