IS TWO A TREND?

This year, some weird scenes came in pairs:

1. Naked fighting: Viggo Mortensen's commando-mode sauna battle with two Russian toughs in "Eastern Promises" was vicious, bloody action genius. Beowulf's nude beatdown of Grendel in "Beowulf" wasn't just overdone ("Matrix" flips are so tired); it was strange - he really, really wanted to get naked in front of his men.

2. Helicopter-blade zombie frappé: In "Grindhouse" the pilot tips his chopper to shred undead because it makes for lots of blood. And was funny. In "28 Weeks Later," he does it because there were too many to kill any other way. Different, but both worked.

COOLEST ALBUQUERQUE MOMENT

1. Tommy Lee Jones drives by the Frontier Restaurant in "In the Valley of Elah." (But he doesn't stop for a breakfast burrito.)

2. With the snow-capped Sandias in the background, Guy Pearce sips wine behind his adobe house and waits to be killed in "First Snow."

3. KOB-TV's Jeremy Jojola reports live from the crash site in "Transformers."

LET'S MILK A DEAD COW

"The Simpsons Movie"

"Hannibal Rising"

"The Hills Have Eyes 2"

"Hostel 2"

"Live Free or Die Hard"

"Daddy Day Camp"

"Resident Evil Extinction"

"Rush Hour 3"

"Saw IV"

"Bee Movie"

"The Golden Compass"

BEST DATE MOVIE

1. "Lars and the Real Girl": A pleasure from start to finish, this film is impossible to dislike. Guys, take your girl and she'll thank you. Girls, take your guy and he'll grudgingly acknowledge it's great.

2. "Stardust": The closest thing to "The Princess Bride" since "The Princess Bride." That should be all you need to know.

3. "Atonement": A sex-charged period piece that blends into a vivid war story.

4. "Knocked Up": Couples will find a lot to relate to, and Leslie Mann is as funny as the guys.

5. "Death at a Funeral": It's British, it's hysterical, and the men are all weak.

WORST DATE MOVIE

"30 Days of Night": I don't know what I was thinking. Twenty minutes into this stupid, ugly, boring mess, I leaned over to my date (prisoner?) and apologized. Not for the last time.

AWESOME ACTION

1. The final 30 minutes of "Transformers."

2. Zoe Bell plays Ship's Mast in "Grindhouse."

3. Rain-soaked chase in "We Own the Night."

4. Snipers can't tell zombies from people in "28 Weeks Later."

5. Bourne beats up Desh in "The Bourne Ultimatum"

REAL LIFE STINKS SOMETIMES

These documentaries were both terrific and infuriating:

1. "No End in Sight": A blow-by-blow account of the screw-ups and lies that led to the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq and, with it, the loss of more than 3,000 American and 600,000 innocent Iraqi lives.

2. "Sicko": Canadians find it baffling that people in the United States get charged for health care. So do a lot of other countries. So do I, now.

FAKE LIFE IS FUN

Laugh-out-loud moments:

1. Seth's drawings in "Superbad."

2. The jellyfish in "Heartbreak Kid."

3. Hallucinogens and Cirque de Solei in "Knocked Up."

4. Little man on ecstasy in "Death at a Funeral."

5. Chazz and Jimmy in "Blades of Glory": "I see you still look like a 15-year-old girl. But not hot."

BADDEST GOOD GUY

1. King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), "300": When Xerxes tells Leonidas to kneel, the Spartan king responds that he can't, because "slaughtering all those men of yours has left a nasty cramp in my leg."

2. Smith (Clive Owen), "Shoot Õem Up": Kills goons by the dozens, sometimes during sex.

3. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), "The Bourne Ultimatum": Would totally kick Bond's butt.

4. Beowulf (voiced by Ray Winstone), "Beowulf": Fights monsters naked. Bags digital Angelina. Cuts own arm off.

5. (Tie) Bumblebee, "Transformers"; McLovin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), "Superbad"

LAMEST GOOD GUY

Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), "Spider-Man 3": Cries and dances more than he fights supervillains.

BADDEST BAD GUY

1. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), "No Country For Old Men": This weirdo's got nothing going on but murder. His arsenal: doofy haircut, air-powered cattle gun, silenced shotgun and a quarter. Call it, friend-o.

2. Michael Meyers (Tyler Mane), "Halloween": Psychotic killers don't come bigger or stronger. Says Dr. Loomis: "There is nothing left but pure evil."

3. Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), "American Gangster": Real-life Tony Montana, only much smarter.

4. Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), "Eastern Promises": Eyes like ice picks. And if that voice was the greeting on your answering machine, no one would dare leave a message.

5. Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) in "Stardust": Heart-eating voodoo witch with crazy ninja skills.

LAMEST BAD GUY

The number 23, "The Number 23": This entire movie is based around the notion that a number can be scary. Not coincidentally, this entire movie is awful.

BEST POST-9/11 MOVIE

"The Mist": When the masses get terrified and need someone to blame, they stab an Iraq-bound soldier in the stomach and throw him outside to be eaten by monsters. Then there's the ending, a cagey plea for all you liberal wussies to stop being such liberal wussies.

WORST POST-9/11 MOVIE

What exactly would "Lions for Lambs" have us do? This preachy, self-indulgent talker pleads with the audience to stop paying attention to Britney Spears and start giving a damn about real current events. Does Robert Redford think the TMZ.com crowd ever considered boring themselves with this flick?

MOST AUDACIOUS DISREGARD FOR A CINEMATIC LEGACY

"Hannibal Rising": Worse than terrible, the fourth Hannibal Lecter "film" mercy flushes the legacy of a character once declared by the American Film Institute to be the greatest villain in movie history. Each installment following 1991's marvelous "Silence of the Lambs" has sold out a little bit more, culminating with this embarrassment, which bombed at the box office. Thank god.

HALL OF FAMERS HAVING FUN

1. Robert De Niro in "Stardust": I defy you not to laugh out loud when De Niro's Capt. Shakespeare (Year's Gayest Sky Pirate) is watching himself dance in drag in the mirror. Who ever thought Travis Bickle would be nancy-prancing with a fan made of pink feathers? De Niro looks like he wants to crack up every time he's on the screen.

2. Al Pacino in "Ocean's 13": One of the best performances of the year that won't get much acknowledgement. When his casino mogul Willie Bank ruthlessly cans Elliott Gould's Rueben, it leads to this exchange:

Bank: You're out.

Rueben: What're you gonna do, throw me off the roof?

Bank: Well, I don't want to.

I JUST COULDN'T GET OVER . . .

1. "Ratatouille's" cooking gimmick: Granted, this is a cartoon about talking rats in Paris . . . but how is sad-sack soup boy Linguini's body wired if rat-cook Remy can control his arms by tugging on tufts of hair from under a hat? And Remy could barely see, so throwing ingredients in the air and mixing as fast as he does is just ridiculous.

2. Topher Grace as Venom: Grace is a fine actor, but we're talking about Spider-Man's greatest villain here, and this atrocious bit of casting made a bad "Spider-Man 3" so much worse. Venom was a brawny, angry psycho in the books (think closer to Ahnold). I'd have put Jamie Foxx or Vin Diesel in the role instead of a skinny frat boy.

3. "No Country for Old Men" goes screaming off the tracks: The last half hour of this film baffled me. I get the Tommy Lee Jones scenes now; really, I do - the world's passed him by. But what was with that car crash? If the point is that there is no point, then . . . what's the point?

4. How much "Evan Almighty" cost to make: More than $175 million for one of the worst comedies ever.

5. How fake the effects looked in "I am Legend" and "The Golden Compass": Less - or even none - would have been more in both cases.

MOVIE DEBATE OF 2007

Which is funnier: "Knocked Up" or "Superbad"?

These are two guaranteed crack-ups with the same wacked-out, R-rated sense of humor. Really, they're equally funny. "Superbad" has more swearing; "Knocked Up" is more clever. The choice comes down to which appeals to you more, high school humor or yuks for young adults. Narrowly, I'd go with "Knocked Up," but this is like picking between Muhammed and McLovin.

FUNNIEST LINE IN 'KNOCKED UP' SUITABLE FOR PRINT

1. "If any of us get laid tonight, it's because of Eric Bana in `Munich.' "

2. "You know who I want to get pregnant? Felicity Huffman. Ever since I saw `Transamerica' I can't get her out of my head."

3. "You look like Babe Ruth's gay brother . . . Gabe Ruth."

4. "Please take the chairs away. I don't like them. The big one is staring at me, and that short one is being very droll."

BEST ENDING

1. "Halloween": Click, click, click, click, click, click . . . Blam! Scream. Credits.

2. "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street": Gory and sad and maybe the most memorable single shot in any 2007 movie.

3. "The Mist": There's lots of symbolism, but the twist is also flat-out mean and works with the story.

4. "The Kingdom": A child's chilling glance. Oh, the relevance.

5. "There Will Be Blood": Ever had a bitter rivalry? You wish you could end it the way Plainview does here. Hint: There is blood.

WORST ENDING

"3:10 to Yuma": Russell Crowe's supposed legendary outlaw Ben Wade betrays his bad-guy ethos, risking his life so loser rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale) can take him to prison. No way. How it should have ended: Evans tells Wade he's taking him to Yuma, and Wade responds with a brisk strangling. Then he shoots every member of his own crew, including right-hand psychopath Charlie Prince (Ben Foster). Wade rides to Evans' house, sleeps with Evans' wife and eats all of Evans' food. Then heads off to round up a new crew. The film ends when Wade meets a new psychopath (cameo by Johnny Depp) to replace Prince.