It’s getting harder and harder for us poor drones of the blogosphere to stay current. We haven’t even begun to compile our final thoughts on the films of 2008, and already the Times Online has published their list of the top 50 movies of 2009.

Granted, it’s purely speculative nonsense. “Which hot franchises will step up to fill the spaces left by Batman, Bond and Indy? We’ve taken a look through the studio schedules and picked out the most promising prospects for the coming year.” Some of their choices look pretty safe. The number one pick is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and others finishing in the top ten include Star Trek (#3), the Da Vinci Code follow-up Angels & Demons (#6) and Monsters vs. Aliens (#8). Going out a little further on a limb, they’ve selected the Dillinger biopic Public Enemies to finish behind only Harry Potter. Sure, it’s got Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, but it’s also got a whiff of the brat pack bomb Mobsters about it, no?

Of course, the real fun is to be found further down the list. I’m glad someone is optimistic enough to believe Fanboys will finally be released in theaters; on the other hand, I’m somewhat skeptical that “curiosity value alone guarantees S. Darko a strong opening weekend.” Perhaps most intriguing is #42: “Them, a recently announced feature to be directed by Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz’s Edgar Wright, is not, as far as we can tell, an update of the hoary old giant ant chiller but a fictionalised adaptation of Jon Ronson’s investigative book about the shadowy conspiracies that operate behind our notional governments. Unless it turns out that the Illuminati and the Bilderberg Group actually are all enormous ants.”

Check out the full list starting here.

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