This is the wonderful hell of being a professional film critic: December is insane. I will see probably two dozen films for the first time between now and a few days before Christmas. (Screenings will drop off as the holiday gets closer and too many people start heading out of town to make scheduling a screening a worthwhile proposition for publicists.) I will re-view some films I've seen already -- on screening discs sent specifically by the studios hoping for the films to be remembered as best-of listmaking starts happening, or just by popping into the multiplex -- looking for confirmation of my initial reactions or reasons to upgrade or downgrade those reactions.

I will get very little sleep, but it'll be a blast.

Here's where my top-10 list stands as of 11/29:

1. The Science of Sleep [my review]
2. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan [my review]
3. Stranger Than Fiction [my review]
4. The Departed [my review]
5. Tideland
6. The Queen
7. United 93 [my review]
8. Bobby [my review]
9. Fast Food Nation [my review]
10. Babel

(Of course, I must review those films I still haven't yet reviewed!)

That list will almost certainly look rather different a month from now. Movies that I have not yet seen but that I suspect might have a chance at entering my top 10:

The Good German
Apocalypto
The Painted Veil
Dreamgirls
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Children of Men
The Good Shepherd
Notes on a Scandal
Little Children

But who knows? My guesses are based on nothing but pure gut feeling and the pedigree of the people involved in these films -- I haven't seen any of them yet, and maybe everyone made a stinker this time out. And some other films that I know nothing about may jump out of nowhere to stun me with their brilliance. And it's also possible, as I do that rewatching I mentioned, that some other films currently below my top 10 might move up the list as I reconsider them. Films that could potentially reimpress me:

Little Miss Sunshine [my review]
Infamous [my review]
Brick
The Last King of Scotland
Miami Vice [my review]
Pan's Labyrinth
The Illusionist [my review]
Half Nelson

Welcome to my year-end scratchpad. I'll start thinking out loud soon about best performances, best scripts, best directors, stuff like that. It'll all be subject to change until the final lists are settled, which will likely happen in the week between Christmas and New Year's. No rest for the cinematically wicked ....

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