I remember being warned by various bloggers back in the early days of the writers’ strike that 2009 would be a bad year for movies. This is the year we’re going to see all those movies that we rushed back into production to beat the strike, and the ones that the directors had to shoot without the benefit of a screenwriter around to make necessary tweaks. Knowing this, predicting the worst movies of 2009 seems like even more of a fool’s errand than ever. There’s never any real foolproof way of knowing which movies are going to fail to live up to their potential, and which ones never really had any potential to begin with.

But here are my best educated guesses on which ones you may want to avoid (on a handy, month-by-month basis), and my prediction of where and when movie fans can expect salvation:

JANUARY
Pretty much everything. The studios are always apparently too exhausted after the holiday season to put much effort into their January releases. We’re stuck with a batch of generic-looking horror films like The Unborn and The Uninvited, and seemingly lame comedies like Bride Wars. But for those of you starved for quality entertainment, you can always use the month to catch up on leftover Oscar contenders going into wide release like The Wrestler and Revolutionary Road.

FEBRUARY
This month looks a lot like January, only by now you’ve seen all the Oscar movies. Beware of a horde of unnecessary remakes (Friday the 13th), unwanted sequels (The Pink Panther 2), and adaptations of books that weren’t exactly literary masterpieces (Confessions of a Shopaholic, He’s Just Not That Into You).

MARCH
The big question here is whether or not we’ll get to see Watchmen on the 9th as promised. If not, I doubt the low-budget John Cena thriller 12 Rounds will be much consolation.

APRIL
Are The Wolfman and Dragonball, both scheduled for release on April 3, signs that the summer blockbuster season is starting earlier than ever this year? Or were they exiled to the spring because their respective studios didn’t think they could compete with the heavy hitters?

MAY
Things will kick into gear for real this month, with the release of the hotly anticipated Star Trek, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Terminator: Salvation. For the kids, there’s also Pixar’s Up and Ben Stiller‘s Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. But two of this month’s major releases look to me like they’re arriving a bit past the expiration dates of their franchises. Angels and Demons doesn’t have nearly as much controversy-courting buzz as its predecessor, The Da Vinci Code. And The Hannah Montana Movie seems like little more than an afterthought now that Disney seems to have already begun grooming Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato to usurp reigning teen queen Miley Cyrus.

JUNE and Beyond…
It’s a little too early to make predictions about how the second half of the year will play out. But it’s never too early to start dreading the latest installments in the Final Destination and Saw franchises.

Tags: angels and demons, confessions of a shopaholic, the pink panther 2