Am I the only nerd out there totally excited about Scream 4? Maybe it’s nostalgia for the late 90’s, but I always thought the Scream franchise was at the top of the slasher genre. It had a cleverness about itself and delivered to horror fans exactly what they wanted, while offering genuine entertainment and laughs along the way. I am a horror fan, but I don’t particularly enjoy blood, guts and gore, but anything that is done smartly can win me over in the end. And for me, it’s nice to see a turn away from the torture-porn genre of Saw and its contemporaries.

Last Sunday, HBO premiered the first two installments of its five part miniseries, Mildred Pierce, to great interest both for its revisitation of a classic Hollywood film of the same name, and for its lead actress Kate Winslet, who seems to impress both critics and audiences more and more as her career continues forward. The next three installments will happen over these subsequent Sundays, and you can bet it won’t be long before the mini-series is out on DVD.

This week, we lost one of the great classic Hollywood actresses and a constant champion of HIV/AIDS advocacy, Elizabeth Taylor. Battling health problems for many years, she died on Wednesday of congestive heart failure. Her’s was a life filled with ups-and-downs, controversies, and of course, all of those husbands. In so many ways, she was the perfect Hollywood starlet- a vision on screen, a strong actress, a great beauty who became a brand on her own, and the fountain from which endless gossip fodder spewed into the tabloids.

As I’ve touched on before in this column, there are countless film festivals taking place all over the United States and throughout the world. In just about any major city and many of the smaller ones, as well, you can find a film festival that has the courage to show films that are often left out of the mainstream and likely wouldn’t be shown at your local multiplex. From festivals celebrating the art of film in total to those that seek to expose the creative work happening within niche categories based on demographic or interest, the recognition of the art and craft of film is alive and well.

For awhile it was vampires everywhere we looked. In books, movies, and television, we have been so beaten down by them that the bloodsuckers have started to lose their bite. As soon as the tweens got a hold of the undead charmers, we should have known that this monster was going to jump the shark. But vampires have held a place within pop culture since Bram Stoker brought us Dracula exactly because of that charm, that mysterious and sexy way they seduce their victims and bring them, often willingly, into their own world.

Watching the Oscars this week reminded me of the glut of epic films that have dotted Hollywood history. Many of these movies ultimately lack the punch of greatness outside of some beautiful sweeping landscapes, and God knows they often drag on and on for hours. Still there are the greats, and even when they feel dated, some films like Lawrence of Arabia and Gone with the Wind are still extraordinary film-watching experiences.

In the opinion of many (including myself) in theatre circles, Gypsy is one of the great American musicals, if not the single greatest American musical. It is the story of how the famous burlesque star, Gypsy Rose Lee became one of the most famous women in the world. With music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents, the musical was based on Gypsy’s memoirs.

Last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made the decision to extend the Best Motion Picture of the Year category to 10 films, instead of the five it had done for decades prior. Part of the idea was that lesser known films and limited release independents would have a chance to nudge into the list.

Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof were sentenced to six years in prison and banned from making films for 20 years for working on a film about Iran’s “green revolution” after its 2009 elections.

So, am I the only one who was completely underwhelmed by the movies released this year? As a movie-lover and cinephile, I usually don’t know how I’m going to fit in all the movies I’m going to see in a given year, especially during the end of the year when all of the “award-quality” movies clamor to be released. But this year I found myself struggling to get myself to the cinema at all, even with living in a city where almost all films in U.S. distribution are released.