Special moments

I am no theological expert, but I understand that Jesus had his origins as a humble carpenter, so I’m confident that he would have wanted the celebration of his birth to become a year-round industry centered on the wrong day. In that jumping-the-gun spirit, I present my first best-of list for 2010 (suck it, Anderson Cooper’s top 10 CNN Heroes of 2010!).

In a mixed-up movie year where Machete was boring, Facebook was entertaining and Hollywood still won’t bite on my Superman vs. Predator script (they’re the ultimate killing machine … versus!), there haven’t been enough good ones for a top-10 list. Only two films that I’ve seen—Greenberg and The Social Network—even merit discussion, so consider these my top movie-watching moments of 2010.

3. A Dolph of the Cap. The funniest movie moments of 2010 weren’t in comedies, but rather in Sylvester Stallone’s affront-to-human-decency The Expendables. Many of the funniest “He was directed to act like that!” moments come courtesy of a seemingly reanimated-from-dead-tissue Dolph Lundgren, whose droll line reading of “You schaat me” is an unquestionable highlight.

2) Bad Kitty? While watching Michael Jackson’s This Is It on my laptop, my cat became unusually captivated by the dead pop star’s voice, settling into my lap and quite contentedly watching the entire film. We know that Jackson had a special relationship with children, but did we underestimate his ability to communicate with animals? Musicologists, telepaths, nenads—discuss.

1) Carna-han’t. It’s one of those glorious stories of rare luck that critics pass down through generations, the kind Jeffrey Lyons probably tells to his son Ben now that he’s moved back home. Deep into a critics’ screening of Joe Carnahan’s dismal The A-Team, the print caught fire and melted, thus preventing me from having to watch the last five minutes. Advantage: Barnes.