Well, let’s see, this week there’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and then there’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In fact, everywhere you turn, there’s Harry Potter.

There are stacks of DVDs on my desk—several of them in fact. A few of them contain holdovers yet to be returned to the shelves from research needs, but the bulk of these stacks are movies I’ve purchased or been given that I intend to watch. The problem is finding—or making—the time to actually sit down and do that. I suspect that I am far from alone in this matter.

This was my third year as a judge, and as usual I was pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of the entries, but then I’m impressed that anyone can create anything that’s even watchable in 48 hours—and most of these were much more than merely watchable.

Maybe this would be a good week to take a break from the studio steamroller and spend some time with the surprising array of movies of, let’s say, slightly more depth that are in local theaters just now.

As anyone who read last week’s column knows, I spent the past weekend at the Monster Bash in Pennsylvania where I had dinner with Jonathan Haze (Seymour in the original Little Shop of Horrors [1960]) and drinks with Ron (grandson of the Wolf Man) and Linda (granddaughter-in-law of the Wolf Man) Chaney and held the door open for Lou Ferrigno. I also spent far too much money on cinematic esoterica.

This week there’s a little something for everybody out there. The big offerings, of course, are Michael Mann’s Public Enemies and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (sometimes in 3-D, depending on where you see it—and your willingness to cough up the extra three to three-and-a-half bucks for that third dimension).

Yes, it’s my annual outing to the Monster Bash, which, for anyone who doesn’t know, is an affair where folks like myself get together to debate such things as the merits of Bela Lugosi’s performance as the Monster in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. We do this to prove to the Trekkies and Star Warvians that they don’t have a lock on geekdom. It’s also proving to me that I’m getting too old for this.

It will surprise no one that I am not looking forward to Transformers with keen anticipation. I hated the first film and see nothing to indicate that this one will be appreciably different. Do I hear cries of “bias?” Well, yes, I’m biased. That happens when you’re going to see a sequel to a movie you found spectacularly obnoxious.

Is there anything calculated to set off the movie enthusiast like a remake? We just passed a week that offered us a new-and-not-improved version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) on apparently no better excuse than changing the title to The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. Presumably in our more frenzied time, it simply takes too long to spell out the numbers.

If it weren’t for the Fine Arts bringing in Anvil! The Story of Anvil and the Carolina Asheville opening Easy Virtue, this week at the movies would look pretty negligible—much like last week with the ho-hummery of Imagine That and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. The Proposal, a predictable-looking rom-com with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, and Jack Black and Michael Cera as inept cavemen in Year One aren’t exactly likely to set the moviegoing world a-flutter.

It seems that Ken is inundated this week with family, so I’ve been given the keys to this week’s Screening Room. We toyed with the idea of still claiming that he authored the column this week and seeing if anyone would catch on, but I decided I’d rather see if I can get fewer views than our Halloween article did. I have faith that you and I together, dear readers, can.

Last week offered us one truly wonderful film, The Brothers Bloom, one very good film, Sugar, and a lot of other things that are mostly best not spoken of. Well, those two mentioned remain in theaters this week, as, unfortunately, do all the others. But they’re joined by one truly remarkable film, Goodbye Solo (see review in Wednesday’s Xpress), that was shot in Winston-Salem and Blowing Rock, N.C., by Winston-Salem-born filmmaker Ramin Bahrani.

Most of us have them. There’s even one of those endless polls you find on Facebook centered on the “five movies you’re most likely to watch over and over.” (I don’t know why Facebook is fixated on the number five, but they group everything in fives. It’s probably Satanic in some way.) And it’s considered completely normal to have such a list.

The old Regal Hollywood Cinema 14 will have its grand re-opening this Friday, June 5, as the Carolina Asheville Cinema 14. Changes abound. There’s a new lobby with a kind of screening-room mezzanine where the video games used to be. There are new seats, equipment upgrades—including one digital theater that will allow the Carolina to run digital 3-D.

Last week the trailer for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes (slated for a Christmas Day release) hit theater screens and the internet. For those not following such things, Sherlock Holmes stars Robert Downey, Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson. It’s very obviously a rethinking of the much loved Conan Doyle characters. The tone is comedic and the trailer suggests considerably more action than is generally associated with the detecting duo. Not surprisingly, this has caused much consternation among the Sherlockian set.

It’s an interesting week at the movies with Pixar’s new film Up and Sam Raimi’s “return to horror” Drag Me to Hell (wait, didn’t Night at the Museum 2 do that to me last week?) vying for our moviegoing attention. I don’t think there’s much doubt as to who is going to win this contest.

Not so long ago I happened to see a letter written to a theater chain lambasting them for the practice of bringing the lights up before the credits ended. It should be noted that the customer wasn’t some diehard cineaste who just has to know who drove the honeywagon and who catered the food. No, his complaint had to do with his personal discomfort in cases where the movie had an emotional impact on him, and he liked to be able to sit in the dark to compose himself. In other words, he didn’t wish anyone to witness his shame at having been moved to tears by what he’d just seen.

Some of you might remember Joe Chang’s film Neutral, which debuted in Asheville back in the fall of 2007. For a local work, it was unusual, in that Joe insisted on shooting the film on 35mm—something that gave it a visual richness not often seen in such productions. Neutral was—and is—also one of the very few Asheville-based films that attempts to capture something of the sense of the city itself, which is perhaps why it struck me as an “existential drama.”

Just this past week someone posted a comment expressing a preference for not going too far back in time when it came to watching movies. That’s fine. It’s a personal choice—and one that most people make. What I’m curious about, though, is how people define the term “old movie.”

I’m locked in a race with the upcoming release of Ron Howard’s Angels & Demons this week to see if I can finish reading the book by Dan Brown before I see the film. Last time Howard tackled a Dan Brown opus with The DaVinci Code, I tried the other approach, and read the book after having seen the film.