Cinematical

In the next week or two, we're going to be emerging from what's generally considered a miserable cinematic wasteland -- a time when Hollywood treads water between Oscar season and summer, getting rid of scores of movies it doesn't have a lot of confidence in. It's a season most movie buffs dread, since the odds of a worthwhile trip to the theater are low, and time seems better spent contemplating the summer films that seem impossibly far away. Given the amount of time we've spent daydreaming about Iron Man and Speed Racer here at Cinematical, we're clearly not immune from the winter and spring haze.

Before you know it, Apatow cash cows, long-awaited sequels, and Wachowski extravaganzas will start making their way to the multiplexes. But I wanted to take a quick look back and ask what, if anything, you've liked from this sad stretch. I don't mean what the best film of 2008 is -- winter and spring can actually be quite a good season for festivals and indies, so one could come up with a number of worthy contenders from that stock. I mean the bright spots of the mainstream wide release dumping ground.

I'll throw my support behind The Other Boleyn Girl, a deliriously entertaining pseudo-historical melodrama, and Charlie Bartlett, a whip-smart, good-natured teen comedy that featured what should rightfully have been a star-making performance by Anton Yelchin. While Boleyn Girl actually did okay at the box-office, Charlie Bartlett deserved better -- it got pushed back from last August, released with no fanfare in February, and was gone from theaters in two weeks. Penelope, The Bank Job, and Definitely, Maybe were also highlights in an otherwise dull few months.

I'm sure a number of you are smart enough to keep away from theaters during the first quarter. But what about the rest of you? Let's try to be positive. See anything good?