The New Year is generally a time of feast or famine for moviegoers. On the one hand, theatres are rife with Oscar hopefuls; on the other hand, there’s “Kangaroo Jack.” The truth of the matter is, after you’ve taken in all the award contenders, there just isn’t that much to look forward to until Memorial Day weekend.

Sadly, Hollywood producers know that audiences are always desperate for new products, so they have no qualms about throwing week-old table scraps to the starving dogs that we are. But what is it about this time of year that makes those scraps seem a little less rancid?

When Fox began its late-’80s campaign to become the fourth major television network, it succeeded mainly by counter-programming according to the other networks’ schedules — just think of new movies in January as the cinematic equivalent of a “Herman’s Head” marathon. Execs basically seek to offer the most cost efficient alternative to Academy-fare — cookie-cutter romances, Martin Lawrence-and-some-other-guy buddy comedies and other vehicles whose very existence can only be explained by what must have been an obscene amount of cocaine consumed at their development meetings.

January, quite simply, is Hollywood’s dumping ground. Anything that’s been sitting on the shelf, struggling to find distribution or is just too pedestrian to compete with the big boys of summer is released now and passed off as the “Spider-Man” of the season. A case-by-case study of some of these should-be-DTVers will offer more insight as to why January is the perfect time to keep the home fires burning.

“Just Married”

Poopy premise: Brittany Murphy (“8 Mile”) and Ashton Kutcher (“Dude, Where’s My Car?”) marry and go on a European honeymoon that involves body parts getting stuck in embarrassing places, a frantic mugging and what can only vaguely be described as fish-out-of-water hijinks. Of course, Kutcher, the most ingratiating dolt this side of Chris Kattan, has the sort of comedic timing and acting IQ that would make him a fish-out-of-water even at a David Arquette-appreciation convention.

Grounds for dumping: After the success of “8 Mile,” producers probably figured January would be the perfect time to try to make Murphy into the next Reese Witherspoon. However, they seem to have overlooked her complete lack of presence and not heard her guttural guffaw when casting her.

As for Kutcher, well, Topher Grace and company probably just wanted to get him out of their hair for a month or two.

“A Guy Thing”

Poopy premise: Jason Lee (“Dogma”) is set to marry the sweetheart of his dreams, only to find himself in bed with free-spirited Julia Stiles (“Save the Last Dance”) the night after his bachelor party. Throw in romantic comedy staples like a pissed-off ex-boyfriend and enough zany physical gags to make Mr. Bean sore just from watching, and you’ve got the perfect reason to stay in and channel surf.

Grounds for dumping: Lee and Stiles have got more charisma in their little fingers than most young actors today, but they gotta eat too. Mere exercises in formula variation can sometimes be pleasantly surprising with decent talent attached, but even this talent can only do so much with a script that bafflingly has four writers credited (always a bad sign when dealing with high-profile Hollywood fluff).

Like “Just Married,” “A Guy Thing” offers the perfect alternative to the intellectual stylings of “Adaptation” or “About Schmidt” — the producers of the former two know that after a week of filet mignon and lobster tails, you’ll eventually come back to Taco Bell.

“Kangaroo Jack”

Poopy premise: Given his newfound status as the antichrist of filmdom, it’s no surprise that George Lucas has found another unholy disciple in schlockmaster Jerry Bruckheimer, whose “Kangaroo Jack” makes “The Phantom Menace” look like “Citizen Kane.” Like Lucas’ Jar Jar Binks, Bruckheimer uses his digitally created monster only sparingly, but that unfortunately leaves way too much screen time for Jerry O’Connell (“The New Guy”) and Anthony Anderson (“Barbershop”) as they attempt to wrestle $100,000 away from a pop-culture savvy kangaroo.

Grounds for dumping: Unless God, the Aztecs or whoever it may be that controls the calendar year decides to make another month more ready to embrace a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie about a “Rapper’s Delight”-quoting kangaroo, then we should all be thankful it has been released in January.

Poopy Premise: Martin Lawrence (“Black Knight”): glib black guy. Steve Zahn (“Joy Ride”): straitlaced white guy. Wince-inducing, embarrassingly mishandled racial punchline: Rodney King beating. Annoying catchphrase: “What the problem is?”

Next January, this movie will be released under the name “Double Trouble,” star Tom Arnold as the mawkish Caucasian, Mike Epps as his partner, and it will center on the hunt for a pair of albino twins who smuggle diamonds through Antarctica because their pasty skin uproariously blends in with the snowy backdrop. Hijinks, and possibly hilarity, will ensue.

Grounds for dumping: When Martin Lawrence signed his contract with the devil, he didn’t notice the clause that read “Successful sitcom on Fox and comparisons to Richard Pryor” actually said “Public humiliation after public humiliation prior to ending up like Redd Foxx.”