It’s that time of the year again: that brief span of time in between Christmas and New Year’s when journalists, critics, and cultural commentators scramble to define an arbitrary block of time even before that block is over with. To speculate on what 2010 will be remembered for is purely that: speculation. But the lists, summaries, and editorials reflecting on the events, accomplishments, failures, and occurrences of 2010 no doubt shape future debate over what January 1-December 31, 2010 will be remembered for personally, nostalgically, and historically. How we refer to the present frames how it is represented in the future, even when contradictions arise over what events should be valued from a given year. In an effort to begin that framing process, what I offer here is not a critical list of great films, but one that points out dominant cultural conversations, shared trends, and intersecting topics (both implicit and explicit) that have occurred either between the films themselves or between films and other notable aspects of American social life in 2010. As this column attempts to establish week in and week out, movies never exist in a vacuum, but instead operate in active conversation with one another. Thus, a movie’s cultural context should never be ignored. So, without further adieu, here is my overview of the Top 10 topics, trends, and events of the year that have nothing to do with the 3D debate.

Every Sunday in September, Film School Rejects will present a musical that was made before you were born and tell you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Musicals breaks the rules to present a story of a flim-flam man selling a small town of stubborn Iowans a boys’ band and selling a particularly blonde, stubborn Iowan on love. You won’t be able to resist the charms of The Music Man.

Before he falls down comically for the MMA film he’s making, Kevin James is going to have to fall down the good old fashioned way. In The Dilemma, the film adaptation of the song “Silence is Golden,” James stars alongside Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Connelly, and Winona Rider for the story of a man who sees his best friend’s wife cheating and has to figure out what to do. Do you say something or stay silent?

It was almost five months ago that we first reported the heartbreaking news that the film rights to Stephen King’s epic seven book series, The Dark Tower, had slipped into the hands of pure evil mediocrity. The details hadn’t been worked out yet, but the core piece of information was Ron Howard and Akiva ‘The Hack’ Goldsman being named as director and screenwriter for the feature film adaptations. We followed this news a few days later with our list of twelve writers and directors far better suited for the material. Not surprisingly, our voices were ignored and Hollywood chose to stick with the Howard/Goldsman team. And while that news still sucks we can’t help but be intrigued, interested, and possibly even impressed with the just revealed details of that arrangement. Stephen King’s The Dark Tower is coming to the big screen… and the small screen. Before returning to the big screen. Then back to the small screen… then, well, you get the idea.

Whether you love him, hate him, love to hate him, or hate that you love him there’s no denying that Tom Cruise’s career decisions in terms of what directors he will work for have been second-to-none. Or, maybe they have been. You decide.

Unhappy with the team taking a crack at Stephen King’s beloved epic, Rob Hunter tosses out a dozen names that would be better at bringing the gunslinger to life.

Has there ever been a better example of a good news/bad news situation?

Saturday at AFF: An Education; Battlestar Galactica: Caprica panel, screening, and Q&A; a downright amazing Apollo 13 screening and panel with Ron Howard, Captain Jim Lovell, and others; and a storytellers panel with Mitch Hurwitz, Ron Howard, and Steve Zaillian. Also, fake blind people.

The Austin Film Festival, which kicks off on October 22, will be hosting quite possibly one of the coolest retrospectives that any space nerd could hope for. Ron Howard, Jim Lovell and Apollo 13!

While reading this article, you may notice that Robert Ludlum titled all of his novels by staring with “The,” adding an enigmatic adjective like “Parsifal,” and ending it with a nonsensical noun like “mosaic.” You may also notice that Ron Howard will be directing a movie based off of “The Parsifal Mosaic.”

The living legend is going to be celebrated at this year’s Austin Film Festival in late October. Hopefully, there’s an Opie retrospective.

Kevin Carr reviews this week’s new movies: Angels & Demons and Big Man Japan.

Neil and Kevin stumble into the Magical Studio in the Sky, completely unprepared for the show. But at least they have both seen this week’s movies, Angels & Demons and Big Man Japan.

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is back in inaction as the Harvard professor and expert of symbols, helping out the Vatican in what looks like an ancient threat from a powerful enemy finally taking root. After the Pope dies, The Illuminati rears its head – stealing anti-matter from the Hadron Collider and planning to use it to convert the center of the Holy Church into rubble.

Kevin Carr vents his spleen about an unexpected consequence of the failure of last year’s bomb The Love Guru.

Remember The Da Vinci Code, Ron Howard’s first adaptation of a Dan Brown novel? It was boring. Long, slow and downright boring. Angels & Demons however, appears to be anything but.

I don’t see the point when every aspect of Frost/Nixon is excellent, from Ron Howard’s direction to Salvatore Totino’s cinematography to Peter Morgan’s stirring screenplay.

No one likes a sell out. But selling out goes both ways. This time of year, directors sell out in a different way. I’m talking about all the major mainstream Hollywood directors who “sell out” to do the award film released at the end of the year.

Kevin Carr looks at Punisher: War Zone, Frost/Nixon and Timecrimes, in theaters this week with the FSR Report Card.

Kevin and Neil drive a Cadillac through the War Zone and take some shots at David Frost and Richard Nixon. They continue with their proselytizing for the cause of Fatguyenatics and the Church of Fatguyentology, in which they canonize their first patron saint.