As evidenced by this week‘s review, the quality of new wide releases appears to be dipping again — a definite disappointment, considering how strong the year started off.

Quite unexpectedly, the first couple months of 2012 continue to offer some quality choices for discriminating movie-goers.

February typically serves as a dumping ground for weak studio films that offer an easy alternative to “mainstream” audiences who don’t see Oscar bait, but this year has brought some welcome surprises.

Typically, I spend the first six weeks or so of each new year playing catch-up with all the Oscar bait that was released around Christmas. But as it turns out this awards season didn’t produce as many true prestige pictures as expected, so starting next week we’ll be returning to new releases with a look at Steven Soderbergh’s acclaimed action flick “Haywire,” followed by a review of the Liam Neeson vs. wolves survival thriller “The Grey” (I’ll also briefly return to the 2011 awards contenders with a piece on “The Artist,” if it ever opens in the Lodi-Stockton area).

People sometimes tell me that I should lighten up and be more optimistic, so I tried to be hopeful about this summer movie season. Really, I did.

The following films are opening Friday:

The word from the White House is the Bill Clinton is chomping at the bit.