Ray Pride

Awards-watchers and marketers and audiences had it easy the past couple of years, as one chapter of a now-vanquished Christmas epic crept up each year on fat furry feet. But with no "Lord of the Rings," and Peter Jackson's "King Kong" still in production, holiday moviegoers will have to contend with an unusually diverse release list of big biopics, weepies, grownup themes antsy for Oscar's clap on the back, and artful arthouse entries.

From this week through the first of the year, the new releases have something for all manner of audiences. Holdovers like "Sideways," "Vera Drake" and "Closer" are worth a look-see as critics' confabs tabulate their best-ofs. This week's entries include the dark dreaminess of Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jeunet, sending Amelie (Audrey Tautou) to war in "A Very Long Engagement."Even more stylish is Zhang Yimou's post-"Hero" martial arts love triangle, "House of Flying Daggers," emphasizing balletic moves, vast landscapes and Zhang Ziyi's small little ears. "Spanglish" is James L. Brooks' first comic weepie in seven years, and Tea Leoni, while unlikely to notch any awards, offers one of the most vociferously unapologetic neurotics in memory. More darkness: "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events." More tears: Javier Bardem's study in stillness at the center of "The Sea Inside."

Without having seen it, there's also potential darkness in the phrase "Joel Shumacher's `Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera.'" Next Wednesday's other choices are wildly dissimilar: Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman bringing their aged wiles to the middle-aged wiles of Ben Stiller in the nightmarish family sequel, "Meet the Fockers," or Almodovar's sunny surfeit of gloom and guilt in neo-noir "Bad Education," with Gael Garcia Bernal playing multiple roles, both character and sexual.

Christmas brings "Darkness" to some--a 2001-shot Miramax/Dimension entry, from Spanish director Jaume Balaguero, starring Anna Paquin, Lena Olin and Giancarlo Giannini in a dead-children chiller. David Gordon Green ("All the Real Girls") has said the only studio movie he ever begged for was the live-action "Fat Albert"; after Forest Whitaker was fired, the comedy stylings of Dr. William Cosby were entrusted to Joel Zwick, the director of the serenely wooden "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." (Zwick has yet to announce the third of his "Fat" trilogy.)

Kevin Spacey's Bobby Darin bodysnatch, "Beyond the Sea," doesn't soft-shoe into theaters until December 29, but Christmas has a trio of masterfully stylish entries to hold you over, including Wes Anderson's beyond the pale crayon-box board game, "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." And for two feats of bodysnatching: Martin Scorsese's depressive story of manic Howard Hughes, "The Aviator," which began as a Michael Mann project, and the astonishing thriller masterpiece, the hurtling, vertiginous "Infernal Affairs," a sleek Hong Kong crime-and-loyalty entry influenced by Michael Mann... which is scheduled to be remade by none other than... Martin Scorsese.

(2004-12-14)

Also by Ray Pride

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Montreal-based Drawn & Quarterly comics brings the two newest solo voices on their roster to Quimby's for signings
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Tip of the Week
And how! Ingmar Bergman's movies are the kind of adult joys that suffer from being taught in high school and college courses, or even in the 1970s-type festivals that Woody Allen's characters used to gloom over during his funny period
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DVD Tips
As awards season gets frantic, two reissues highlight Laura Dern, whose fierce, fearless performance as a disaffected housewife and mother in John Curran's filming of stories by Andre Dubus, "We Don't Live Here Anymore," will surely be short-listed
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Type ADD
Bonkeroo like the drive-in B-pictures I grew up with, "Blade Trinity" is the kind of movie I can sit slackjawed in front of a couple of times (and by accident, indeed did)
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Tip of the Week
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Off Camera
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Home alone
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The gift of reality
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