We're not going to bother with reminding you about celebrity gossip and who won gongs, because everyone else does that. Here instead is the stuff that amused and vexed Robin Askew at the pictures in 2010.

Films of the Year

It's no use arguing. This is the definitive list. Of course we'd like to have been able to include Mary & Max, Skeletons, The Kids are All Right, Lebanon, Dogtooth, Monsters, Mother, Mr Nice, Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Valhalla Rising, Black Death and Winter's Bone. But there wasn't room.

1. Four Lions
2. Inception
3. Toy Story 3
4. The Secret in Their Eyes
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
6. The Social Network
7. A Prophet
8. Another Year
9. Restrepo
10. Carlos

Local Heroes

It was an excellent year for local talent. Bristol University graduate Chris Morris directed our film of the year, Four Lions. Bristolian Chris Smith made his best feature yet, Black Death. Despite his ever-unhelpful 'people' making it a bugger to review, Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop turned out to be one of the year's best documentaries. Former Venue tea boy Stephen Merchant made his (co-)directorial debut with Cemetery Junction, and was also described as “a walking toothpick with the eyes of a big tuna” by Mr The Rock in Tooth Fairy. Bristol animator Emma Lazenby beat 'The Gruffalo' to bag the BAFTA Best Short Animation gong for Mother of Many. Clevedon's Tuppence Middleton isn't getting the breaks she deserves yet, but she was terrific in low-budget Britflick Skeletons. Pinhole camera photographer Justin Quinnell got a free trip to Tinseltown to serve as an advisor on The Brothers Bloom. And the big-hearted Haiti Kids Kino Project, based at the Cube Cinema, took classic kids' flicks to the children of earthquake-hit Haiti. It wasn't all plain sailing, though. Bristolian Kirk Jones and Bristol University graduate Tom Vaughan released their new films Everybody's Fine (starring Bob De Niro) and Extraordinary Measures (starring Harrison Ford) in the same week, but both flopped spectacularly.

Silliest Film of the Year

Enjoyably preposterous gene-splicing flick Splice, perhaps? Or the absurd 3D owl fantasy Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole? Maybe the fabulously gross The Human Centipede (First Sequence)? Nope, it's got to be the utterly bonkers Legion, in which renegade angel Paul Bettany opts to side with Homo sapiens when a wrathful Old Testament God decides to get Biblical on mankind’s ass (in a run-down desert diner, naturally), having “tired of all the bullshit”.

Worst Arthouse Movies

We love intelligent, provocative arthouse movies, OK? Just look at our top 10. But all too often we get films that confirm the worst prejudices of the subtitle-averse. Broadly, these fall into three categories: the pretentious (The Limits of Control, I Am Love, Wild Grass), the boring (The Headless Woman, Ivul, Certified Copy, Police Adjective, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow) and the pretentious, boring and grossly over-praised (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives).

A Vintage Year for Animation

If any one genre stood out this year, it was animation. What's more, there were triumphs in virtually every style, from CGI (Toy Story 3) to hand-drawn (Ponyo, The Illusionist, The Secret of Kells) and model animation (Mary & Max, A Town Called Panic). Even Disney raised its game with The Princess and the Frog.

Worst Film

So much choice, so little space. Eat Pray Love was clearly the most offensive bad film, and M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender the most shockingly awful blockbuster. The most annoying performances were by Sandra Bullock in All About Steve and Lucas Cruikshank in Fred: The Movie. But the all-round worst film has to be tiresome hipster Harmony Korine's woeful, self-indulgent and massively irritating Trash Humpers.

Jar of Jizz, Madam?

Artificial insemination – it’s the romcom plot device du jour. This year we had two flicks in which an actress named Jennifer (Lopez and Aniston) had fun with flasks of baby gravy: The Back-Up Plan and The Switch. Even the indie sector got in on the act with upmarket lesbian parenting drama The Kids Are All Right.

Hang On, Haven't We Seen This Before Too?

An innocent is pursued all over the shop after mistakenly getting involved with some spy shenanigans (Killers, Knight and Day, Salt, The Tourist)

A 3D animated supervillain with hordes of robot helpers learns the error of his evil ways (Despicable Me, Megamind)

A bunch of old codgers get the old team back together for elderly action antics (The Expendables, Red)

Best Use of 3D

The vomiting and severed penis in Piranha 3D

Most Underrated Films of the Year

You wanted a great British film that wasn't a costume drama or bloody Richard Curtis romcom? So why didn't you go and see Philip Ridley's splendid Heartless? A sharp and funny teenflick? Easy A died the death. A funny and sophisticated romantic comedy? Heartbreaker had it all, but audiences stayed at home. A haunting, Herzog-esque cult item in the making? You should have seen Nicolas Winding Refn's Valhalla Rising.

Floppiest Flopbuster

Jonah Hex. Budget: $47m. UK opening weekend: £36,000

The Year Men Learned to Cry

Chaps famously found "something in my eye" at the conclusion of Toy Story 3. We can soak up any amount of torture porn or painful Jackass stunts, but the final shot of the Richard Gere dog bonding movie Hachi – A Dog's Tale also gets us every time. And it's not just us. "I must confess to having had a large lump in the throat throughout," admitted Time Out's reviewer. "It will no doubt have you squeezing out tears, either of boredom, or slushy emotion," observed The Guardian. "Embarrassingly, for me it was the latter." 

Coldest Screen Couple

Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in The Tourist

Runners-Up: Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley in London Boulevard

Hottest Unlikely Screen Couple

Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor in I Love You Phillip Morris

Oliver Stone and Hugo Chavez in South of the Border (get a room, boys) 

Venue Interview Quotes of the Year

"At least we didn’t make a hilarious buddy comedy in which I’m called Eddie Chalk and Ricky’s Billy Cheese and we’re mismatched policemen.” Stephen Merchant on the curse of film-makers graduating from TV

"I started off with a really shitty film and had to work my way up through lots of other shitty films until I finally did a really good film. Now, hopefully, I will be able to choose the films that I do.” The ever-frank Gemma Arterton 

"About two weeks before we started shooting, we got this note from the Department of the Environment in Scotland saying that we’d be doing things that were ‘inconsistent with the dignity of the fabric of the building’. Buildings that had been built for torturing people and repressing peasants couldn’t stand a bit of comedy." Terry Jones on 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'

"Here’s a guy who’s a girl’s toy; he’s only played with by little girls. He’s ostensibly an accessory for Barbie. He’s no more important than shoes, or a purse, or a handbag. We just figured that he would be a completely insecure wreck and over-compensating in many ways…” 'Toy Story 3' director Lee Unkrich on Ken

"There were so many girls that immediately left and thought I was some sort of European nutcase." Tom Six on the difficulty of casting 'The Human Centipede (First Sequence)'

"I remember saying to him a couple of times, ‘Is this as it was, Howard?’ And he’d say [Welsh lilt] ‘Ooh, it’s uncanny. It’s exactly as it was. Exactly.’ Then we’d go somewhere else and I’d go, ‘How is this?’ and he’d say, ‘You know, it’s completely uncanny’. This went on for a while until I said, ‘You can’t remember anything can you, Howard? ‘Not a fucking thing,’ he replied." Bernard Rose on having Howard Marks on the set of 'Mr. Nice'

UK Box Office Top Ten 2010

OK, so the official annual box office chart won't be published until the end of the year, but we've got access to all the figures so we've put it together ourselves. A couple of caveats: the takings for Avatar cover 2010 only (it took a further £26m in 2009) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is still on release. Things to note? Well, firstly there's the continuing triumph of 3D. Half of the films in the top 10 were released in this format. And would Clash of the Titans really have made the chart if it hadn't been for the gimmick… uh, I mean exciting new process? Having said that, it was gratifying to see Inception triumphing over the summer blockbuster dross, and the Potter flick is set to eclipse its predecessor despite that last-minute decision not to release the film in 3D. Anyway, here's the top 10 with total UK grosses and Venue star ratings

 1. Toy Story 3 (£73.4m)
  

2. Avatar (£66m – estimate)
 

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (£47.6m)
 

4. Alice in Wonderland (£42.2m)
 

5. Inception (£35.3m)
 

6. Shrek Forever After (£31.1m)
 

7. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (£29.3m)
 

8. Sex and the City 2 (£21.6m)
 

9. Iron Man 2 (£20.9m)
 

10. Clash of the Titans (£20.1m)
 

Movie Dialogue of the Year

"Those British motherfuckers don’t die. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, those Led Zeppelin motherfuckers. They’re old. They’re gonna outlive Miley Cyrus!" Sean Combs in Get him to the Greek 

"Merlin’s ring – it’s a long time since I’ve been this close to it" Alfred Molina keeps a straight face in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

“Very intelligent, pigs. I knew a pig once played Scrabble.” Farmer McCready (Bill Bailey) in Nanny Mcphee and the Big Bang

“Women are talking back! People are playing stringed instruments! It’s the End of Days!" Barry the jihadist in Four Lions

“You fucking fucked his wife, you wife-fucking cunt!” In-no-way-typecast Ray Winstone gets sweary in 44 Inch Chest

“I’m you with a vagina.” Verma Farmiga chats up George Clooney in Up in the Air

“Frog leg-eating, cocksucking, motherfuckers.” John Travolta does his bit for international relations by characterising the French in From Paris with Love

“Someone asked me, ‘What’s the difference between you and a real vulture?’ The answer’s very simple: I don’t vomit on myself.” A gloating ‘Condo Vulture’, who cashes in on misery by snapping up properties at rock-bottom prices, in Capitalism – A Love Story 

"Take that, space faggot!" Predators reminds us that there's no political correctness in inter-galactic warfare 

“I’m small time compared to these crooks!” Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) on hedge fund managers in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

“Shoot him again – his soul’s still dancing!” Nic Cage hallucinates in Bad Lieutentant – Port of Call: New Orleans

 “I hate human beings!” Sinister Dr Heiter (Dieter Laser) makes small talk in The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
 

Copyright Robin Askew 2010

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