News

Hard to believe another holiday season is upon us and what a year! Time sure flies when you're losing funds. Since I can't afford to send each of you personal cards, I thought I'd do one of those one-size-fits-all holiday letters to fill you in on what everyone's doing.

First, you should know that Everybody's Fine . At least, that's the name of a movie (opening Friday) in which Robert De Niro plays a widower who visits his far-flung family (Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale, Drew Barrymore) and learns that things may not be quite as good as he thought.

Robert De Niro.

But the holidays do expose those simmering family tensions. Tobey Maguire looks even scarier than in Spider-Man 3 in the new Jim Sheridan-directed movie, Brothers (Friday), in which he plays a marine who is captured in Afghanistan, leaving his ex-con sibling (Jake Gyllenhaal) to care of his wife (Natalie Portman) and daughters. In a climactic scene, Maguire trashes his wife's new kitchen, bringing the war home to her new Corian counter.

Good to see director James Cameron has finally found work again with his first feature since Titanic , with the 3-D science-fiction film Avatar (Dec. 25), which cost more than $400-million (U.S.) in budget and marketing. A disabled marine (Sam Worthington) visits a mineral-rich habitable moon, adopts the long blue body of the local humanoid creatures and joins with a female ( Star Trek 's Zoe Saldana) to fight monsters and save the environment. This is either the start of the 3-D revolution or a big embarrassment – think Planet of the Jar Jar Binks.

Of course, there's always work if you're not afraid to dirty your hands, as George Clooney proves. He's a corporate “downsizer” in Up in the Air (Friday), a sharp new satire from the Canadian director Jason Reitman. George gives a terrific performance as a cocky guy with intimacy issues who racks up a lot of frequent-flier points. Or maybe he's just being George.

The kids are sure growing up fast. Zac Efron's probably not the first actor you'd think of when casting Me and Orson Welles (Dec. 11), about Welles's famed 1937 production of Julius Caesar but if Little Zac can bring his fans to see stage actor Christian McKay's interpretation of the formidable Orson, so much the better.

The old folks are still feisty as well. Clint Eastwood, who turns 80 next year, brings us his new film Invictus (Dec. 11), the story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman), worked to unite post-apartheid South Africa with the help of a rugby captain (Matt Damon), though I worry Clint's repeating himself. Another sports movie, and have you noticed how much Matt Damon looks like a bulked-up Hilary Swank? Could this be Million Krugerrand Baby?

Hilary Swank, Matt Damon.

I'm sure you remember little Susie Salmon, who was murdered and dismembered in Alice Sebold's 2002 bestselling novel The Lovely Bones. Well she's back – telling her story in Peter Jackson's new film version (TBA in December) starring Atonement 's Saoirse Ronan. After his big puffed-up blockbusters, let's hope Jackson can get back to being weird and macabre, the way we like him.

There are so many couples having problems. In Did You Hear About the Morgans? (Dec. 18), Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker star as a spatting New York pair who witness a murder – and are put in the witness-relocation program to “Wy-m-ng.” Judging by the previews, it taps into that familiar holiday theme about sharing space with people you don't like.

Let's not forget that the holidays are also a precarious time for those with substance-abuse tendencies, a category that would apply to both Robert Downey Jr. and the character he plays in Sherlock Holmes (Dec. 25). Only in director Guy Ritchie's version does Holmes has kung-fu to back up his logical mind.

On the other hand, you might want to be slightly ripped to fully appreciate Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Dec. 25), with Christopher Plummer playing a 1,000-year-old travelling theatre impresario, Tom Waits as the devil and the late Heath Ledger, Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp and Jude Law sharing one role. Not to mention the chorus line of dancing transvestite policemen.

Which brings us to this year's big holiday party, director Rob Marshall's Nine (Dec. 25), adapted from the 1982 Tony Award-winning musical, based on Federico Fellini's film 8 , about an Italian filmmaker (Daniel Day-Lewis) having a professional meltdown. The women in his life include his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penelope Cruz), his film star (Nicole Kidman), his costume designer (Judi Dench), a prostitute (Fergie), his mom (Sophia Loren) and a fashion journalist (Kate Hudson).

Nicole Kidman.

Basta! By the time you've worked through the imaginarium of the kung-fu-fighting Sherlock Holmes, as interpreted by Fellini, I think we can agree it should be a full banquet. Till next year, keep telling yourself: Everything's Fine in '09 and Amen to 2010.