Psychos, hitmen, toy store owners, Republicans, extraterrestrial cross-breeds -- this year's batch of holiday movies has them all. As always, release dates (some of which are for major markets only and will expand accordingly) are subject to change:
Nov. 9
LIONS FOR LAMBS: Robert Redford directs and stars in this Bush-bashing polemic, with Tom Cruise as a pro-war conservative senator being interviewed by a skeptical journalist (Meryl Streep); in a separate, but related, plotline, Redford plays a professor counselling his students. Can this film's star power buck the trend of Iraq-themed duds?
FRED CLAUS: Looks only modestly preferable to bed sores. Naturally, then, it will make $150 million.
P2: A crazy creep dresses the lovely Rachel Nichols in a silk white slip, then chases her around a parkade. Hey, who let R. Kelly start dating again?
DARFUR NOW: A documentary about the genocide in Sudan's region of Darfur. Look, it could be more depressing -- it could star Dane Cook.
Nov. 16
BEOWULF: Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis adapts the classic poem utilizing the same mo-cap (motion capture) technology he made The Polar Express with. Ray Winstone, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins and Robin Wright Penn star -- or at least their semi-lifelike likenesses do.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN: Javier Bardem's malevolent performance as an assassin hunting down a drug-money thief (Josh Brolin) is already the stuff of Hollywood lore, and the movie hasn't even been released yet. From directors Joel and Ethan Coen, this thriller debuted at Cannes in May and has been steadily building momentum ever since. Tommy Lee Jones co-stars as a world-weathered sheriff.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA: Javier Bardem, far removed from the harrowing viciousness of No Country for Old Men, stars in this story about a man who waits 50 years to marry the woman he loves. From director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral).
MR. MAGORIUM'S WONDER EMPORIUM: Dustin Hoffman wants Natalie Portman to take over his magical toy store. The best pick-up line by an old guy, ever.
Nov. 21
HITMAN: Hollywood keeps trying to convince audiences that video games make good movies, despite the fact all game-based films bomb miserably. If only studios gave as many chances to original ideas to succeed.
AUGUST RUSH: A musically-gifted orphan (Freddie Highmore) seeks his biological parents (Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell).
Nov. 23
THIS CHRISTMAS: A family gets together for the first time in years.
MARGOT AT THE WEDDING: Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh play bickering sisters. From the director of The Squid and the Whale, so look elsewhere for laughs.
Nov. 28
THE SAVAGES: One of the year's best films, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are Oscar worthy as middle-aged siblings forced to care for their dying father.
Nov. 30
AWAKE: Hayden Christensen stars as a guy who remains conscious through surgery -- and discovers doctors are plotting to kill him. A clothed Jessica Alba co-stars.
I'M NOT THERE: Biographical drama finds a variety of performers -- including Cate Blanchett -- portraying Bob Dylan at pivotal stages of his iconic life.
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY: True story of a man who suffers from complete paralysis, with the exception of his left eye, after a stroke at the age of 43.
THOMAS KINKADE'S HOME FOR CHRISTMAS: Marcia Gay Harden is among the cast of this drama inspired by Kinkade's painting.
Also in November
SOUTHLAND TALES: The Rock and Sarah Michelle Gellar (as a porn queen) face the end of the world, alongside Stiffler and Justin Timberlake.
MUSIC WITHIN: A Vietnam soldier (Ron Livingston) returns from the war hearing-impaired, and becomes an activist for the disabled. Based on a true story.
Dec. 7
GRACE IS GONE: John Cusack as a grieving husband who can't come to terms with his soldier wife's death after she is killed in Iraq.
Dec. 14
ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: Garfield looks like Citizen Kane now, doesn't it?
THE KITE RUNNER
Adapted from the best-seller, this subtitled drama follows Amir, an Afghan now living in California, who returns to his homeland in order to help the childhood friend he betrayed 20 years earlier.
Dec. 21
THE BUCKET LIST: Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman star in this sentimental drama about two cancer patients who go on a last hurrah before they, you know, kick the bucket.
WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY: John C. Reilly stars in this scene-for-scene spoof of Walk the Line. Because, you know, the public was clamouring for one.
P.S. I LOVE YOU: Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler fall in love. Right after they decide who's more manly.
Dec. 25
THE WATER HORSE: LEGEND OF THE DEEP: Family fantasy about a boy who discovers an egg that hatches a baby sea creature, which he then raises.
ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM: If you thought the first monster mash-up was laughable, wait until you meet the alien-predator hybrid: the Predian. What, you think I'm making that up? If I was that clever, I'd be running Fox.
THE GREAT DEBATERS: Denzel Washington directs this fact-based account of a small Texas debate team in 1935 that went all the way to the national finals.
Dec. 28
CASSANDRA'S DREAM: Woody Allen's latest -- more Match Point than Annie Hall -- stars Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as brothers. What a sensational lush Dad must have been.
Also in December
CROSSING OVER: Before he dons the hat of Indiana Jones a fourth time, Harrison Ford appears as one of the ensemble cast of this drama about illegal immigration in the U.S. Ashley Judd, Sean Penn and Ray Liotta co-star. Wayne Kramer (The Cooler) directs.
REDACTED: Brian DePalma, who apparently didn't get the memo that no one wants to see war movies, directs this fictionalized documentary-style account of atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
REVOLVER: Snatch director Guy Ritchie's much-delayed attempt to right his career after the abysmal Swept Away. Shockingly, it's about criminals.
