With the big announcement of Canada’s Top Ten last night, I can finally come clean: I was on the 2009 features panel. Here’s the list of this year’s honorees; here’s the list of the Top Ten shorts, which are quite an interesting mix.

Ever try watching a year’s worth of national cinema in the space of two months? I don’t recommend it to everyone, especially when you’re working in secret and can’t talk about the movies you’ve seen with any of your friends for fear they’ll figure out what you’re doing: “Wait, why were you watching a Quebecois relationship drama about suicidal sky-divers?”

But you get a really interesting sense of emerging trends and developing styles, and sometimes you stumble onto something that you wouldn’t believe existed if you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes. Like the Quebecois relationship drama about suicidal sky-divers, for example.

I just wish more documentaries had made it to the final list. Or even, you know, one.

Sooo, no post yesterday. That’s what happens when you perfect a new party drink, I suppose; your keyboarding skills become … unreliable. Also, your reading comprehension suffers terribly — did the Sandra Bullock football movie really beat the sparkle vampires at the box-office over the weekend? (Apparently so.)

What was the drink, you ask? Why, nothing more complicated than four ounces of President’s Choice Mulled Apple and a finger of Canadian Club, garnished with cranberries and a sprinkle of nutmeg and cinnamon. We called it the Chudleigh Chunderer. Goes down like sody pop, it does. And then you have a lovely nap.

But today I’ve rebounded, all fresh and clean and ready to face tonight’s announcement of Canada’s Top Ten, for whatever that’s worth. But first, I have to catch up to “The White Ribbon”, because there’s no joy without suffering, apparently.

With “Everybody’s Fine” and “Up in the Air” opening against each other this weekend, my latest MSN movie gallery takes a more introspective turn, looking at other American movies about disconnected characters.

Yep, I will do whatever it takes to drag “The Weather Man” back into relevance. Also, Jason Reitman cited it as an inspiration for “Up in the Air” when we spoke at TIFF — even quoting chunks of Cage’s monologue from memory. Got the voice right and everything.

With the big Thanksgiving movies off and running, it’s time to bring out the Oscar contenders — or at least the smaller, less expensive wannabes the studios hope will find their audience before the real prestige pictures open on Christmas Day. What’s on this week, you ask? Well, let’s take a look.

“Armored”: Okay, this one’s not an Oscar contender — it’s a heist thriller that’s been bouncing around Sony’s schedule for a while now. Not screened for the press, either, which isn’t always the best sign. On the other hand, Laurence Fishburne!

“Brothers”: Susanne Bier’s stark tale of siblings split asunder by war and duty gets Americanized in Jim Sheridan’s uneven, radically recast version, which lops a decade or so off the characters’ ages — replacing Ulrich Thomsen with Jake Gyllenhaal, and Connie Nielsen with Natalie Portman — but doesn’t adjust the script accordingly. (How old is Natalie Portman supposed to have been when she gave birth to her first child?) Still, there are some decent moments before Sheridan cranks up the bathos.

“Everybody’s Fine“: Another remake, this one based on Guiseppe Tornatore’s 1990 melodrama, with Robert De Niro stepping into the role of the alienated paterfamilias originally played by Marcello Mastroianni. De Niro’s terrific, but the movie around him is pretty saccharine.

“Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould”: Michele Holzer and Peter Raymont’s reverent portrait of the legendary pianist hits all the expected notes, as it were, without ever quite breaking through to the “within” part. This is likely because Gould will forever be impenetrable, but the title sets up expectations for a more aggressive take on the artist’s psychology that simply isn’t there.

“The Private Lives of Pippa Lee”: Once again, Rebecca Miller demonstrates that as a filmmaker, she’s a really good short-story writer. (Yes, I know this was based on a novel, but it’s an awfully episodic novel, making for an even more episodic movie.) Worth seeing for Robin Wright Penn’s performance, but you won’t lose anything if you wait for the DVD.

“Red Cliff“: John Woo’s original version of this spectacular war epic runs 282 minutes, in two distinct parts; that’s longer than “Gone with the Wind”, longer than “Lawrence of Arabia”, longer than Soderbergh’s “Che”. The North American version runs 150 minutes, slicing away nearly half the picture. But the battle scenes look so much better on the big screen than they do on the import DVDs …

“Up in the Air“: Jason Reitman follows “Thank You for Smoking” and “Juno” with another tale of a self-confident character undone by unexpected vulnerability; yes, it’s slick and commercial, and a hair on the cold side, and an obvious Oscar vehicle for Clooney, but you know what? It got under my skin. And Clooney’s pretty terrific, when all is said and done.

… well, she is. Check out my interview with the star of “Up in the Air” and “Twilight”, and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”) in this week’s NOW.

And no, I did not get to meet George Clooney. But I’m pretty sure I walked through a room where he’d just been, and it smelled like Aqua Velva and quiet dignity.

My latest MSN DVD column finds “Terminator Salvation” and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” are still locked in their head-to-head battle for your entertainment dollars, just as they were on the weekend of May 22nd.

The problem is, neither film is all that good — though the tech side of “Salvation” is beyond reproach, and the lowered expectations of the video realm will probably lead a lot of people to think it was unfairly savaged theatrically.

But before you weigh in with angry comments to that effect, try to remember how entertaining the previous “Terminator” movies are — and I’m being generous and including “Rise of the Machines” in there. It had its moments.

“Terminator Salvation”, on the other hand, is about as much fun as watching Ben Stiller mug his way through another effects comedy. Maybe they do belong together, at that.

The deadline for that best-of-the-decade list grows ever closer, and I continue to troll the interwebs (and my movie collection) for last-minute inspiration. The latest resource is the AV Club’s Best Performances of the Decade, which went up this morning and includes some good memory-joggers.

“Mysterious Skin”. “The Man Who Wasn’t There”. “American Splendor”. Hmm. Forgot about those.

Come on, people. Any last-minute thoughts?

Over at his blog — which is more like an ever-expanding collection of thoughtful essays than the daily splattering of passing observations than we mere mortals play at on our piddly little sites — Roger Ebert has finally weighed in on the turmoil that ensued behind the scenes (and in front of the cameras) at his “At the Movies” syndicated television show a couple of years back, when health issues forced his exit from the program.

In addition to being a very entertaining read — particularly in the sections discussing one of the replacement critics, idiot king Ben Lyons, who’s since been turfed in favor of people who actually know what they’re talking about — it’s a thoughtful meditation on the way TV film criticism has changed in the quarter-century since Siskel and Ebert first went to the movies, and on Ebert’s recent confrontation with his own mortality.

You should check it out. I would give it two thumbs up, but of course the thumbs are trademarked … and besides, the show doesn’t do the thumbs thing any more.

Oh, and “New Moon” is still topping the box office, which either tells us that critics no longer matter … or that we need good ones now more than ever.

Stick around, Roger. We read you.

My latest MSN Movies gallery is up, using the premiere of “The Road” as an excuse to look at other big-screen adaptations of novels that made it into Oprah’s Book Club.

And yes, I left out productions that predate the formation of the book club by decades, like “East of Eden” and “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”. It just made the pre/post thing impossibly convoluted.

By the way, Oprah — you know, since it’s just us here — how have you not managed to put “To Kill a Mockingbird” on your list after 13 years of book clubbing? That’s an oversight that just cries out for rectification.