For the fourth year in a row, here’s my annual wrapup of what I liked in music, movies, and video games this year.

Top five albums of 2010

“Weathervanes” – Freelance Whales
This was recommended to me by my friend Jaime and apparently she knows my taste in music — quirky, poppy, lots of rhythms, and a weird echo of loneliness. This album unfortunately falls off a bit near the end, but the first six songs or so are some of the best I’ve heard all year.

“Release Me” – The Like
This was the first band I really “found” at a concert here in LA — they’re three pretty girls whose fathers are music producers, but they also happen to be really good musicians in their own right. If you listen to their earlier stuff, it’s a little more dreamy (and not bad), but for this album they grew the group out and teamed up with producer Mark Ronson to really turn towards vintage rock and roll. Yes, it’s ironic, and hipstery. But I really love Z’s growly, knowing voice and Tennessee’s perfect drums. They’re like a postmodern, alternate universe Beatles.

“My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” – Kanye West
Even after all of the hype, I didn’t really think I’d like it — I don’t really like Kanye and his ego, and while I do listen to his other albums, I’ve never really been impressed by him. When I put this one on the iPod, I didn’t really expect to be impressed. But I was anyway — ‘Ye’s as dark as he was on “808s and Heartbreak” (if not darker), but he’s got his musicianship down. And though he lets his ego talk (too) loudly when he’s not making music, in the studio he apparently knows when to shut up and let talents like Bon Iver and Nicki Minaj shine. I was really impressed by this one, in spite of my expectations — all the way through, it’s an amazing album, both for him and for music in general.

“Sigh No More” – Mumford and Sons
The Decemberists borrow folk music in the English tradition and sometimes it feels hollow, as if Colin and company are making fun of the old ballads they’re aping. But this one borrows from the same tradition and yet feels raw-nerve real. Plus, I have to give them kudos for creating a rock radio hit with a major banjo part in “Little Lion Man.” That’s hard to do nowadays.

“Treats” – Sleigh Bells
I was late to the party on this one — I really only gave this album a good listen as real sleigh bells were starting to be heard later on this year. But when I did actually digest it, I was really impressed. I have no idea what they’re doing on this record; it literally is noise. I don’t really hear instruments or a mix in there, and I couldn’t really tell you any of the lyrics. But it’s really fun to listen to anyway.

Honorable mentions: “Sir Lucious Left Foot the Son of Chico Dusty” – Big Boi, “B.o.B Presents: The Adventure of Bobby Ray” – B.o.B., “The Five Ghosts” – Stars, “High Violet” – The National, “Volume Two” – She & Him, “Broken Bells” – Broken Bells, “The Lady Killer” – Cee-lo Green.

Update: I honestly forgot that Peter Gabriel’s great “Scratch my Back” cover album came out this year — it would have definitely been included in my top five had I remembered.

Top five movies of 2010 (that I saw*)

*Yeah, once again I’ve been slacking on my movie watching. You’d think moving out to LA would actually get me out to the movie theater more, but alas it’s not true. I’ve missed out on a lot of movies people are saying might be the year’s best, including The King’s Speech, Catfish, Black Swan, 127 Hours, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Jackass 3D, and so on. I’ll list these anyway — these are the best movies I saw this year.

Inception
Even with the disclaimer above, I feel pretty sure in saying I did see the best movie that came out this year, and it was Inception. I loved it — I loved how the movie lived by its own internal logic, and while I’m not a huge fan of Leonardo DiCaprio, I was very impressed by both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page. Plus, the visuals were just so impressive. We’re at a point now with film, I think (and video games, to kind of a lesser extent), where there’s no technological limit on what we can actually show on screen. The only limit is in the director’s imagination, and Christopher Nolan definitely has an active one of those.

The Fighter
On Christmas Day, I went with my friends to see three movies in a row in the theater: Tron, this one, and True Grit. And while I really enjoyed them all (I’m not sure whether I’m going to put True Grit on this list yet or not), I was surprised that The Fighter stuck out for me as the best one. I don’t usually like films based on real people, and Mark Wahlberg doesn’t really make me think “actor.” But he played his part well in this movie, and was surrounded on all sides by people who can act — the impressive Melissa Leo, my actress crush Amy Adams, and Christian Bale (who’s rivaling Gary Oldman for range lately). Even O’Keefe (who is actually played by the real O’Keefe, it turns out) won me over in the end, and what I kind of thought would be an overwrought, predictable sports movie turned out to have way more heart and depth than I expected. I’m glad I saw this early — anyone waiting to see it until after it wins all kinds of awards probably won’t be as impressed as I was with it.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Unfortunately, I fall just slightly over the target age group for this one — the generation that really identifies with Canadian rocker and romance-seeker Scott Pilgrim is actually a few years younger than me, I think. So the actual movie didn’t play with me quite as well as it would have had I been young and hip enough to been a fan of Sex Bob-omb and Ramona Flowers before I graduated college. Still, I liked it a lot, and it earns a place on this list for the circumstances I saw it in: at a Comic-Con screening, a few weeks before it actually came out. I was there with an audience full of Comic-Con attending Scott Pilgrim fans, all of whom had gotten in the theater for free after waiting in line for over and hour, and all of whom knew that the film’s stars and creators were sitting right there in the audience with them. I’ve never seen a room so electrified for a movie — people laughed at every joke, cheered every reference, and loved every character. It was probably the most wild two hours I’ve ever had in a movie theater, and of course it made the movie that much better.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
Not actually being on TV hasn’t stopped Bruce Timm and Warner Brothers’s DC animation unit from making some amazing animated films about the DC Universe, and while this is the best of the year, the other two DC animated movies that came out this year weren’t bad either. This one is based on the old Earth 2 storyline (as well as a few other alternate universe storylines that Batman, Superman, and the rest of the JLA have had to face throughout the years, and it’s just plain awesome. You’ve got Superman doing his big blue boy scout thing, heroes who aren’t what they seem, and as usual in the Justice League, by the end it’s up to grumpy old Batman to save the multiverse (spoiler: from another grumpy old Batman). I loved this movie — it’s the best superhero movie I’ve seen in a long time, and I just love how geeky Bruce Timm and his teams are getting with these direct-to-videos, calling out old DC heroes and storylines that would never make it in the mainstream movies coming out lately.

Alice in Wonderland
Anything Tim Burton makes just charms me over. I don’t even know if this was that great a movie (I have seen the original Disney Alice once, and even read the book once, but didn’t remember all of the particulars), but I really enjoy how, even as he’s moved more and more towards the mainstream, Burton’s been able to keep that weird counterculture edge that he’s always played with. In every single one of his films, he’s been able to play with the idea of what a traditional “hero” should be, and give the weird loser a chance to enjoy the spotlight for a while.

Honorable Mentions: Toy Story 3, Iron Man 2, Batman: Under the Red Hood, Kick-Ass, True Grit.

Top five video games of the year

Mass Effect 2
I think this was the best overall game of the year (and I think it’ll be suitably honored in places that keep track of such things). Yes, Bioware cut a lot of the boring RPG points stuff out of it, but if that allowed them to spend more time on that story, then it paid off. I loved just bringing my old character in seamlessly from the first game, and I really loved running across all of the old storylines sprinkled liberally around the world — even if I didn’t remember them exactly, these characters and I literally had a past in common, and that improved dialogue system made it even easier to share that with them. For the first time in any Bioware game I can remember, I actually hunted down all of the special quests for each character and maxed out everything I could before the finale, trying as hard as I could to keep my crew alive and with me. And even then, by making certain choices in the midst of battle (yes, I probably could have looked up the “right” answers, but where’s the fun in that), some of my best friends died to save the universe, and those are choices I’ll have to live with in the trilogy’s finale next year. Bioware is a brilliant company, making their own sci-fi universe in Mass Effect was a brilliant movie, and polishing that game to an exceptional shine in the sequel made for the best game this year.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
I’m not sure if I should actually include this year, as I haven’t even actually bought the expansion yet. But I’ve already had so much fun enjoying the free content added in to the game that I can definitely include this update in my top 5. I’ll admit, I didn’t think Blizzard could bring me (or the rest of their huge audience) back to World of Warcraft — haven’t we done it all in this game already? But playing through the updated Eastern Plaguelands was a revelation — Blizzard has learned so much in this game’s five years about how to tell a story with these mechanics and how to streamline the player’s experience perfect that I was amazed by how right they’d gotten it. Then I moved to Burning Steppes, and I loved that zone. Then I played through Swamp of Sorrows of all places, and it was the same thing. Then, I went to Outland … and, well, the content there is a little old. But still, even before I’ve actually put my $40 down (I hear Archaeology is worth the price of admission alone), Cataclysm has brought so much to this game and given so much entertainment that I have no problem honoring it here.

Enslaved
I called this one back at E3 — I was impressed back then at both how literary and cinematic it was, and the full game fulfilled that promise. In a year without an Uncharted sequel, you won’t find a more cinematic game to play through. The characters of Trip and Monkey are my favorite pair this year, and everything in this game, from the gorgeous level art to the solid core gameplay, is targeted at defining those two and what their place is in this weird post-apocalyptic world. The game suffers a bit later on from signs of too small a budget (the story kind of fizzles out with a quick wrapup, and later levels and gameplay aren’t quite as varied or well-defined as the expansive early experiences), but even with those concerns, Enslaved is definitely one of the year’s best. I don’t know what a sequel would do with a story, but I’d love to see Ninja Theory get the chance to put another game like this together with a little stronger budget.

Red Dead Redemption
This was so much more than Grand Theft Horse. It didn’t have to be — Rockstar knows how to make open world storyline games, and all they had to do, really, was create an open world western game. But they really went over and above what was expected with this one, both in terms of all of the various things you can do (I wish Grand Theft Auto had its own version of skinning to play with), and in the story, which both paid homage to classic Westerns and overtook them. It’s almost a shame there was so much to do in this game, because some people couldn’t finish it. And Red Dead Redemption had no question the best ending to a game of 2010, if not the past decade.

Rock Band 3
Joystiq’s Chris Grant and I were lucky enough to go to the unveiling of Rock Band 3 earlier this year before E3, and before the show we weren’t sure what to expect. Activision had just shown us what it was doing with Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, and the rumor was that Harmonix was working on a keyboard peripheral (though that rumor seemed almost too silly). But on the way home from the reveal (where I was one of the first five people outside of Harmonix to play this game in the entire world), Grant and I couldn’t stop talking about this game — how they’d streamlined the Rock Band experience perfectly, how Activision would have to give up on music games, and how Harmonix was going to change the world and teach anyone and everyone on the street how to shred on the guitar. And when I finally bought the game later on this year, none of it disappointed — what could have simply been a bigger library and an incremental release really turned out to be a revolution in music games, both how they work and how they’re played, both online and off. Sure, there’s a new keyboard, but the real genius of Rock Band 3 is how Harmonix has tackled and conquered problems I didn’t even realize their genre had.

Honorable Mentions: Nimble Strong, Bartender in Training, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Puzzle Quest 2, Pocket Frogs.