by MATTHEW HAYS

January and February can be long, hard months for film freaks. Many will simply cocoon after having eaten and spent too much over the holidays, bonding with their DVD system. The studios, for the most part, don't have much to offer, having blown their Oscar load at Christmas (though they will remind Academy voters with conveniently-timed re-releases). There are worthwhile films to be caught, however, and here's my best shot at what to look out for in the coming brutally chilly months.

On Jan. 30 we get one unmissable, sublime bit of Oscar residue: though Monster, the story of Aileen Wuornos, the first woman serial killer ever to be executed in the U.S., has been playing for weeks in America, it finally finds its way here. And it's worth the wait. Believe the hype, Charlize Theron's turn in the lead is every bit as good and heart-wrenching as you've heard.

Beyond that, the seasonal highlight for me has to be the Cinéma du Parc's planned Errol Morris extensive retrospective, slated to screen in February at presstime. Morris is clearly one of the most exciting filmmakers working in America (fiction or non-fiction), and though his latest, The Fog of War, is not due out until late March (also to screen at the Parc), it's always a good time to take stock of the man behind such exemplary features as Gates of Heaven (about a pet cemetery and the family that runs it), The Thin Blue Line (about a man wrongly convicted of murder who sits on death row) and Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (about… well, just see it).

A heavy film that proved a huge hit on the festival circuit, Osama (no, it has nothing to do with Bin Laden) is about one young Afghan girl who, devoid of work under the Taliban and left fatherless, is forced into boy drag to venture out of the house and get work in order to feed her mother. Director and writer Siddiq Barmak has received top marks for making this story moving without ever descending into the maudlin (Late January).

The vexing von Trier

In early February, Touching the Void will hit Montreal cinemas. Also highly praised at the Toronto Fest in September, this British production is about two mountain climbers and the terrible situation they faced after an accident struck them. Kudos have gone to filmmaker Kevin Macdonald for his careful and painstaking recreation of the deadly conditions these climbers faced.

Toronto director Peter Wellington (Joe's So Mean to Josephine) returns in March with Luck, his film that stars Luke Kirby as a down-on-his-luck bloke whose gambling habit goes very, very wrong. Sarah Polley is on board as a love interest, in a well-cast, understated feature that I would argue is Wellington's very best to date. Also on the not-to-be-missed list are Dogville, the latest Lars von Trier film that stars Nicole Kidman and Lauren Bacall, a feature that received hackles from some critics at Cannes who decried what they saw as vicious and cheap anti-Americanism. I would argue Dogville is yet another example of von Trier doing what he does so well: creating strange alternate universes that serve as wacky allegories for a broad range of social and political issues (late March or early April).

There's more gender-trippin' due out in February, this time in the form of a rather silly sounding romantic comedy titled Eurotrip. Scotty sends a German friend, Mieke, e-mails over a two-year period. Mieke confesses her love for Scotty. Scotty thinks Mieke is a male name. Homosexual panic ensues. Imagine the laughs when Mieke reveals that she's a girl! This sounds sort of like a cyber version of The Crying Game, though with Ivan Reitman cited as a co-producer, please don't expect anything quite as deep or groundbreaking as that film.

Doing Dickens

Local work of note is also coming our way in the next few months. Léa Pool returns with her second English-language feature (after Lost & Delirious), Blue Butterfly, a film about a Quebec insect expert, starring Oscar-winner William Hurt, Pascale Bussières and Marc Donato. As well, Jacob Tierney's eagerly anticipated Twist (starring Terminator 3's Nick Stahl) will open in March, a radical adaptation of Dickens' Oliver Twist, in which the orphaned lads are all junkies and hustlers.

Also in the kids-in-trouble vein comes Swimming Upstream, a family melodrama based on the true story of Australian swimming athlete Anthony Fingleton, who fought hardships, including a severely alcoholic father (played here by Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush), to find success as a world-class swimming champ (March).

Artsy fare can be found at the Cinémathèque québécoise, which from Jan. 27-Feb. 1 will be screening Reel Dance on the Road, an anthology of dance movies from around the world, including the shorts Burst, Scratch, Scintillating Flesh and Vertabra. Later, the Goethe-Institut will unreel Coming-of-Age, a series of German films about those struggling with adolescent angst. Nothing like movies about harrowed Huns to make chilly days seem chillier (Feb. 5–March 5).

Jackass universe

Morons are people too, and don't worry, if you count yourself among them, the studios have carefully considered your tastes and needs so you won't feel left out. Isn't that thoughtful of them? Stupid entries this season include Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London, in which that insipid Malcolm in the Middle regular Frankie Muniz returns in the adolescent James Bond wannabe role. The first one was painful enough (March 12). Ray Romano couldn't afford to work just his TV gig, so he's appearing in Welcome to Mooseport, in which he plays a plumber competing for a romantic interest (Marcia Gay Harden) with a former U.S. president (here played by Gene Hackman). Rip Torn is also along for the paycheque (March or April). March also finds the young lad Emile Hirsch madly in love with his sexy blonde neighbour (Elisha Cuthbert) in The Girl Next Door. But Hirsch is horrified to learn that she's (gasp!) a former porn star… Hirsch learns from his next-door amour that being slutty isn't necessarily the end of the world. And perhaps I don't get out enough, but I don't recall a mad outcry for a remake of the odd and iconic Walking Tall movies of the "70s. The Rock is fittingly cast as the small-town sheriff who endeavours to turn his wayward town straight. Possible redeeming quality: the casting of Johnny Knoxville (Jackass) as the Rock's childhood pal and vital ally.

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