Ain’t too much actually happening this week, cinematically — but what am I supposed to do about that? Is it my fault that next Tuesday’s TFCA awards gala is sucking up all the oxygen in this town? (Oh, right, I guess it is a little.)

Anyway. The pages of NOW won’t fill themselves, so here’s me writing about Canada’s Top Ten and doing some New Year’s trendspotting for your entertainment. Like I said, ain’t too much happening. Although that Sarah Polley Mavericks session on Saturday should be worth your while.

Okay, technically it’s the dwarves who do all the singing in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,  but whatever; more moviegoers turned out for them than for Jean Valjean and the merry miscreants of Les Miserables over the weekend. Pulling down $32.9 million in its third weekend of release, Peter Jackson’s epic made more than Tom Hooper’s epic in its debut frame — and more than Quentin Tarantino’s, too, which is kind of a shocker.

Django Unchained placed second with $30.7 million; Les Miserables was third, with $28 million. That’s a pretty close race, suggesting the audiences broke pretty evenly down the middle … and I suppose I’m not surprised that Tarantino fans and stage-musical fans don’t have a lot of crossover.

That said, I’d genuinely love to see QT and Jamie Foxx take a run at Porgy & Bess some day …

Just two movies are creeping into theatres on the last Friday of the year. One of them is very good. The other is not. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

Barbara: Christian Petzold’s character study of a doctor trying to survive under surveillance in 1980s East Germany plays like the indie version of The Lives of Others, with a powerhouse performance from Petzold’s regular collaborator Nina Hoss, whom I interviewed here.

Not Fade Away: David Chase — yeah, the Sopranos guy — jumps to features with this semi-autobiographical (and insufferably self-indulgent) period piece about how he really wanted to be a musician. It’s like the East Coast version of That Thing You Do!, except the band never breaks because the songs aren’t catchy and the lead vocalist spends 40 years resenting the world for not getting his vibe, man. I think Susan liked it, though.

So, yeah. Go see Barbara, it’s really good.

NOW’s Best of 2012 issue is on the stands, and with it my Top Ten Films of 2012.

No, I did not include The Master or Django Unchained. Yes, that probably makes me a philistine. Whatevs, man, I’m following my heart here.

… and that means the studios bring out their heaviest of hitters, in an attempt to court all the people in need of a break from family/holiday overload. Shall we get to it?

The Central Park Five: Co-directed by living legend Ken Burns, this documentary looks at the Central Park Jogger assault case of 1989 — and the race-baiting frame-up that resulted. Rad loved it, as did many who saw it at TIFF; I’m hoping to catch up to it sometime this week.

Django Unchained: In which Quentin Tarantino applies himself to the spaghetti Western, or at least steals a few elements from that genre before following his own self-indulgent bliss. Look, I love the guy, and Christoph Waltz is an awful lot of fun, but at 165 ass-numbing minutes, this movie wore out its welcome long before it got to what QT clearly considers “the good stuff”.

Les Miserables: Tom Hooper applies his self-conscious camera trickery to the blockbuster stage musical — to make it more real, man! Anne Hathaway nails Fantine and Hugh Jackman makes a pretty good Jean Valjean, but it’s like being beaten with feelings for two and a half hours. Glenn is even more exasperated than I am.

Parental Guidance: Cross-generational wackiness ensues when aging, clueless parents weigh in on their daughter’s child-rearing. You just know this is one of those movies where Bette Midler will be confused by an iPad, and Billy Crystal will make a joke about sexting. And then they’ll all learn something from each other.

Oh, and in case you missed my tweet, I interviewed Billy West for MSN Movies earlier this month. It’s up now. He’s cool. You should check it out.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey walked all over its competition this week, grossing $36.7 million to hold the domestic box-office in the face of challenges from the likes of Jack Reacher, This is 40 and The Guilt Trip.

Jack Reacher opened at number two with $15.6 million — which is pretty dismal for a movie Paramount’s been packaging like the next Mission: Impossible picture — while This is 40 placed third with just $12 million. The Guilt Trip — which John bravely endured last week — took sixth place with just $5.7 million for the weekend … though I’d wager its audience won’t show up in force until we enter the dead zone of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Meanwhile, in the ancient depths, great Les Miserables lies slumbering …

If you’re reading this, congratulations: You survived the Mayapocalypse! Aren’t you happy that it all amounted to nothing? Now you can reap the benefits of a modern Western existence without any fear of the  ground beneath your feet boiling away into lava, or whatever was supposed to happen. I don’t pay attention to that stuff. Were there flying monkeys? Those would have been creepy

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away: Cirque du Soleil movies make me break out in hives, so we made John cover it. Hee hee hee.

56 Up: Michael Apted returns once again to the children Granada Television selected to represent England’s future all the way back in Seven Up!, and finds them in an uncertain middle age, thanks to the UK’s economic meltdown. If this wasn’t a documentary, it’d be the stuff of great drama.

The Impossible: Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor are both excellent in Juan Antonio Bayona’s distressingly intimate disaster movie, which is catching a lot of flack for casting Brits as characters who were originally Spanish. But if you can get past that, it’s a powerful, technically amazing picture.

Jack Reacher: In which Tom Cruise in no way fills the shoes of Lee Child’s towering man-mountain of a crime solver, and Werner Herzog plays one of the year’s least intimidating villains.

Rust and Bone: In which Marion Cotillard makes her own Oscar bid as a whale trainer who loses her legs in an accident, and finds solace — and sexytime — in the arms of a man (Matthias Schoenaerts) with issues of his own. I liked it; Rad loved it.

This is 40: In which Judd Apatow catches up to the privileged couple he introduced in Knocked Up, and finds them handling things not nearly as well as they could be. Like The Impossible, some people will be unable to get over the initial question of being asked to empathize with well-off, well-positioned characters. It’s their loss.

And that’s it for today. Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of other stuff opening on Christmas Day, and we’re actually sitting on some more content for after the holidays. Check back in the days ahead, and I’ll do my best to keep you entertained.

Oh, and to that end, here’s the NOW podcast I recorded last week about The Hobbit: An Unfinished Journey and the HFR technology that may or may not change the way we watch movies. Okay, it probably won’t, but one wants to hedge one’s bets where Peter Jackson and James Cameron are involved.