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I thought you like Youth in Revolt

I do, that's why I said it's okay/flawed but enjoyable. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger is the only film I saw this year that I actively disliked.

Well of course, but I thought you had really liked it, as a film.
That was the very beginning of the year though...

Enter the No Merits

I'm going by RYM year and according to them it's 2009. I'm holding off scoring it until I see it on Blu anyway.

yeah i usually go by u.s. release dates for the years in which I have been an active film goer (pretty much late mid 90's to date) since I really did not see the film till then. With older films like before I was born, I go with what ever date imdb/rym tells me to. Idk it's weird, in some cases fool's just dont recognize like some dudes over at criterionforum have White Ribbon on their list this year.

National Board of Review gave best picture to Social Network (no real surprise), and i was pleasantly surprised that Shutter Island was in its 10 runner-ups. which included Another Year, The Fighter, Hereafter, Inception, The King’s Speech, Shutter Island, The Town, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter’s Bone. it also has an independent category which were Animal Kingdom, Buried, Fish Tank, The Ghost Writer, Greenberg, Let Me In, Monsters, Please Give, Somewhere, Youth in Revolt.

no Black Swan, 127 Hours, or Kids Are All Right

man if those are what we are putting up high this year, then 2010 has been an average year (if that). Hopefully the foreign market impresses me, which probably will judging on the auteurs I admire who have been releasing shit.

Oh my gosh. Why are there a bunch of British indies being evaluated by the National Board of Review? They should either start giving more attention to the plethora of struggling indie artists in this country or change their name--Fish Tank and Another Year are already hyped to high hell in Britain, do we really need them taking up space over here, where a bazillion homegrown indie films die forever, every year? You're telling me there is not one good American indie film this year that The New Yorker did not already spew all over the place, and that we therefore need some Cannes-smash British films to come fill out our roster? I seriously cannot comprehend it. Britain is already showing these same movies on fucking Film4. We don't have one of those in America, which is why we need the National Board of Review to suggest similar unknown films made here, not just repeat the established semi-arthouse hits of the US studios and borrow the safest ones from abroad. And what is their working definition of indie anyway? Roman Polanski and Sophia Coppola are indie now? Yeah, I bet those two really had to scrounge around to find some money and have no connections to the studios whatsoever, bona-fide independents, I'm sure. I suppose Return of the Clones is indie too. The term seems to have lost all meaning. Actually brilliant, independent , underpromoted films from this country like Wah Do Dem and NY: Opus Jazz sit around gathering dust while the National Board of Review, the self-appointed artistic evaluators who have the opportunity to champion films that everyone hasn't already heard of, stuffs its "indie" category full of celebrities like Cera, Polanski, Coppola, and Ben Stiller? Somebody hunt down the voters for these places and kill them with guns and put some people in who are actually interested in exploring cinema rather than reshuffling the metacritic columns.

to be fair, its not their job to promote under-the-radar films. you gotta realize that for a majority of the american population, all of those films are underpromoted. these types of awards usually recognize the year's most acclaimed films, which means its pretty much expected for them to re-hash stuff. it only feels that way to people like us who actively seek out and read reviews all year long. for most people, they'd never actually hear of any of those films without the year end awards. and i dont see why hype from the year should be a negative on a year end list...

I'm saying it should be. Why do we need 3948071043987123 versions of the Oscars?

they wouldn't be the only people who thought Greenberg and Ghost Writer were better than Wah Do Dem. you make it sound like Wah Do Dem is a universally regarded masterpiece or something. sure, you find it brilliant. but that doesn't mean the National Board of Review sucks because they didn't. i'm not following your train of thought here.

you aren't gonna see any of those indies at the Oscars.

The brilliant is separate from the point which is not that small films are good and big films are bad, but: why the fuck is The Ghost Writer in the indie category when actual independent films are not? Does "indie" = "celebrity-filled movie with big Hollywood stars and big Hollywood money that happened to start in limited release"? Maybe this is senseless but I feel like an "indie" featuring a film by the guy who directed goddamn Chinatown is a fucking hysterical joke.