Everybody is listing their top ten films of 2009, but I haven’t seen half of the ones that I think have the best shot of getting on my list (and I haven’t gotten a single DVD screener yet! chop chop, SAG!). I did a little better (?) with the top ten movies of 2009 in terms of domestic box office. I still haven’t seen The Blind Side (#10) but I did see Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (#9), which was overpoweringly ugly and geared towards the very young (and the folks who love to listen to Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary but can’t bear to look at their faces). I watched most of Monsters vs. Aliens (#8) on an airplane and I give it a thumbs up for helping me fall asleep, b’also a thumbs down for helping me fall asleep. Star Trek and The Hangover (#7 and #6, respectively) were both thoroughly enjoyable and I wouldn’t be surprised to see either of them get some Oscar nominations (remember: there are now 10 Best Picture nominees, which is being done to make the Academy seem more populist and less snooty — these movies offer the simplest way to do that). Avatar (#5) looks like the most complicated video game ever made. What I’ve seen makes me think I would really hate this movie, but its defenders (and they are legion) insist that I can’t judge the movie until I’ve seen it in IMAX 3-D. That made sense to me until I realized that I could see Fried Green Tomatoes or Something’s Gotta Give in IMAX 3-D and I would enjoy myself. That’s why they can charge me $18.50 for a single ticket — I can’t recreate the IMAX 3-D experience at home. We saw Superman Returns in IMAX 3-D when it opened and I walked out with a smile. I watched it again a year later (on cable) and found it surprisingly weak. I blame the IMAX 3-D for making me like it more than I otherwise would have. Just like all of these people who claim that Avatar is the greatest movie of all time. The thing the humans are trying to steal is called Unobtainium, for Christ’s sake! Sigh. My pubic hair and penis prevented me from seeing The Twilight Saga: New Moon (#4), but I saw the top three. The first ten minutes of Up (#3) was more moving than anything else this year (animated or live-action). Expect to see it in the Best Picture category. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (#2) was kind of boring (it had its moments but they were fewer and farther between than I expected. And the #1 movie of 2009 — the one that grossed over $400,000,000 — was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And it sucked eggs. Loud exploding racist eggs.

Give me some time for a legitimate Best Movies of 2009 list.

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But before I get all retrospectable on the cinematic tip, let’s see what’s doing in the New York of the Post.

HOOPS STUPES (which I believe is pronounced “Hoops Toupeés”) reveals that the Washington Wizards never told the NBA about the almost gunfight between two of their players (which happened on December 21st, not on Christmas Day — I can’t ever miss an issue of this paper; they’re constantly [and subtly] changing their stories!). In fact, according to this EXCLUSIVE, the NBA only found out about the incident because of the intrepid reporting of (wait for it) The New York Post.

Word on the street is that not only will the Wizards’ general manager, Ernie Grunfeld, will lose his job over this, but so might Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton. Crittenton still has $1,480,000 left on his 3-year contract. Arenas has $100,000,000 left on his. That’s not a typo. One hundred million dollars (puts pinky on lips).

My favorite new development: “It is still not known if Crittenton had his own gun with him, or if he grabbed one of several Arenas had in the locker room.”

Hey, Gilbert? Wanna post anything on Twitter about this?

“i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE .. lmao media is too funny”

“i understand this is serious _ but if u ever met me you know i dont do serious things im a goof ball this story today dont sound goofy to me.”

Oh no! He’s using the Chewbacca defense!

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Nice piece on the four neighborhoods that will be hot hardest by the impending MTA cuts (“set to take place in mid-2010″): Westchester Square in The Bronx, Fresh Meadows in Queens, Harlem and Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. If you’re disabled in Bay Ridge of the weekend, you’re screwed as the R is your only hope and the station isn’t handicapped-accessible.

War criminals.

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The Russian government wants to fight “rampant alcoholism” in their country, as well as “the extraordinary number of deaths caused by drinking.” So they’re doubling the price of vodka… to $3.00 per half-liter.

What a country!

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Charles Wegmann III, 41, is the son of a retired New Orleans police lieutenant. And a son of a bitch.

He was picked up at JFK Airport on Tuesday night while he waited for his 25-year-old girlfriend to arrive from Turkey. He bought her plane ticket. With a credit card he took out in the name of a dead 7-year-old (he had another in the name of another dead 7-year-old).

Charlie needs to go away for a long time.

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There’s a full-page ad on page 6 for a new TV show: The Human Target. It’s a great premise: If you’re the target of a death threat, you hire him to take your place and he’ll catch your assailant(s). They made for great comic books.

Let’s hope the 2010 version (premiering on January 17th) does better than the Rick Springfield vehicle of 1992.

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A suicide bomber in Pakistan “killed 105 people and wounded at least 100 more” — at a volleyball tournament.

Can those numbers be accurate? Could there have actually been over 200 people at a volleyball tournament?

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The article Muslim loony toon is shot in Mohammed artist attack introduces a new word to my ever-expanding lexicon: Islamoloon. I have already begun compiling a list of other insulting names that the Post might be interested in incorporating. So far I have retardorist, Muslimpdick, suicide bumbaclot, Koranus and penislamist.

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Nathaniel Chambers, 45, was arrested for drunken driving. He entered an E-ZPass lane on the Queens-bound side of the RFK Bridge, despite not having an E-ZPass device. When the gate didn’t raise, he started flashing the red siren on his car’s dashboard.

Why did he have a siren? Because he’s the chauffeur for Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Robert Hess. And he was on his way to pick him up and bring him to Bloomberg’s inauguration.

Anyhoodles, there he was, sitting in the E-ZPass line with a flashing siren. Police approached the car and immediately smelled booze. “I am going to pick up the commissioner for the inauguration,” he allegedly told the cops. They asked him to take a Breathalyzer test. He refused (why is that legal to do? Whatever happened to the implied consent law?) and started yelling at the cops (he reportedly called a sergeant a “cracker”).

He was also arrested for a DWI in 2003.

Take a bow, Nate!

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HGTV & the Food Network have been dropped by Cablevision (they didn’t have the same clout as Fox did against Time Warner Cable, I guess). An estimated 3,100,000 New Yorkers will be affected by this.

That number made my eyes widen, but then I realized that it means that 3,100,000 people no longer have the option of watching those channels, not that 3,100,000 ever did.

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Bookmaker.com is offering odds on who will replace Simon Cowell on American Idol. Piers Morgan is the 2-1 favorite, Quincy Jones pays 3.5-1, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds pays 4-1, Simon Fuller and Rob Stevenson are each 6-1 shots and Russell Simmons is 6.5-1.

But the it’s-just-so-crazy-it-might-work one to watch at 3-1 is none other than Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Even if they hired everyone on this list and John Cleese, I wouldn’t care.

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Remember that adorable rapper, Lil’ Bow Wow? He’s 22 now and goes by Bow Wow. He’s also on Twitter. He’s also an idiot. Here’s what he posted early yesterday:

“Face numb im whippin the lambo. Tispy as fuck. Just left @livmiami”

I’ll translate: “My face is numb as I’m driving recklessly in my Lamborghini. I am incredibly tipsy.”

He followed that Tweet with, “Im fucked up!!! Ohhhh damn. Y i drive the lambo. Chris might have to drive after next spot.”

I’ll translate: “I am incredibly drunk and I’m starting to regret getting behind the wheel of a car, though not enough to stop texting as I speed. Chris Brown, who is with me, might have to replace me in the driver’s seat once we get to the next stop light/sign. Which, if I was an attractive Bajan chanteuse, would terrify me.”

Bow Wow later deleted the incriminating tweets and posted, “Apologize for that tweet. it was stupid and immature. not a way i want to kick my #2010 year off. i got too much good stuff lined up. my bad.”

It is still not clear whether or not he was driving a car when he posted his mea culpa.

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Page 13 is a full-page ad asking Cablevision customers to demand that HGTV and Food Network be put back on the air.

I have a feeling that Cablevision doesn’t feel the need to respond in kind.

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Chuck Bennett’s ART 101 MASTER DISASTER rips into the Saudi Arabian art therapy rehab center for terrorists where the current leader of the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda (Said Ali al Shihiri) was transferred from Guantanamo Bay. The therapy, Bennett argues, wasn’t very effective. True. And if you make it to the sixteenth (16th) paragraph of the piece, you’ll read the name of the guy who let this monster go to finger-painting class instead of being a prisoner.

Shihiri “was released from Guantanamo Bay by President George W. Bush in 2007.”

I’d love to hear what Dick Cheney thinks of that.

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More about the abandoned Times Square van. The owner faces up to seven (7) years in prison for doctoring the temporary license plate in the window (see what I mean? This is the first I’m hearing of the temporary plate!). It expiration date on it was November 29, 2009, but George Freyre, 36, changed it to December 29, 2009 — which means that even after his forgery, it had expired when cops ignored it!

B’also? The Detectives Crime Clinic of Metropolitan New Jersey & New York is an actual non-profit organization in the Bronx, but guess who isn’t a member. I’ll give you a hint: his initials are George Freyre.

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Doctors said that Rush Limbaugh “did not have a heart attack or heart disease.”

Damn.

When asked if taking painkillers for the chest pain, Limbaugh said “no.”

The “painkillers” for his “back pain” are a whole ‘nuther story, I’m sure.

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I miss Chicago.

Three armed men wearing masks forced their way into a home in Chicago and made the 11 people inside take off their pants.Then they shot one of the victims in the leg and ran out with 11 pairs of pants (and televisions). The police suspect that the taking of the pants had two purposes: to get the wallets inside and to prevent pursuit.

But I think they did it because the first thing they heard was “pants theft.”

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There’s a great piece about how iPhone owners are beginning to revolt against AT&T, especially now that they’re considering a “tiered pricing plan” which would limit usage (unless folks were cool with paying a lot more).

My favorite part is how the iPhone is gearing up to face competition from Google’s Nexus One, “a snazzy display that is generating buzz even though the tech giant hasn’t even confirmed its existence.”

How funny would that be if there was no Nexus One?

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Q: How do you make a museum smell funny?

A: The Grateful Dead: Now Playing at the New York Historical Society (March 5 – July 4).

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Michael Ian Black has written a children’s book called The Purple Kangaroo. It’s narrated by a mind-reading monkey.

Excellent.

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Harold Camping, 88, has figured out when the Rapture will happen. Ready?

May 21, 2011.

Take that, Mayans!

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The Nets played today. They lost.

3-30.

What’s the opposite of outstanding? Inseated?

Inseated!

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The CW has pulled the reality show Blonde Charity Mafia from their lineup (how could they change their mind about a show that features rich assholes pretending that their altruism isn’t a tax dodge?). They’re replacing it with Fly Girls, a reality show about stewardesses on Virgin Airlines!

Finally I can spend more time on an airplane without leaving my house!

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This fresh round of snowfall isn’t sticking, which means dry sneakers (yay!) but no snowball fights (boo!).

Stay warm, kids. See you tomorrow.