In addition to the usual holiday movie diet of awards-hungry dramas and audience-friendly comedies, this year's December moviegoers will find a heaping chunk of gender/sexual confusion in their cineplex stockings. Here's the skinny on a jam-packed month of movies, which offers something for pretty much everyone (I've starred the ones I've already seen and loved or that sound especially intriguing):
LOOKING FOR A LAUGH?
"The Family Stone" (Dec. 16): Likely to be a huge audience favorite, it's a generous, surprising tragicomedy about what happens when a guy (Dermot Mulroney) brings his girlfriend (Sarah Jessica Parker) to meet his large, opinionated family (Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Luke Wilson).
"Fun With Dick and Jane" (Dec. 21): George Segal and Jane Fonda starred in the original about a couple who react to layoffs by becoming bank robbers. Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni are the pink-slipped crooks in the new one.
"The Producers" (Dec. 25): Like "Rent," it brings to the screen most of the original Broadway cast (Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Roger Bart), but this slapsticky musical about businessmen who produce a very bad musical adds in Will Ferrell and Uma Thurman for box-office insurance.
More laughs: "Christmas in the Clouds" with Graham Greene (Dec. 9), "Rumor Has It" with Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner (Dec. 25) and "Casanova" with Heath Ledger and Sienna Miller (Dec. 25).
WANT SOMETHING UNSETTLING?
"Syriana" (Dec. 9): Would you be surprised to learn the CIA is a backstabby, duplicitous place to work? In separate-but-linked stories that involve the CIA and the quest for foreign oil, Matt Damon and a fattened-up version of George Clooney spill the beans.
"The Protocols of Zion" (Dec. 9): A documentary that puts that no-Jews-died-in-9/11-because-"they"-were-warned-in-advance urban myth to rest.
"Transamerica" (Dec. 23): Felicity Huffman is getting raves for her performance as a woman who becomes a man, surgically. The title is a pun, get it?
"Breakfast on Pluto" (Dec. 23): And speaking of folks who are torn between two genders, Cillian Murphy gives one of the year's best performances as an Irish tranny whose response to the Troubles is simply to tune them out.
Another unsettling choice: "Wolf Creek" with Andy McPhee (Dec. 25).
NEED A GOOD CRY?
"Brokeback Mountain" (Dec. 16): One of the year's best films, it boasts three outstanding performances (Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhall, Michelle Williams) in a drama about the emotional fallout when two cowboys fall in love with each other and aren't sure how they â€" and their wives â€" should deal with it.
"Munich" (Dec. 23): Sight unseen, Steven Spielberg's drama about the aftermath of the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics is considered the Oscar favorite. It focuses on the Israeli secret service's attempts to hunt down the killers. Featuring Eric "The Hulk" Bana, no longer green but still busting heads.
"Memoirs of a Geisha" (Dec. 23): Based on the popular book, it's a gorgeously shot tale of the rivalry between two geishas.
Bring a hankie to this one, too: "Mrs. Henderson Presents" with Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins (Dec. 25).
SEEKING A LITTLE EXCITEMENT?
"Aeon Flux" (Dec. 2): Audiences (other than Minnesotans) didn't take to the idea of Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand as miners battling sexual harassment in "North Country." Let's see if they prefer them in skintight costumes, battling evildoers.
"The Conformist" (Dec. 9): Not "exciting" in the "white-knuckle ride" sense but in the sense that this 1970 drama about fascism is one of the eeriest and most beautiful films ever made. And, since Bernardo Bertolucci's masterpiece remains unavailable on DVD, this is a rare chance to see it in all its glory.
"King Kong" (Dec. 14): That astonishing poster in which tiny Naomi Watts is menaced by a dinosaur but King Kong has her back is enough to set movie lovers' hearts racing. That it's writer/director Peter Jackson's first project since the massive "Lord of the Rings" films sweetens the deal.
Also will get your blood pumping: "First Descent" (Dec. 2) with Nick Peralta.
WANT TO TAKE (OR DROP OFF) THE KIDS?
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (Dec. 9): Early reports are that it's faithful to C.S. Lewis' beloved novel about English children who escape from World War II into a magical world.
"Cheaper by the Dozen 2" (Dec. 21): Does the "2" in the title mean that, since "Yours, Mine & Ours" upped the ante with 18 kids, they've doubled the progeny here to make it an even two dozen? Perhaps not, but this sequel to the Steve Martin/Bonnie Hunt comedy does add a rival to their 12-kid brood: Eugene Levy and his family of eight.
Also for kids: "Hoodwinked" (Dec. 23) with the voices of Anne Hathaway and Anthony Anderson.
