I could go on a rambling, ill-tempered rant about the shocking lack of worthwhile films released in 2011. I could easily wallow in righteous indignation, and throw up my hands in disgust and defeat as I impotently curse Hollywood’s artistic bankruptcy and offer my own theories as to why last year saw the worst theater attendance numbers in 16 years. And I’d be right to do it. But this time of year, I prefer to ignore the crazed, rampaging elephant in the room and instead celebrate the few diamonds in the rough that kept me from completely losing my mind over the course of the past 12 months. So let’s get to it:

Hope you all had a great Christmas and are enjoying the final hours of 2011. My holiday season has been quite relaxing indeed, with the exception of the screening blitz I’ve been embroiled in since I realized the first draft of my year-end top 10 list was woefully inadequate. I’m trying to cram in as many movies as I can before my list is due for publication next week, and the experience has been mind-reeling but, of course, invigorating in  its own way.

“In Time.” “The Three Musketeers.” “Footloose.” “Johnny English Reborn.” These are among the films now playing in multiplexes across the country. I find this roster to be strange and unsettling, as I have apparently been laboring under the misapprehension that we were supposed to be smack-dab in the middle of awards season. Silly me.

I’ve been a tad grumpy lately, and for that I apologize. The crushing disappointment of the fall movie season got to me, but you know what? It’s Christmas, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let a few bad movies spoil my sunny disposition. There’s much to celebrate this week (besides the obvious), starting with the wide release of Darren Aronofsky’s beautiful and devastating “Black Swan.”

The end of the decade coincides with the 10-year anniversary of this column, and what better way to mark the occasion than with an obsessive ranking of the decade's best films?

Clarification: In last week's review of "Frost/Nixon," interviewer David Frost was described as an "Australian TV personality." Of course, I meant that he was a personality on Australian TV (with failed shows elsewhere prior to his Nixon interview), but neglected to clarify his British nationality. Thanks to Mike Wilson for bringing this to my attention.

1. "Gone Baby Gone" (Ben Affleck)

Over the course of the past four decades, David Cronenberg has been one of the world's most consistently bizarre filmmakers. With movies like "Videodrome," "Naked Lunch" and "eXistenZ," he established a niche as the premier guru of metaphysical weirdness. Then came 2005's "A History of Violence," which marked Cronenberg's apparent embracement of the mainstream. Yet it wasn't a sellout - on the contrary, it represented the best work of his career. His follow-up, "Eastern Promises," is a similarly "standard" genre piece. Yet, like his previous film, there's a lot more going on beneath the surface.

I'm choosing not to dwell on the depressing mediocrity of the freshly wrapped summer movie season. Instead, let's look forward to the fall/winter season, and 15 movies that will hopefully prevent 2007 from being a completely forgettable year at the movies. To start, here are the five releases I'm most looking forward to for the rest of the year: