WHAT’S WORSE for movie-goers after Hollywood has handed out its final award? The answer is easy: the month of March, the calendar’s repository for bad movies. Ones the studios decided to release after – not during - a very crowded award season. Movies with reported troubles, including re-shoots and opening date rescheduling. Movies that might have a chance at making some bank against similarly challenged films – survival of the lesser evil?

That might be a harsh assessment but consider some of March’s releases. While Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” is a worldwide box office success, critics and audience alike have not fallen in love with it. It’s arguably successful for two reasons; the lack of any real competition and the global fascination with 3D technology after “Avatar” overload. Okay, maybe 2 ? reasons – the Johnny Depp factor helped. But if you’ve seen the film or its advertising, he looks like a red-headed version of Madonna including the gap in the teeth; and what’s up with the accent this time?!?

An Iraqi war-themed movie (“The Hurt Locker”) finally clicked amassing a boatload of awards, including Best Picture at the Oscars, but “Green Zone,” starring Matt Damon about the hunt for WMDs in Iraq, flopped. Its dismal first week box office take dropped almost 60% in its anemic second week. With the competition not doing much better, it still ranked in the top ten. Audiences are showing little love for other high profile films, including “Repo Man” with Jude Law and Forest Whittaker; it grabbed $6.1 million in its first week. “The Bounty Hunter,” the battles of exes romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, may have met box office expectations but it’s two-hours of unfunny romantic comedy. The story is preposterously contrived and there’s very little chemistry between the stars.

If you’re not discouraged by this kind of March madness and crave good entertainment for the price of a ticket, allow me to invoke the spirit of the Oscars one more time. Several winning films are still in release nationwide (“Avatar” and “Crazy Heart”), reaping the rewards of the awards. Many of the last year’s best are now available on DVD – “Inglorious Basterds,” “Precious,” “The Blind Side” and “An Education.”

With all the “glass is half-full” hope I can muster, I like to think of March and maybe April as the quiet before the storm for movie fans – time to gear up for the summer blockbusters and studio tent-pole films “Iron Man 2,” “Shrek Forever After” “Sex and the City 2,” “Toy Story 3” and “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” before award season 2010 kicks in around September. Hope is eternal.