LIST: Top 10 Movies of 2011!

Film critic Dana Stevens of Slate is out with her top-10 list for the year, though she says that pickings were generally slim in 2011. A sampling:

• Buck: This documentary by Cindy Meehl about Buck Brannaman, the real-life inspiration for the Horse Whisperer, includes an encounter with a nasty stallion and its owner that "made for some of the year's most affecting unscripted drama."
• Certified Copy: Abbas Kiarostami's film starring Juliette Binoche "is an insoluable puzzle of a movie about the insoluble puzzle of love." In other words, plan on two viewings.

• Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Yeah, much was typical blockbuster fare, but things changed whenever Caesar, played by Andy Sirkis in a motion-capture suit, came on screen. It "definitively established the mo-cap technique as an exciting new art form." Plus, the Golden Gate Bridge scene was terrific.
• Tree of Life: Not everything worked, but the middle part focusing on a Waco childhood "felt like a rediscovery (or maybe a reinvention) of what cinema was made to do."

Click for the full list.

LIST: Top Songs of 2011!

It’s the end of the year, which means a glut of music sites releasing “Best Of” lists. Indie-loving Pitchfork picks the top 100 tracks of the year; here are the top 10, which include some mainstream surprises:

BORING: 2011's Least Fascinating People are...

Needless to say, Gawker isn’t all that impressed with Barbara Walters’ annual list of the year’s 10 most fascinating people. The good news is, that didn’t stop blogger Seth Abramovitch from offering up his own list, of the year’s 10 least fascinating people, in response:

• Piers Morgan: “The turnip-headed reality star turned CNN seat-filler loves Twitter wars and speaking over his guests almost as much as no one gives a s*** about him.”
• Brett Ratner: Despite getting himself in the middle of an Oscars-related controversy this year, he “remains the least interesting filmmaker of his generation” and you probably can’t think of a single interesting scene in a movie he’s made.

• Chelsea Clinton: “Were you aware that she has finally decided to embrace her celebrity this year? Do you care? No, of course you don't care.”
• Oprah Winfrey: We learned this year that the only interesting thing about Oprah was her show, “and when the two parted ways, she instantly ceased to be fascinating.”
• Meghan McCain: “The world's leading beneficiary of nepotistic kickbacks continues to be the least fascinating human being in the entire universe, ever.”

Click for the entire list, including a particularly funny entry for Mitt Romney,

The BEST: Barbara Walters Names Jobs 'Most Fascinating'!

For the first time ever, Barbara Walters’ Most Fascinating Person of the Year is no longer alive: She chose Steve Jobs. Walters had already selected the Apple founder when he announced his retirement from the company, but never got the chance to sit down with him for the interview. It seemed appropriate to break the show’s rule that "every fascinating person must be living," Walters said last night, because "rules were made to be broken—and that’s certainly how Steve Jobs lived his life."

Another interesting entry on the list that was not initially reported: Herman Cain. In an amusing portion of his interview picked up by the Daily Beast, he told Walters he would like to be defense secretary. Fortunately, he acknowledged that he was speaking “totally, totally hypothetical,” because he just might have a few foreign policy issues. The Daily Beast notes that Walters "looked stunned" and replied, "What?"