I always try to get as excited as possible about the Academy Awards, that time-honored annual tradition in which Hollywood enrages the nation’s cinephiles by consistently displaying the most remarkable lack of good taste and common decency imaginable.

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.

Technical complications at the “Haywire” screening I attempted to attend have left me without a film to review this week (we’ll catch up with that one next time, along with the Liam Neeson survival thriller “The Grey”). But this is just as well, I suppose, considering that the recent Oscar nominations have inspired more controversy than I’ve ever seen associated with the Academy Awards, and of course I have some choice thoughts about that.

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).

Hope you all enjoyed my top 10 list last week, and gleaned some useful recommendations. This week I’ll take a very quick look at “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” which made my “most promising films I didn’t see” list but ended up being one of the most spirit-crushing disappointments of the year. I honestly don’t have much to say about such an empty film, so I suppose I might as well squeeze in my predictions for the Oscar nominations, set to be announced on Tuesday, Jan. 24, at which point you will surely marvel at my peerless prognosticative abilities.

I could go on a rambling, ill-tempered rant about the shocking lack of worthwhile films released in 2011. I could easily wallow in righteous indignation, and throw up my hands in disgust and defeat as I impotently curse Hollywood’s artistic bankruptcy and offer my own theories as to why last year saw the worst theater attendance numbers in 16 years. And I’d be right to do it. But this time of year, I prefer to ignore the crazed, rampaging elephant in the room and instead celebrate the few diamonds in the rough that kept me from completely losing my mind over the course of the past 12 months. So let’s get to it:

I had promised reviews of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and “The Sitter” this week, but those plans were altered by the fact that my online source for such matters had listed an incorrect wide release date for the former, and the nation’s critics and moviegoing public have convinced me that I should skip the latter. So we are left with “The Descendants,” now playing in general release after generating incredible word of mouth during its run on the art-house circuit. I found it to be consistently engaging yet slightly disappointing given the buzz, but your mileage may vary.

Just one review this week, as I didn’t make it to “My Week with Marilyn,” playing in limited release. A look at that will come next week, along with reviews of the wide releases “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and, time permitting, “The Sitter.” The studios’ insistence on conducting a take-no-prisoners December blitz with their prestige pictures has left things a tad crowded for the next few weeks, but I’ll do what I can…

How quickly things can change. Just a week ago, I was so desperate for a movie to review that I actually sat and watched “The Twilight Saga — Breaking Dawn: Part 1” for two hours. (I’ve broken bones, suffered through mono, gotten tattooed and had a wisdom tooth wrenched out of my head without Novocain, but honestly, all pale in comparison to the sheer unpleasantness of the “Twilight” experience.)

“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.