The Doldrums of Winter

Winter starts off with such promise. It's awards season time! Movies are flying in like crazy and my money is going straight to theaters everywhere. Then February hits and all the artsy films have been released over the last 3 months and all the blockbusters are being held off until May. I was seeing as many as five movies a week in a theater in December and early January. Now I can't find one worth my time. That's not to say that nothing has looked interesting, just that nothing has looked worth the $10. I will end up seeing Safe House, Chronicle, Wanderlust, and The Lorax in due time thanks to Redbox or Netflix. Maybe they will even be cheap enough on release day to warrant me making a rare film purchase of something I haven't yet seen.

Normally during these dry spells at the theater there are plenty of movies in disc form that I am excited for. I tend to make the trip to Target or Best Buy every Tuesday to pick up at least one new release. Just not in February where Hugo was the only movie I bought over the 29 day span. Sure a couple of other films I was somewhat interested in came out like Take Shelter and Like Crazy but nothing that was screaming "BUY ME!" Luckily this all comes to an end tomorrow when finally the floodgates start to open with Young Adult, Melancholia, The Descendants, and My Week With Marilyn all deciding to drain my wallet the same day. Maybe I will start having something to write about every night again.

What's most interesting to me is that while I have found very little to see so far this year, the box office is outpacing last year's sales by far. A bunch of movies have opened to far bigger numbers than predicted. The Lorax, for instance, was always going to make money because of the source material combined with being a family film. But $70 million when industry insiders were looking for $50? Where did all of this excess business come from? Most intriguing about this uptick in sales is the potential for The Hunger Games. With the end of Harry Potter and the Twilight Saga and Batman franchises ending later this year Hollywood is looking for the next big franchise. The Hunger Games has a lot going for it: Wildly popular books, extremely passionate fan base, an A-List cast, and hype. Lots of hype. A movie that was already going to make money could gain a considerable bump from the extra film goers this year. I just hope it's a good enough film to break the dry spell I have been feeling for the last two months.