I hear the “Grease” singalong is an absolute blast that reminds everyone about the power of cinema as a communal experience. Lyrics and animations swirl about the screen to help make the film interactive. I’m in.

For children’s films, “Despicable Me” looks intriguing, though I fear that’s based solely on the initial, mysterious marketing campaign. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” looks like it may be a decent refreshment, but the “Cats & Dogs” sequel just feels old. For the nostalgic set, children’s lit character Ramona Quimby pops up in “Ramona and Beezus.”

As far as action spectacles go, I don’t hold much hope for “Predators.” It looks like a remake of “Predator.” Oh, right, it’s set on another planet… that looks just like the jungle from the first film. “The Last Airbender” may have some spunk left in it; let’s hope so for M. Night Shyamalan’s career’s sake. And “Salt,” like so many films this month, looks tired.

Can anything rise to the standard set this summer by “Toy Story 3?”

“Inception” has been building buzz for quite some time, being as it is writer/director Christopher Nolan’s followup to “The Dark Knight.” But very early whisperings make it out to be a masterpiece in its own right. One can only hope.

July 1

• The Last Airbender

July 8

• Grease Sing-A-Long

July 9

• Despicable Me
• Predators
• The Kids Are All Right [limited]

July 14

• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

July 16

• Inception

July 23

• Ramona and Beezus
• Salt
• Countdown to Zero [NYC, Washington, D.C.]

July 30

• Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
• Charlie St. Cloud
• Dinner for Schmucks
• Get Low [limited]
• Twelve [limited]

August 6

• Middle Men
• The Other Guys
• Step Up 3-D
• Flipped [limited]
• Mao’s Last Dancer [limited]

Also of interest is the Los Angeles Times‘ fanboy column, Hero Complex, will be hosting a film series this weekend at the Egyptian Theater megaplex. It will screen “Star Trek 4,” “Insomnia,” “The Dark Knight,” “Alien,” and “Blade Runner,” with each night featuring a Q&A with their respective directors: Leonard Nimoy, Christopher Nolan, and Ridley Scott.

And then there’s the Beast itself: “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.” I loved the first “Twilight’s” absurdity. I am not the person that film was made for, yet I was able to enjoy it as a comedy. The second film was abominably interminable, yet I’d rather watch it a hundred times over “Sex and the City 2;” “New Moon” was better-made than that film, believe it or not. And here we are with the penultimate entry—unless the studio plans on splitting the final story in two, à la “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”—and I really don’t care. I will end up seeing it out of curiosity, but I just can’t find myself to be as full of rage as other critics have been over this franchise. Besides, I’m a “True Blood” fan all the way.

June 4

• Get Him to the Greek
• Killers
• Marmaduke
• Splice
• Ondine [limited]
• Finding Bliss [LA/NY]

June 11

• The A-Team
• The Karate Kid
• Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work [limited]

June 18

• Jonah Hex
• Toy Story 3
• Cyrus [limited]
• I Am Love [limited]

June 25

• Grown Ups
• Knight and Day

June 30

• The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

July 2

• The Last Airbender
• Twelve

March 5

• Alice in Wonderland
• Brooklyn’s Finest
• The Secret of Kells [NYC]

March 12

• Green Zone
• Our Family Wedding
• Remember Me
• She’s Out of My League
• Mother [LA/NYC]

March 19

• The Bounty Hunter
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid
• Repo Men
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [limited]
• IMAX: Hubble 3D [limited]
• The Runaways [limited]

March 26

• Hot Tub Time Machine
• How to Train Your Dragon
• Chloe [limited]
• Greenberg [limited]

March 31

• The Last Song

April 2

• Clash of the Titans
• Furry Vengeance
• Why Did I Get Married Too?
• Leaves of Grass [limited]

Anyway, moving on into February, the LACMA Film Program is featuring a Clint Eastwood series. They’ll be showing many of his films, almost all of them classics.

If you have some political fire in your belly, the Aero Theatre has a double feature of “Inherit the Wind” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” just for you. And keep your eyes open for Alfred Hitchcock and Audrey Hepburn double features. Me? I really want to see “Donkey Skin.”

Dan O’Bannon, who passed away less than a year ago, is getting a tribute at the New Beverly Cinema with “Lifeforce” and “Return of the Living Dead.” The hardly-ever-seen “Killer of Sheep” plays the 10th through the 13th, followed by a week of Jason Reitman guest programming and many other films. Their midnight screenings are always a blast, one of them being “Videodrome.” Long live the new flesh!

Finally, Cinefamily is back to their regular programming, so be sure to check out their calendar.

To kick off the second half of February, Martin Scorsese rolls out the big guns. “Shutter Island” is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, the writer of “Mystic River” and “Gone, Baby, Gone,” but focuses much more on the terror and psychology of horror. It’s nice to see Mr. Scorsese playing in this sandbox.

“Harry Potter and the Olympians”—I mean…uh…ya. Awkward.

Another George Romero film has been remade and Kevin Smith will once again attempt to connect with the mainstream. At least February is a little more exciting than last month. And don’t forget there are plenty of wonderful films being screened in revival houses, so keep an eye on your local cinema. Here’s what’s coming for the month of February.

February 5

• Dear John
• From Paris with Love
• Frozen [limited]

February 12

• My Name Is Khan
• Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
• Valentine’s Day
• The Wolfman

February 19

• The Ghost Writer
• Shutter Island

February 26

• The Crazies
• Cop Out
• The Yellow Handkerchief [LA/NYC]
• A Prophet [NYC]

March 5

• Alice in Wonderland
• Brooklyn’s Finest

On January 15 and 16, the LACMA Film Program will hold a spotlight on French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, who is receiving a Career Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Three films will be screened: “Mississippi Mermaid,” “Pierrot le fou,” and “Stavisky.” This month’s “Weekend Series” is entitled “The Apocalyptic Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky” and the museum will also be holding a preview screening of the Italian director Marco Bellocchio’s “Vincere,” among many other films.

Four Jim Sheridan films are coming up at the Aero Theatre, followed by recent hits such as “Paranormal Activity,” “Broken Embraces,” “The Maid,” and “Crazy Heart,” and then a very nice John Ford retrospective.

The controversial “Antichrist” has been paired with 1968′s “Hour of the Wolf” at the New Beverly Cinema, followed by the famed Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Santa Sangre.” Director Stuart Gordon has personally selected some great films and late January is a double bill of “Double Indemnity” and “The Blue Dahlia.” Be sure to visit their calendar for other great selections and and like usual a wide array of interesting guests.

Meanwhile, Cinefamily seems to be on a sort of hiatus and regular programming will return next month.

Moving on…

If you need a vampire fix, “Daybreakers” is the sophomore offering from the Spierig Brothers, which focuses on the now dominant species having to confront a dwindling blood supply. But the Spierigs aren’t the only siblings with a genre offering this month: Albert and Allen Hughes are back after a nine-year break between “From Hell” and “The Book of Eli,” which centers on Denzel Washington and his quest in a post-apocalyptic wasteland to…ah screw it. Is there anything out this month that is at all original?

Writer/director Michael Haneke is an interesting figure. He remade his own meta-torture film, “Funny Games,” for U.S. audiences as a followup to his even more intriguing “Caché,” and now his latest, “The White Ribbon,” follows the generations of German families living during the time of WWI, especially those odd children. And don’t forget there are plenty of wonderful films being screened in revival houses this month, so keep an eye on your local cinema. Here’s what’s coming for the month of January.

January 1

• The White Ribbon [limited]
• The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond [LA/NY]

January 8

• Daybreakers
• Leap Year
• Youth in Revolt
• Crazy on the Outside [limited]
• Bitch Slap [LA/NY/SF]
• Wonderful World [LA/NY]

January 15

• The Book of Eli
• The Spy Next Door

January 22

• Extraordinary Measures
• Legion
• Tooth Fairy

January 29

• Edge of Darkness
• When in Rome

There are a lot of movies this month that I haven’t seen yet: “The Princess and the Frog,” ”A Single Man,” “Crazy Heart,” “Nine,” “The Young Victoria,” “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” and “Sherlock Holmes” are all on my must-see list to varying degrees. I have no interest in Clint Eastwood’s latest, “Invictus,” mainly because he lost me with “Gran Torino,” and I’m starting to feel like he’s just pumping them out one after another. I have yet to see “Up in the Air” and I continue to hear mixed word of mouth. It will be interesting to see George Clooney continue his year of kinda-sorta domination following “The Men Who Stare at Goats” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Disney’s latest animated venture didn’t make as big a splash as their return to hand-drawn cartoons was supposed to entail and the “squeaquel” to “Alvin and the Chipmunks” looks set to continue the success of this harmless franchise.

Of course the movie of the moment is James Cameron’s return to the big screen, “Avatar.” The comparisons to “Star Wars” are apt, and I’d go further saying I’d much rather play on Pandora than in George Lucas’ entire creative universe. Sadly the plot is nothing to crow home about; it’s not bad, it just copies the basic plot of so many SF/fantasy epics of the past, certainly a product of Mr. Cameron’s childhood reading repertoire. Upon second viewing the plot and character motivations fall apart even more, but the sheer strength of razzle-dazzle on display is more than enough to hook you in.

Oddly enough the most compelling film I watched this month was “The Muppet Christmas Carol” at the New Beverly Cinema; an old-fashioned puppet movie from 1992, and one of the best adaptations I’ve seen of the Charles Dickens classic. I really do want to see the new 3D motion-capture adaptation by Robert Zemeckis. I’m sure it will be as forgettable as his past few works, but it deserves a viewing.

December 4

• Armored
• Brothers
• Everybody’s Fine
• Transylmania
• Up in the Air [limited, opens wide 12/25]
• The Last Station [LA/NY]
• Serious Moonlight [LA/NY]

December 11

• Invictus
• The Princess and the Frog
• The Slammin’ Salmon
• A Single Man [limited, opens wide 12/25]
• The Lovely Bones [very limited]

December 18

• Avatar
• Did You Hear About the Morgans?
• Crazy Heart [limited, opens wide 12/16]
• Nine [limited, opens wide 12/25]
• The Young Victoria [limited]

December 23

• Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

December 25

• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
• It’s Complicated
• Sherlock Holmes

January 8, 2010

• Daybreakers
• Youth in Revolt

“The Wizard of Oz” had its 70th anniversary earlier this year and many theaters played the film nationwide to celebrate. Apparently the event was successful enough to throw an encore, which will play for one night only on November 17, at 6:30 P.M.

Now through February 7, LACMA is holding an exhibition on comic books from India. “Heroes and Villains: The Battle for Good in India’s Comics” places modern-day comic retellings of Indian myths alongside the museum’s historical collection of Indian paintings and “examines the legacy of India’s divine heroes and heroines in contemporary South Asian culture through the comic book genre.”

LACMA Film Program

Weekends will be Audrey Hepburn nights, featuring “Charade,” “Wait Until Dark,” “War and Peace,” and “My Fair Lady.” A sneak preview of “Fantastic Mr. Fox” will be held November 10, at 7:30 P.M. Visit their full schedule for times and other films in the program.

Aero Theatre

Tomorrow night is a 25th-anniversary screening of David Lynch’s “Dune,” followed the next night by a disaster triple feature: “Earthquake,” “The Towering Inferno,” and “The Poseidon Adventure.” Also this month are “Carrie,” “Citizen Kane,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” and many more classics.

New Beverly Cinema

The New Beverly holds really fun midnight features. (Unfortunately for me, I can no longer stay up that late.) Among them are “Near Dark,” “Teenage Mother,” “Re-Animator,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Idiocracy,” and “Reservoir Dogs.” For squares like me, there are still plenty of classics, cult classics, and other odd novelties of a bygone era to enjoy earlier in the day.

Cinefamily

The non-profit Cinefamily restored the Silent Movie Theatre in L.A. recently and though I haven’t visited yet, I’m dying to see not only the location but how they run the place. They have a fascinating schedule and I highly suggest you check them out (and let me know how it is).