Movies with wide release this weekend include “The Woman in Black” starring Daniel Radcliffe about a haunted house, “Big Miracle” starring Drew Barrymore about whales trapped underneath ice in the Arctic Circle, and “Chronicle” starring a bunch of teenagers with super hero abilities. After you finish seeing “The Woman in Black”, I'd skip the other two and head over to a smaller art theatre to pick one of the following films.

This week is a blast from the past. From 80's puppets to 80's movie icons, there seems to be a trend going on in Hollywood. If it is set in the 80's or is somehow connected to the 80's, buy it and buy it fast.

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.