I was surprised at how much trouble I had narrowing down my top ten movies this year.  My top 20 were all very close, but here are the movies that I ultimately enjoyed the most. I readily admit that I did not see near as many foreign films as I would have liked, but by the time I cover most of the mainstream fare, there is simply no time left.

Honorable Mentions: Fair Game, Tiny Furniture, Greenberg, Cyrus, The Tillman Story, The American, Mother and Child, Scott Pilgrim.

10. Waiting for Superman
This Documentary was equal parts frustrating, inspirational, and heartbreaking. Director Davis Guggenheim (No End in Sight) sheds light on the dismal state of our public school system. He follows the plight of several children who live in various geographic regions who are placing all of their hope for an decent education into lottery systems for charter or private schools. Guggenheim relies on their compelling stories for a narrative, while interspersing lots of graphics and cartoons illuminating some pretty harrowing statistics.

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There has been plenty of heat on the MPAA as of late. Cult horror director Adam Green (Hatchet, Frozen) recently had trouble with the organization giving his sequel to Hatchet an NC-17 rating, which is the financial kiss of death at the box office. They did the same with an upcoming Weinstein film starring Ryan Gosling titled Blue Valentine.

Upon receiving the NC-17 rating, The Weinstein Company filed litigation against the organization for an appeal to get their film down to an R-rating. This was a classic tale of Davey (a small studio) going up against the MPAA’s Goliath. The good news? They won.

News has just been released that TWC has won the appeal against the MPAA and the rating of Blue Valentine will get modified back down to a standard R. This is pretty historic for the industry, considering that nobody ever goes up against the MPAA and lives to tell the tale. It looks like the brothers Weinstein are now the exception to that rule.

This could very well change the face of how MPAA does things, as indie directors like Adam Green now have a case against the way the organization runs things. Consider this an official turning of the tide.

Check out the details in the full press release after the jump. Blue Valentine is expected to hit limited theaters on December 31st.

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More and more movie studios are using unconventional methods to distribute their movies, and it gives us a lot more options than we ever had before.  It used to be that if you didn’t live on one of the coasts, or in a huge city, you could never catch an independent or arthouse film while it ran in theaters.  You had to wait months and months for the film to be released on DVD.

Now, we are seeing more and more movies getting a “pre-theatrical release” via On Demand.  You can choose an outlet, pay a minimal fee, and watch the movie in the comfort of your home.

Ryan Gosling’s latest film, All Good Things, will make it’s debut On Demand on November 5, a full month before it shows in theaters. The movie also stars Kirsten Dunst, Kristin Wiig, Frank Langella, and Philip Baker Hall.

Andrew Jarecki (Capturing the Friedmans) directs and produces the film.  Jarecki also produced this year’s Sundance hit Catfish.

Synopsis: Inspired by the most notorious missing persons case in New York history, All Good Things is a love story and murder mystery set against the backdrop of a New York real estate dynasty in the 1980′s.

You can watch the official trailer embedded after the jump.  The movie will be available On Demand via Amazon, Play Station 3,  ATT Uverse, Xbox 360, and more.  For a complete list of available outlets, visit the Magnolia website.

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As with most weeks, this week brings a crop of new movies and TV programs on Blu-ray and DVD. Among the ones we’re interested in this week are two Doctor Who TV Movies, X-Men, Volume Five, the Blu-ray release of NINE and the Blu-ray debut of Saving Private Ryan (pictured above with Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg and Edward Burns)

Movies

Doctor Zhivago Anniversary Edition ~ Omar Sharif, Julia Christie (Blu-ray)

Fallen ~ Paul Wesley, Tom Skerritt, Bryan Cranston (Blu-ray and DVD)

Leap Year ~ Amy Adams, Matthew Goode (Blu-ray and DVD)

Nine ~ Daniel Day-Lewis (Blu-ray and DVD)

No Time for Sergeants ~ Andy Griffith, Don Knotts (DVD)

Saving Private Ryan ~ Matt Damon, Tom Hanks, Edward Burns (Blu-ray and DVD)

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