Well, I have to hand it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences: For all of the widespread grousing about its changing the rules regarding the Oscars’ Best Picture race for the second time in three years, they did manage to make this morning’s announcement of the 2012 Best Picture contenders exciting. And surprising. Very surprising.

Another year; another set of Mike’s sure-to-be-off-the-mark-with-at-least-a-couple-choices-in-just-about-every-category Oscar predictions!

Every January, I share my numerical rankings of the 10 most enjoyable movies I saw during the previous year. I do not, however, share my numerical rankings of all the other titles I caught during those 12 months, as such a list would, I think, be hopelessly arbitrary, terribly self-indulgent, and something that only a person with too much time on his hands would attempt.

Let’s get cracking, shall we?

If you will, please permit me a quick public apology before I expound on my 10 favorite movies of this past year:

Sorry, Muppets. If I hadn’t caught that out-of-town flick a week ago, you totally would’ve made the list. (Instead, you top the list of the 150 other 2011 movies I saw.)

Before getting into what went wrong at last night’s Academy Awards ceremony – and sadly, quite a bit went wrong – let’s begin by addressing the one portion of the telecast that, for maybe the first time in Oscar history, went magically right.