Nine years ago, I had an idea. I decided that since I had no connection to the movies honored by Hollywood at the Oscars, I needed to come up with my own awards. That’s how I decided to start The Brians, a contest run solely by me to determine the best movies of the previous year based on which movies I saw on the big screen.

Ten movies qualified for the 2010 awards: The Other Guys, A Team, Toy Story 3, Date Night, Valentine’s Day, Hot Tub Time Machine, Alice in Wonderland, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakuel and Despicable Me.

The minor (and more fun) categories will be posted later. But let’s get to the main honors before Sunday’s winners get over their hangovers and realize they have been overshadowed.

Best Supporting Actress: All the women from “Valentine’s Day.” Since I don’t pay that much attention to pop culture gossip, I sometimes have difficulty telling Jennifer Garner from Jessica Biel from Anne Hathaway from Jessica Alba. They are all pretty brunettes, and they all ended up in this romantic comedy which entertained me enough to honor them as a group.

Best Supporting Actor: Michael Keaton, “The Other Guys.” If these awards existed in the early to mid-980s, he would have had a Will Ferrell-level of dominance, but he’ll just have to settle for stealing the show in this better-than-expected Ferrell vehicle as the TLC-quoting, Bed, Bath &Beyond-moonlighting police captain who is named after a famous baseball manager.

Best Actress: Tina Fey, “Date Night.” She didn’t disappoint me in a movie where I expected I might get disappointed. Really a bad year for this category.

Best Actor: Liam Neeson, “The A Team.” I often worry about re-makes and questioned this casting choice fro the start, but Neeson brought a new edge to the Hannibal character, much like Daniel Craig did for James Bond a few years back. I know this film didn’t wow the critics, but Neeson led an effort which kept me entertained.

The Bridget: “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” This honor goes to the best kid’s movie I saw all year. I knew nothing headed into the theater for this one except that these books were very popular with the pre-teen set. They did a wonderful job keeping the charming aspects of the books while also making a pretty funny movie.

Best Movie: “Toy Story 3.” When I saw “Hot Tub Time Machine,” I thought nothing could wrest this award away from that goofy 80’s romp. I could not have been more wrong. At a time where we need to realize the difference between sentimentality and revisionist history in our daily lives, Pixar came up with an emotional gut-punch that took this film beyond its cute origins. Andy turned into a window for all the adults to look into, possibly to wonder if the choices we make today match those the idealistic 18-year-old would expect.

At least that’s how I saw it – a call to always remember to have fun, use our imagination and not take things too seriously. It was either that or the talking Army men. Doesn’t really matter. It was just an awesome movie.