The best -- and the rest

So it's time again to sort through the year's best and worst films, but this time around I have a strange situation in front of me. My favorite movie of the year was never released in America. So I can tell you about it, I can show you clips on YouTube -- and yet I know if you didn't it see at the Toronto International Film Festival in September or at the Chicago International Film Festival in October, or at some other festival somewhere your odds of seeing it in a theater are probably pretty slim.

That's because "Stilyagi (Hipsters)" has yet to find an American distributor, even though it won best picture in the Nika awards, the Russian equivalent of the Academy Awards. It wowed the audiences in Toronto and Chicago, too. Director Valery Todorovsky's electrifying musical comedy-drama combines familiar elements from "Footloose," "West Side Story," "Grease" and "Hairspray" in a story set against the backdrop of 1955 Moscow, where a gang of jazz-loving teens in candy-colored clothes and carefully coiffed hairdos shake up Soviet society, in which gray is the favorite shade of fashion designers. Here is a hint of how good this film is: I understand perhaps five words of Russian, yet I watched "Stilyagi" all the way through without the benefit of subtitles and still had a sensational time (thankfully, the story is not exactly Tolstoyesque in terms of its complexity).

So that was my top choice of 2009. But let's get down to a few films you might have actually seen. Here come this year's 10 best:

1. "Stilyagi (Hipsters)"

2. "Up in the Air"

3. "An Education"

4. "The Hurt Locker"

5. "Up"


6. "A Single Man"

7. "(500) Days of Summer"


8. "Anvil! The Story of Anvil"

9. "Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire"


10. "In the Loop"

And a bunch of worthwhile runner-ups (in alphabetical order): "Adventureland," "Adam," "Bright Star," "Broken Embraces," "The Class," "Coraline," "The Damned United," "District 9," "Drag Me to Hell," "Duplicity," "Every Little Step," "Fantastic Mr. Fox," "The Hangover," "The Informant!," "Inglorious Basterds," "It Might Get Loud," "It's Complicated," "Julie & Julia," "Me and Orson Welles," "The Messenger," "A Serious Man," "The September Issue," "The Young Victoria," "Zombieland."

I'm not bothering with a comprehensive 10 Worst list this year because, frankly, much of this year I actively avoided seeing anything I assumed I wouldn't like. After I stopped reviewing full-time at the end of May, I made a promise to myself I would not waste my time watching lousy films (unless there was a paycheck attached). So I missed out on "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," "Land of the Lost," "Imagine That," "Year One," "Dance Flick," "G-Force," "The Ugly Truth," "All About Steve" and many others that will undoubtedly find their places on other Worst of the Year lists. As for the awful films I did wind up seeing, I would dearly like to get back the 12 hours of my life squandered on:


1. "Transylmania"
2. "Fired Up"
3. "Confessions of a Shopaholic"
4. "New in Town"
5. "Knowing"
6. "The Informers"
7. "Fanboys"
8. "Paranormal Activity" (the year's most overhyped "phenomenon," a bad home-movie that was almost as "terrifying" as "The Hannah Montana Movie"; bring on the backlash)

I had thought of tacking on "Obsessed" and "2012" to make it a perfect 10 -- but I have to admit those two turkeys provided so many unintentional laughs I have to admit they were actually kind of fun to sit through.