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I’m not supposed to be here, on these pages, with yet another meticulously crafted piece of writing for you to skim over and throw away.

For those who don’t remember, I declared back in August, with no small degree of self-importance, that I had written my last column. Like other fellow greats in their respective realms of dominance – Michael Jordan and, of course, Jay-Z – I was retiring from the game to move up the corporate ladder. From lowly columnist to Film & TV editor I would go.

But retirement didn’t stop Jay-Z from releasing a song such as “Dear Summer.” His bread-and-butter had always been the summer anthem, and it only felt right when he swooped down earlier this year off his perch atop Def Jam Records to bless us with an ode to the season, shooing off the wannabes and ever-pesky fake thugs trying to stake their own undeserved claim.

For guys such as MJ and Hov, summer is their chance to shine, but for film writers, that time of the year has to be now. Not only is Oscar season finally peaking, but now that the year is wrapping up, debate opens about what the best films of the year are. We thrive off this kind of stuff.

So, naturally, here I am, swooping down on Dec. 1 to expose all the wannabe Oscar films out there.

There are a lot of films out this time of year that are pretending to be better than they are. Apparently, it’s no one’s job to weed them out – the public doesn’t care, the Academy certainly doesn’t, and neither, seemingly, do a lot of critics.

The two biggest of these fake thugs out right now have dominated the box office the past two weekends: “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and the Johnny Cash biopic, “Walk the Line.”

The newest “Harry Potter” has, not surprisingly, already taken in over $400 million worldwide at the box office. It is an utterly conventional film, which is also not surprising, considering that director Mike Newell is the auteur behind such cutting-edge fare as “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Mona Lisa Smile” and, by my unofficial IMDb count, over a dozen TV movies. Newell plays it safe, from the narrative structure down to the cinematography. What is surprising is that critics have not only been giving it a free pass, but championing it. The film has received rave reviews from the Hollywood Reporter, Premiere, Slate, Variety, Salon, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. According to review-compiling Web site Rotten Tomatoes, it is the best-reviewed film currently in the box office top 10.

The critical consensus seems to be that this is the best in the Harry Potter series, which is downright laughable. Of the four so far, the third is the only one displaying even a shred of creativity. Anyone who thinks that, in the 21st century, a Mike Newell film is of more merit than an Alfonso Cuaron probably snuck a few sips from that LSD fountain at MOCA’s altered states exhibit.

“Walk the Line” might be even more conventional than “Goblet of Fire.” That doesn’t seem to be keeping away critical support or pundits from predicting it as a lock for a Best Picture nomination come Oscar time. The acting is stellar, sure, but the film manages to stuff just about every biopic cliche into its shallow, formulaic story. Essentially every scene has been done elsewhere in some kind of variation.

So if audiences, critics and the industry are all happy, what’s the problem? Well, the movies are the problem. Despite all the praise, neither of these films would be called risk-taking by even the most ardent of supporters. What we have is a low-risk, high-reward system that encourages films to play it safe.

I would rather see films that aspire to greater heights and fail – such as “Jarhead” or “The Brothers Grimm” – than films that aim low and succeed.

What I do love about this time of year is that studios are willing to take a chance on less compromising films in the hope that they might pick up awards buzz. In the coming month we get “Match Point,” Woody Allen’s unflinching take on Dostoevsky; “King Kong,” a three-hour, over-budget film where Kong fights a T-Rex; and “The New World,” the latest by visionary Terence Malick.

Now I may be no Jay-Z, but, pretenders exposed, it’s back to my cushy day job.

Don’t get Lee started about the Oscars, but e-mail him at alee@media.ucla.edu.