Sitting here, staring at my computer screen while not really watching—off to the side— a movie even I don’t recognize on TCM, I find my mind wandering into the realm of considering the state of film criticism in our media-saturated world—and I’m not all that happy by what I see. But it’s less the criticism that bothers me than the way the moviegoing public seems to be taking it.

This, of course, is Star Trek Into Darkness week, which, I confess, doesn’t thrill me as much as Gatsby week, but I’m not against it. We also have two art/indie titles braving the blockbuster storm—and both are really worthwhile.

Finally — it’s the weekend we get Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, a movie bound to polarize just about everyone, and a movie fairly certain to be mauled by a lot of critics, which perhaps makes it that much more interesting. At the same time, we get three new art titles and a kind of stealth attack from Tyler Perry.

It’s the beginning of summer — or so the movies insist — and first out of the gate in the headlong rush for your moviegoing bucks is Iron Man 3. And, of course, no mainstream release is about to go up against it. A couple of foolhardy art/indie titles are not so reticent.

It’s a two and two week again—two art titles vs. two mainstream titles—though you may notice that the distributors are doing their darndest to convince people that one of those art titles, Mud, has crossover potential. In fact, it probably does—depending on whether or not they over-saturate the market by putting it on too many screens. We shall see.

The excitement of last week—the opening of Trance and Beyond the Pines—gives way to slighter art house pleasures this week, but pleasures all the same. There are two of those, but only one mainstream title—and no matter how it fares it absolutely has to be better than Scary Movie 5. An evening with a door-to-door God salesman or someone making an Amway pitch is better than Scary Movie 5.

This week may be on the slack side — in fact, it is on the slack side — but it cannot possibly be as bad as last week. Last week’s three mainstream pictures marked a trilogy of tripe the likes of which I don’t need to see again any time soon (as in this century). I don’t even like thinking about last weekend, so let’s get on with this one.

Last week offered a pretty wide mix of the good and the not so hot — with the actual balance being more of the former (in some cases pretty surprisingly). This week’s list of two mainstreamers, two art titles and one Tyler Perry picture may well be another matter — and the probability of nice surprises seems on the dubious side.

We’re looking at a big weekend comprised of three mainstream offerings and three art/indie titles—one of which has shot to being my favorite film of the year (so far). Another most assuredly has not.

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.

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.