One of the richest years of movies in recent history, the year when former stalwarts of the new independent film like Steven Soderbergh and Ang Lee began to bring art to the mainstream, this is also the year of one of the most frustratingly illogical movie moments. No, not that Gladiator won Best Picture, but that was pretty bad, too.

For those of us who have grown increasingly appalled at the idea of Avatar winning Best Picture — pick your excuse: horrible dialogue, 2-D character development that is subordinate to the 3-D action, the truly discomforting idea that these big blue people are all fine and one with nature, but a white guy pretending to be one of them becomes their chosen one, or whatever he was — there is some good news.

The Sixth Sense got all of the attention for its surprise ending. But after a decade, the real surprise ending might be that in a year that brought some truly inventive movies by a new generation of filmmakers, the Best Picture, American Beauty, is in fact still the best picture.

Five movies about just two topics — Elizabethan England and World War II — could not have been more different from each other. As it turned out, the wrong movie with the queen won, and the wrong movie about World War II has been portrayed as the one that got shafted.

Perhaps the biggest surprise about Titanic’s Best Picture win is that it didn’t sink Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet into long, boring careers playing the same poorly written roles that made $1.8 billion. Now, if only a few others had made such wise career choices that year.

Maybe Avatar isn’t a lock, after all. Two curious developments over the weekend have at least cast doubt on the certainty of an Avatar win for Best Picture. First, the Screen Actors Guild gave its ensemble award to Inglourious Basterds.Then the Producers Guild gave its top award to The Hurt Locker.

Who’s going to the quarterback of the Vikings next season? If only I could not care, but ESPN won’t let me.