Because sometimes Oscar is just mean. And so if the world were a fair place, and if I were in charge, the following films would win at Sunday night’s Academy Awards show (as compared to those that will).

Take a step back and examine your favorite movies. If you were me, you might be overly concerned with how obviously male-dominated the stories on the big screen are. But you’re not me. You probably haven’t even thought about it before. So, I want you to try out a fun test next time you view a movie that will help you become cognizant of the extraordinarily gender-imbalanced film world.

Every few years a film comes along, inspired by real events, that makes me ask the question, “Why don’t I already know this?” Sometimes a real life story can be so unusual, so inspiring, so unexpected that it seems as if it should be common knowledge. This year seems to be a particularly strong year [...]

Black Swan is the latest cinematic opus offered by Darren Aronfsky, a still-young director who is definitely keeping on his toes. And here’s the thing about Aronofsky (and I hope he would hear this as the high compliment I intend it to be): I am never in the mood to watch his films, yet they win me over every single time.

Rhombus’ resident film critic Jordan Petersen reveals his top ten movies of 2010 — along with a smorgasbord of other year-end lists that will make your head spin. They’re all here: the good (and the really good), the bad (and the really bad), and the ugly (and yes, even the really, really ugly — after all, it’s Hollywood.)

When I was a kid, TRON stood out as one of those landmark movies that shaped the way I thought about some things. I imagined that if you could get inside a computer, that was pretty well what it might look like. And the film transported my young mind to an entirely different world. The emotional impact was deep enough that I’m pretty sure it had a hand in convincing me, much later down the road, that I wanted to be a computer engineer.

The Coens are at the point now in their careers where they get to make a new movie almost every year. I think we should all take a moment to contemplate how fortunate we all are.

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I’m not going to say that Joel and Ethan Coen are incapable of making a bad film. I’ve heard that Burn After Reading was terrible from every single person who’s seen it. We’re all human here on this little planet, and I’d almost be disappointed if they don’t squeeze out another stinker sometime or another. But True Grit isn’t that film. Nope, it’s just another jewel in their crown of daunting cinematic achievement.