2012 has been widely hailed as an exceptional year for film, but I’m at a loss as to where all these great films are supposed to be. (But then, if we’ve lowered our standards of “greatness” to the point that something like “Silver Linings Playbook” is being proclaimed as a masterwork ... .)

The following films are opening Friday, Sept. 28, 2012:

We were in the weeds for most of the summer, and browsing the wide release schedule for the next couple months makes it clear that things are only going to get worse before they get any better. But this too shall pass, and before we know it we’ll all be basking in the sweet, comforting glow of the fall movie season, in the company of Steven Spielberg, P.T. Anderson, Ang Lee and James Bond. But rewards must be earned, and for the time being we’ve just gotta grind it out.

As “The Expendables 2” rolls into theaters across the globe (look for the review next week), the 2012 summer movie comes to a close — and I honestly can’t remember ever being more depressed as a moviegoer.

This week’s review of “The Dark Knight Rises” comes a little later than I had initially hoped, but oh well — it’s never too late to spread good news. And I advise you to enjoy the good times while they last, because the rest of the summer looks pretty dicey.

It has occurred to me that I discuss my personal goings-on a bit less than my fellow News-Sentinel columnists do, but in the interest of partial disclosure, I must confess that life has gotten significantly more difficult for me in the past few months. I’ve started a new job that requires many long, grueling, thankless hours in an undesirable environment. The possibility of complete physical and mental collapse is now very real.

As Thanksgiving approaches, I’m trying to brighten my attitude about life in general and the fall movie season in particular. After all, despite my bloviating, perhaps things aren’t so bad. It may not look like it judging by the current wide-release roster, but awards season is indeed upon us, and there’s actually quite a few promising titles to look forward to in the coming weeks  —  starting with “The Muppets” (admittedly not an awards contender, though I’m looking forward to it more than anything else this season), which opens Thursday. Nothing  —  I repeat, nothing  —  will brighten your holidays like the lovable antics of the Swedish Chef.

I thought — I was led to believe — that November was supposed to be phase one of the annual Oscar blitz, in which studios treat moviegoers to their finest offerings in the hopes of garnering enough attention to qualify for the all-important year-end awards.

“In Time.” “The Three Musketeers.” “Footloose.” “Johnny English Reborn.” These are among the films now playing in multiplexes across the country. I find this roster to be strange and unsettling, as I have apparently been laboring under the misapprehension that we were supposed to be smack-dab in the middle of awards season. Silly me.

Apologies for my absence last week, but I’ve been down with a pretty debilitating flu (the symptoms of which will probably continue for some time, as I tend to take terrible care of myself when I’m sick). But I’m trying not to let it ruin the festivities of Halloween week, and I managed to drag myself to a screening of the latest “Paranormal Activity” entry. Despite the glowing reviews and word of mouth it’s been receiving, I found it to be quite underwhelming.

I must confess a growing discontent with the modern theater-going experience. In another five to 10 years, when affordable home entertainment set-ups and online streaming access have progressed to the point that movie theaters serve primarily as a social function for drunk teenagers, I don’t think I’ll miss the experience too much.

I often write about the importance of remaining optimistic regarding the state of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, but sometimes I find it difficult to follow my own advice. Case in point: As of press time, “Drive” — the intoxicating, trail-blazing Hollywood debut of Danish wunderkind Nicolas Winding-Refn that may very well stand as the best film of 2011 — has plummeted to No. 11 on the box office chart after less than three weeks in general release, bringing its domestic total to roughly $27 million.

The unrivaled cinematic high provided by “Drive” was fun while it lasted, but now it’s time to start the long, hard slog toward awards season. The period between the end of summer and the beginning of Oscar season proper is typically a bit of a dumping ground populated by not-quite-ready-for-primetime also-rans, but there are still some promising titles on the horizon.

I’m generally cynical regarding the state of contemporary Hollywood filmmaking, but the fact remains that there are a number of “great” movies released each year. They may seem few and far between, but carefully crafted, engaging, four-star movies still don’t qualify as an endangered species in the modern studio system.

Time just keeps slipping away. It seems like just last week we were looking ahead to the promising pre-summer releases, and now in about a month’s time the summer movie season is set to kick into high-gear with the new “Pirates” movie. I suppose it’s just as well that these past couple months have passed in a blur, because frankly there wasn’t too much worth getting excited about. Save for “Rango,” I never encountered anything truly worthwhile — and last week’s “Sucker Punch” provided one of the most physically painful and soul-crushing movie experiences I’m ever likely to have. So yeah, I’m ready to look ahead to greener pastures. In that spirit, here are 15 upcoming movies (compared to the usual 10) that I’m counting on to alleviate the cinematic doldrums for the foreseeable future. Gotta look on the sunny side.

I’ve been looking forward to Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” for so long and with such absurdly heightened expectations that it seemed almost impossible the film could live up to my hopes. This seems to be a pattern with Nolan, as incidentally, I could have said the exact same thing when his “Memento” and “The Dark Knight” were released. But as with those two previous films, Nolan has somehow surpassed my unfair expectations and once again delivered a work that is both technically astounding and wildly entertaining.

Looking over a few of my columns from the beginning of the summer movie season, I began to get quite depressed. Here were the words of a naïve and hopeful young man, so full of wide-eyed anticipation for “what was sure to be one hell of a summer,” now confronted by the harsh realities of one of the most disappointing periods for movies in recent memory.

Judging by the late-'90s sitcom "Third Rock from the Sun," I never would have suspected that Joseph Gordon-Levitt would have blossomed into a great actor. He was passable in the show, portraying an alien life form inhabiting the body of a hormonal teenage boy, but he gave little indication that he had it in him to deliver the kind of intense, layered performance he gives us in "The Lookout." If Gordon-Levitt continues down the road he's on (he also garnered favorable notices for last year's neo-noir "Brick"), he could very well establish himself as one of Hollywood's major young talents.