Dry Months of April

It's hard to peg down a single month that is the most depressive slog of the year, but I'd make a strong case for April. Sure, January is an immediate drop off from the rush of quality cinema that greets the close of the year, and February is little better, but both of those have the positive bump of Oscar season on the skirts to divert attention away from sparse new cinematic offerings. March often has plentiful blockbuster offerings, even if some fail to live up to the stature of others. And we know that May through to December is often full of exceptional fare to some degree. April is four weeks of padding, and even if there are good films out there, they're not exactly bombastic.

Maybe it's that we're so close to big entertainment that small offerings just don't seem to have their place. "Titanic 3D" even seems to have a small nature surrounding it, as unlikely as that sounds. If you see the film, you know that James Cameron packs in quite an exceptional amount of scale, so why isn't that more of a draw? I'm not entirely sure, but nothing in me has much reason to want to see it on the big screen. It might just be a matter of time and place, and April is not a month you really want to head out for massive adventure. Quite often, and this is not just the case for students, it's a time of getting heavy loads of work done.

I cannot speak yet as somebody who has seen "Damsels in Distress", Whit Stillman's latest feature, though I've heard spectacular things. I'm very much looking forward to its expansion to closer territories, but I rather wish it had been released wide instead of fare like "American Reunion", "The Three Stooges", or "Lockout". In the box office game they're struggling, but they are undeniably getting more attention than the better films out there. Pablo Larrain's long delayed "Post Mortem" finally found its way to American theaters. Nobody really noticed, since it's only taking a limited engagement in New York and Los Angeles.

I'd say the point of the matter, though sometimes I just like the chance to write for its own sake, is that right now seems the perfect time to catch up with movies I've missed, and my there are plenty. "21 Jump Street", "Kill List", "The Snowtown Murders", "Miss Bala", and "Deep Blue Sea" to name all of those I am quite happy to make an acquaintance with soon enough. I remain skeptical of "Haywire", "Chronicle", and "Coriolanus", and simply pessimistic regarding "This Means War", "The Woman in Black", and "The Vow", but it'll be good to waste some time. I don't recall the last time I did that.

So what have you been up to lately? What has been taking up your time in this dry patch of the season? Myself, I've been mostly quite busy wrapping up classwork in the next two weeks. It's going to be quite the grind to get it all under the belt. I've been catching up with some fantastic shows, mainly "Community", "Mad Men", and the suddenly bombastic season of "Fringe". I'll accept no gripes there. And prepare for an abundance of "Quick Takes" pieces as I try to utilize the local library's vast collection of films before I lose the opportunity to do so. Busy month, no matter what way you look at it.