Holiday Movie Preview: Winter 2007

The next two months are packed with enough holidays and new movies to warm even the Grinch's Heart. Get set for a nonstop banquet of action blockbusters, family-friendly fairy tales, spicy comedies, upscale horror flicks and the kind of deep-dish dramas that make the Oscar's take notice. Sure, there may be turkeys -- but trust me, you'll go home with cinematic gifts galore.

"Grace is Gone," a father (John Cusack) embarks on a road trip with his kids, hoping to find the courage to tell them that their warrior mother has been killed overseas.

"Charlie Wilson's War" takes us back more than 20 years to tell the true -- and somewhat blackly funny -- story of a Texas congressman (Tom Hanks) who armed Afghans in their war against the Soviets -- the very Afghans who became American-hating Taliban.

But Brian De Palma's Redacted takes us deep into the belly of the beast, where rape and murder by American soldiers in Iraq are depicted in a pseudo-documentary. Fundamentalist Muslims figure largely in writer Khaled Hosseini's tragic The Kite Runner, just one of many respected and/or superpopular novels that have been turned into prestige pictures for the holiday season. Oscar should certainly have his eye on Javier Bardem, starring in author Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, directed by the Coen brothers. The Spanish actor also appears in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's much-honored Love in the Time of Cholera, directed by Mike Newell.

Newcomer Saoirse Ronan is simply incandescent in writer Ian McEwan's sharply visualized Atonement which also gives Keira Knightley one of her best roles ever. Director Julian Schnabel's demanding The Diving Bell and the Butterfly adapted from a best-selling memoir, has already won the directing prize at the Cannes Film Festival. And Upton Sinclair's 1927 muckraking novel "Oil!" inspired director Paul Thomas Anderson There Will Be Blood a black-gold adventure in Texas that could bring Daniel Day-Lewis a second Academy Award.

Oscar should be making a list and checking it twice, because this holiday season's crowded with extraordinary actors, including Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in The Bucket List, Christopher Plummer, (Man in the Chair), Frank Langella (Starting Out in the Evening), Philip Seymour Hoffman(The Savages), Michael Caine, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in American Gangster. And there's wild card, acting volumes in a supporting role in Margot at the Wedding. However, regarding "Margot," it must be said: Noah Baumbach's latest foray into scary-funny dysfunctional-family land is fueled by Nicole Kidman, delivering a razor-sharp performance that should, if there's any justice, get a nod from the Academy.


And I can guarantee that, come awards time, no one's going to overlook Cate Blanchett's spooky, seductive incarnation of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There The superb Laura Linney goes toe-to-toe, acting-wise, with Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Savages, and the sublime Spanish actress Belen Rueda should certainly earn the Academy's attention for her searing performance in The Orphanage. And there's Hilary Swank, playing a grieving widow in P.S. I Love You Can she seduce Oscar for a third time?

Don't fret, dad and mom, there's family fare galore to delight the kids -- and get them out from underfoot during the holidays! Jerry Seinfeld's finally brought Bee Movie into the hive. Paul Giamatti and Vince Vaughn can be expected to generate nifty comedy in Fred Claus, a yuletide yarn about Santa Claus and his black-sheep brother.

And veggie- and animal-loving kiddies won't complain, not with The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks and The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep looming on the holiday horizon.

Starry-eyed grown-ups will surely groove on Enchanted a musical rom-com about a cartoon princess who finds true love in the real world. But the season showstopper on the fantasy front will certainly be The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials the first entry in what its makers hope will be a franchise every bit as gorgeous and lucrative as The Lord of the Rings.

For those of us who enjoy a blood pudding with our holiday goodies, there's Will Smith's postapocalyptic vampire movie I Am Legend and Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Who doesn't love that holiday carol "I'll Be Home for Christmas"? And goodness knows, home for the holidays sounds wonderfully warm and cozy. But given the winter wonderland of film releases coming up, it looks like we might spend a lot of time at the movies this holiday season!