Last week was pretty slack—at least as far as the box office was concerned (I’m of the opinion that Jack the Giant Slayer was a lot better than its reception would seem to indicate). This week is rather stronger looking—both in terms of box office and in general. We’ve got one highly-anticipated mainstream release and three art—or at least not quite mainstream titles.

It would take almost superhuman determination for this week’s crop of movies—four mainstream and one art title—to come anywhere near the toxic crumminess of last week’s dismal duo, and hopefully that determination doesn’t exist. However, it must be admitted that some of this stuff looks very sketchy. Very sketchy indeed.

So there we have it for another year — the Oscars. The question is if there’s anything new to be said about them, and while the answer is probably “not really,” some comment is called for about the curiously all-over-the-map nature of this year’s selections and the general weirdness and — let’s face it — galloping ennui of Oscar and this year’s program.

This could be handled very easily. There are two movies opening this week. They both look pretty bad. There. That about covers it. Fortunately, there are compensations in special showings and on DVD.