Damn you, Lego Movie

But I should really say "Damn you, Australia."

Once February rolls around and I haven't seen anything from the new release year, I start really itching. Not just to see something, but to identify a film that's really worthwhile. A film that I'll want to see in the theater, not catch on video in May or June.

Given the way the buzz started to develop for The Lego Movie, and then the way everyone on Facebook suddenly seemed to have seen it (with even the rare negative review), I had found my movie.

But here's the problem: The Lego Movie doesn't open here until April 3rd.

And just when I finally thought I had figured out the logic behind Australian release dates.

What a cruel injustice! And I need movies now, when it's hottest, when we are otherwise trapped in our house, staring at the walls until the temperature drops. When we just need my son to pipe down for 90 minutes before he drives us all crazy. (I meant my older son, but my younger son is probably a lot louder. No helping that, but he does do us the courtesy of sleeping for large chunks of the day.)

I thought I had basically figured out that smaller movies are often delayed, but big movies come out around the same time as they do in the U.S., sometimes even a day earlier.

Ah, but a whole different set of rules applies to children's movies. Many of the big children's movies that came out in the U.S. summer months last year -- Turbo and Planes, for example -- didn't hit Australia until September. They figure they can't delay them forever, and September is closer to summer than June or July, when those movies had their U.S. debuts.

But The Lego Movie would come out in the heart of the Australian summer. What's wrong with that?

Well, there's a domino effect here. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, Frozen and Free Birds didn't come out until relatively recently, so the multiplexes have all the children's movies they need at the moment.

And though I don't have a calendar that would easily confirm this, I believe April is just in time for another school break. That's when Mr. Peabody and Sherman and Muppets Most Wanted also come out.

Damn you, Lego Movie. When you were just another bad kids movie, I didn't care. Now that you might be more, I want you now, not in two months.

Such is life.