The 2002 Oakland Athletics experienced all of the highs and lows of an amazing season. The team won 103 games, placing them squarely among the finest seasons in the 2000s, yet they struggled in the playoffs yet again and were quickly eliminated. Moneyball chooses to highlight the team’s euphoric moments, particularly the historically unprecedented 20 game winning streak as well as the characters, particularly “Pickin’ Machine” Scott Hatteberg. Some more famous players such as David Justice make their appearance but Moneyball the movie is like Moneyball the book in that the more famous people are less relevant than the unheralded unknowns who are undervalued in their daily assignments. In this manner, Moneyball is a metaphor for life and a fine one at that. It is a refreshing examination of how incorrectly greatness is defined in our society and a damn good baseball movie to boot.

Watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is a bittersweet affair. In fact, our selection for fourth best movie of the year is more than just a swan song. Those of us who had read the novels in advance of the movie knew that portions of it would have the feel of a snuff film. We knew that certain characters would not make it to the end of the Battle of Hogwarts, a hard pill to swallow. Still, like everyone else who has seen any of the movies or read any of the books, we wanted to see how it would end as well as whether there would be creative license taken to distinguish the movie franchise from the novels. In the end, any such changes are in the eye of the beholder (in my mind’s eye, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood wind up together), but the result is still the same. Good suppresses evil once more and a group of people we the world witnessed growing up before our very eyes took their final bows. We will miss everyone in the Potterverse dearly and sincerely hope that one day soon J. K. Rowling will re-consider and return from the land of muggles to create new tales of wizardry for children of all ages. The final Harry Potter film is a tribute to the greatness of her original concept as well as a cinematic masterpiece. We will treasure it for decades to come.

A man drives a couple of strangers to the Staples Center in Los Angeles just as the game winds down. This is the brief description of exactly what transpires in the first few minutes of Drive, our fifth favorite film of the year. Why then does it feel so much richer, so much more robust? The answer is that Drive is able to create tension from little moments in a manner befitting greatness. Whether the sequence is a lap around the race track, an awkward meeting between neighbors or a negotiation about the murder of a friend, Drive constantly surprises and delights us with its ability to elevate the proceedings. An ambivalent tale of the seedier parts of living in a boomtown, Drive introduces a character who possesses tremendous gifts and who also seems to understand that the world is a harsh place where he will never find happiness. In spite of this, we still root for him to do so. The climax is neither surprising nor uplifting in the way we had hoped yet it still somehow manages to satisfy because it stays true to the themes presented. Drive is a challenging film with no clear resolution in the end and that decision is integral to our enjoyment. Drive takes no shortcuts and we respect it all the more for that.

Foreign destinations are the setting for our sixth and seventh favorite movies of the year. Midnight in Paris is the best modern Woody Allen movie and I maintain the finest of his career as well. The setting is Paris (obviously) where a writer is facing that eternal struggle between commerce and art. His fiancée is clearly hoping that art gets its ass kicked by commerce, but she does herself no favors by shamelessly flirting with another man right in front of her betrothed. This causes the writer to go soul searching in the evenings and during these excursions, he accidentally discovers the hidden side of Paris night life, time travel.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol marks the return of super-spy Ethan Hunt and a few of his new allies as they try to prevent a madmen from using ill-gotten missile codes to launch an unprecedented attack on the world. Yes, this sounds like run of the mill spy stuff, at least in terms of premise, but Ghost Protocol is one of the greatest action films of our generation. Whether the setting is the mounting of the world’s tallest building or a tumble down an automated automobile factory, Hunt and his cohorts are in peril from the moment movie starts (a recognizable face dies in the first two minutes) until the very end (a recognizable face returns to make a cameo at the end). When we evaluate the best action movies of the 2000s, MI4 definitely makes the shortlist. It is an instant classic in the genre.

The rest of our top ten for Best Picture are The Tree of Life, Super 8 and Rango. The Tree of Life is challenging work from Terrence Malick that explains the origins of the universe at one point then later explains the way the universe ends as well. There are also dinosaurs involved. No one can say that Malick took any shortcuts on this one. Super 8 is a celebration of the good ol’ days, that bittersweet remembrance we all experience about a simpler time where we understood less yet that made us confident that we knew more. Of course, Super 8 also involves a violent train wreck and an alien encounter, neither of which is a universal experience. Rango is an avant-garde act of storytelling about a pretender of a law enforcement official who somehow fakes it until he makes it. Rango is clearly the best animated movie of the year as well as a triumph of the imagination.

Narrowly missing nomination this year are Melancholia, The Muppets, Source Code, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Hugo, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Help, Shame, 50/50, The Debt, Bridesmaids, Attack the Block, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Contagion, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Warrior and X-Men: First Class.

The Calvins: An Introduction
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Best Cast
Best Character
Best Director
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Best Videogame
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture

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