Best of 2012, Part 1: Top 20, Zen Awards

I know, I know, this is so ridiculously late this year that all "best of" lists have lost their relevance, because that's the movie culture we live in these days--we follow every insane detail of production for a full year before a movie comes out, and then after opening weekend no one talks about that movie again. Well, I say the hell with that. Let's think about some movies that are (gasp!) maybe a few months. Even older. Shoot, if I wrote this blog on a regular basis we'd spend most all of our time talking about movies from decades ago, because that's just how we roll here.
(As an aside, the less noble, more realistic version of why this is late is because I've been waiting all year to see Michael Haneke's Amour, and it only opened in town yesterday. So stay tuned to see if it was worth the wait.)

Now, I'm not going to pretend that there's really any suspense as to what is going to take #1 this year. Anyone who's talked to me about movies within the past 6 months has probably already had an earful about my pick for this year's best (and yes, it's exactly what you think it is). That doesn't mean, however, that there isn't a ridiculous amount of riches to be found in 2012's other cinematic offerings. Really, last year was a ball-crushingly fantastic year for movies. I'm settling on 20, but the order is probably somewhat arbitrary; I've been changing things around all week, and I'm still not sure I'm totally satisfied with things. So I'll rattle off my top 20, and then we'll dive into my annual silly awards.

Check them out after the jump!