It’s Valentine week, so, of course, the studios have found a way to make a buck out of the event. That’s no surprise—and neither is it a surprise that it’s being done in one of those ways that promises to make the week’s layout of movies confusing for all concerned, especially for me. There are five movies opening this week. Fine. Of course, three of them open on Valentine’s Day (Thursday). The other two open on Friday. It doesn’t help that the early information had one of those opening on Thursday, but proved to be wrong. Let’s see if we can straighten this out.

OK, it’s Oscar season—you know, those awards that we all love to hate and call meaningless, but tend to mysteriously get worked about anyway. I have no idea why I care. I’ve sworn off them twice. I’ve called them embarassing on any number of occasions I’ve sworn at the TV profusely (and when I swear profusely even sailors turn beet red) and been tempted to hurl a brick at the screen (fortunately, I rarely have bricks at hand) more times than I care to think about. This year promises to be no different.

This should have been an easy week. All there was to deal with was a simple two and two split — two mainstream titles and two art house ones. In some ways, it still is simple. The Weinsteins didn’t change their minds this week and the mainstream titles are going pretty much everywhere (with the usual exceptions in competing areas) — but there is some last minute confusion on the other art title.

Welcome to a week in flux. Up until Monday morning we were slated for two art films and, it appeared, two mainstream titles. Then we were “Weinsteined” (I can think of no other word for their…quixotic approach to releasing movies) on one of the art titles. Now, one of the mainstream titles isn’t looking too healthy. I shall explain.