Why do I find this summary of the last ten years faintly draining? By glibly focusing on the catchiest and most superficially noteworthy events, it’s mainly a reminder of how devoted the headline-driven news business is to perpetrating its own mythology. The Facebook, YouTube and Twitter revolutions are the only developments that seem to have moved the game along, to go by this rundown. The rest (even Barack Obama‘s election, in hindsight) seems to have been about smoke.

I’d like to see a similar-type review of where the best films have taken us — a review of the great themes, personalities, “movie moments.” The rise of the studio dependents and the gradual abandonment of the smart, upper-middle-class movie by the studios, the fall of print critics (along with print in general) and the rise of online punditry, and collapse of indie financing over the last twelve months.