Released to mixed reviews in 2005, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a first-person, non-linear, stream-of-consciousness novel narrated by a ten-year-old boy with Asperger syndrome. To handle the tricky adaptation, Hollywood turned to Eric Roth, acclaimed screenwriter of such other challenging adaptations as Forrest Gump, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Insider and Munich.

 Big movies this week are Katherine Heigl's vehicle “One of the Money” and Liam Neeson's “The Grey”. Neither of these pictures really interest me, but that's OK because there are several other releases that I would see... if I had free time.

Fans of Paul Reubens will be happy to know he recently joined the cast of “Frank or Francis”. The film, written and directed by Charlie Kaufman (“Being John Malkovich”, “Adaptation”), is a musical satire about a director dealing with a vindictive critic. Steve Carell, Nicolas Cage, and Jack Black star in the film along with Elizabeth Banks and Kevin Kline. As a fan of Reubens and Kaufman I'm excited to see them pair up.

Wide releases this weekend included Underworld: Awakening, Red Tails, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Haywire and the Shakespearean adaptation Coriolanus. But as always, there are a lot more movies out, most of which you've probably (sadly) never heard of. Here are eight of your other movie options...

As always, we've scoured the trades this week so you didn't have to. Here's what's happening this week in scriptwriting, selling, revising and producing.

For those of you who have never seen “Beauty and the Beast” in the theatre, don't worry Disney released the classic cartoon in 3D this weekend. Another wide release blockbuster is “Contraband” starring Mark Wahlberg. Here are the other movies you might find interesting.

This last week was full of exciting news in the screenwriting world. Which of these news bits are you most excited about?

As with January's of the past, it appears this month will be a bummer at the movies. Movies for the award season were released, even if only in select theatres, before the end of 2011 and that means all that are left are films that most likely just aren't very good. With that being said, maybe one of the following films will prove that stereotype wrong.

There are some interesting projects moving along. From indies to blockbusters, Hollywood is making the most of award season to whet our appetite for future films.

Fans of “The Artist” will be happy to know that the director of that movie, Michel Hazanavicius, announced his next film. Inspired by the 1948 film “The Search” the project will be set in Chechnya and revolve around a woman and young boy in the war torn country.

Happy New Year. No blockbusters were released over the New Years holiday weekend. Most likely other studios anticipated that the juggernauts “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” and “Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows” would be clean up at the box office and they were right. However, there are a few independent and foreign films that were rolled out to fight the underdog fight.