It’s quite possible that there’s an unexpected benefit to the fact that nothing new opens this week. You know that white Christmas that Bing Crosby enthused over from a soundstage in sunny Hollywood 68 years ago? Well, as you might have noticed, we got it with a vengeance hereabouts. I admit it was picturesque, but it played havoc with Christmas moviegoing, causing early closings, power losses and something other than exciting attendance. Since it’s supposed to warm up and theoretically melt all this stuff, this weekend offers a chance to catch up with The King’s Speech, True Grit, I Love You, Phillip Morris and Black Swan. Of course, Little Fockers and Gulliver’sTravels are out there, too, but wasn’t being snowed in bad enough?

Justin Souther’s article that appeared this week on my 10 years at the Xpress caused me to reflect on just what those years had meant to me, what they’d given me and what I’ve learned from them. And how, yes, I sometimes have felt like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange (1971). It also made me decide — after I read it on Tuesday — that I’d break my threat or promise (you decide which) not to write a Screening Room this week. Well, after all, it was really a promise to myself not to work over an unprecedented Christmas off — and since I’m at least starting in on Wednesday, I might pull that off yet.