Sometimes a movie year just breaks me. As I noted around this time last year, designating an end to a movie year is matter of choice instead of obedience to the calendar. I live in a place where a year’s official releases take some time to trickle into town, especially at this time of year, when smaller films are held back in the hope of capitalizing on interest generated by award nominations. I do my best to dutifully see everything I should to be, in my view, a responsible contributor to the public discourse about film excellence, using the Oscar nominations and the enthusiasm of certain critics as dual atlases in the process of deciding which films to see in the theater and which to let pass by to be watched at home at some later date (or to blessedly spare myself from altogether). Increasingly, I find myself seeing films purely out of obligation. I’m usually somewhat accepting of that because I often enough find myself enjoying a film I would have otherwise ignored, or at least enjoying some element in it. I think Precious: Based on the yadda yadda and so on, for example, is a deeply flawed film, but I’m glad I saw it so I can comment knowledgeably on Mo’Nique’s inevitable Oscar win. Besides, it’s at least an interesting movie to discuss, if only because of its unique (and troubling) braid of exploitation and sympathy. It’s a reminder that a film can be fascinating, even if it’s not very good. Sometimes a movie can be fascinating because it’s not very good.

More often they’re bland, and this time of year they’re bland in the most unbecoming self-reverential way. Built with awards in mind, they’re careful, serious and piously devoted to the gospel of prestige cinema. It’s perhaps telling that the Oscar nominations this year are spotted with earthier, smarter, more daring fare like The Hurt Locker and Inglorious Basterds and, one of the clearest beneficiaries of the expanded roster, District 9. They are lacking in pretense and rich with imagination. This is what I want when I buy my ticket, and when I feel my hopes getting dashed with too much frequency, I start to shut down.

There are movies in my town that I want to see, but I can’t bring myself to make the effort. Not when I’ve got a batch of more intriguing Netflix options and a DVR loaded with titles that would make for a worthy if somewhat scattershot film class syllabus. There have been times when I would feel obligated to properly compare and contrast the Academy-cited performances of Jeff Bridges and Colin Firth, if only for my own satisfaction. This year I can live without it. I’ll see them eventually, but I’m okay with a more protracted timetable.

This, my friends, is how a movie like Nine can deaden a film fan’s soul.

So I’ll concede up front that I have more gaping holes in my required viewing than usual as I launch into my annual countdown of the top ten films of the year. I still think I’m going to do pretty well on the exam, but I did only skim the homework. Even with that caveat, I’m pleased as can be with the ten I settled upon. Fittingly, they represent the exact opposite of what I complain of in the paragraphs above, the exact opposite of what’s made me decide against patronizing my local movie houses in recent weeks. (To be thorough and fair, the atypical blasts of snow and ice we’ve endured lately have contributed to my lack of motivation to test the treacherousness of the roadways between my house and our local exhibitioners of choice.) Each of the films is alive with creativity, vision, emotion. They are films with purpose and personality. They are films that remind me, in the face of disappointment and dismay, why so many of my hard-earned–and somewhat scarce–dollars go towards movies.

And we’ll start tomorrow with a film that I never expected would land on my list, but when I really consider it, honestly and without prejudice, it’s truly one of my favorite moviegoing experiences of the year.

(Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”)