Meryl Streep

The latest version of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," in theaters, features Jim Carrey as Scrooge. Also leading the pack is everything from vampire romance ("The Twilight Saga: New Moon") and end-of-the-world stories ("2012," "The Road") to epic science fiction ("Avatar") and a new incarnation of the world's greatest detective ("Sherlock Holmes"). Presented in 3-D, "Disney's A Christmas Carol" is the latest from Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis ("Forrest Gump"), who presents Dickens' London

It was the idea of being able to actually re-create London and not have any limitations whatsoever   -Robert Zemeckis

 

"Some Like It Hot" (1959). Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, like Sacha Baron Cohen, won plenty of pre-release publicity for exploring how the other half loves. Shot at a Globe Nod: Billy Wilder's classic brought Globes to Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe and the pic, but their take was sweet, not sour.  

Nothing sounds ordinary in this animated film based on Roald Dahl's children's classic about a family of foxes forced to make a quick getaway when farmers plot to do away with them. Instead of having actors record their parts in a sound studio away from one another, director Wes Anderson gathered George Clooney and Meryl Streep as the Fox parents and Jason Schwartzman as their offspring and brought them to a farm in Connecticut to shoot. Making his first foray into family entertainment, Anderson, known fo  

Stephen Colbert went on Late Show with David Letterman last night to promote the paperback edition of I Am America (And So Can You!) (now with even more paper!) The best part was when Colbert called Obama the Meryl Streep of Presidents. Does that make Joe Biden the Melanie Griffith of Vice Presidents?  

The Princess and the Frog " and " Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans ." Princess Tiana, in 'The Princess and the Frog.' As stories go, they couldn't be more different. "The Princess and the Frog" is a shiny, happy, animated Disney fairy tale, about a princess who finds herself on the wrong end of a voodoo spell.  

The second installment is a lesson in teen heartache as Pattinson's Edward dumps Stewart's Bella, realizing the danger he represents to his human girlfriend. The brooding Bella finds solace with a school chum (Taylor Lautner) and his werewolf gang and eventually winds up pulling Edward out of a jam. "Edward breaks up with Bella for her own protection, but Bella believes it's because he doesn't love her any more, and she goes into a terrible depression," said "New Moon" director Chris Weitz.  

FOR MOST Americans, the next few weeks constitute the holiday season. In the land known as Hollywood, though, it's the Oscar season. While it's not a hard and fast rule, the studios launch most of the films they consider to be truly Oscar-worthy in the last two months of the year so they will be fresh in minds of Academy voters when it comes time to vote for the nominees.  

We all like to say that the end of the year is the time for a better, more thoughtful breed of movie — you know, the fancy-pants pictures, whose solemn duty is to clear the last stink of summer blockbuster from the air and replace it with the fine incense of awards-buzz respectability. If the synaptic destruction incurred from toxic exposure to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen cannot be reversed, our intuition tells us, perhaps it can somehow be mitigated after the fact. But rarely do we ask just how  

Waleed Zuaiter can. It is the highest-profile film yet for the rising star, who made his breakthrough on Broadway in Eliam Kraiem's 2004 play, Sixteen Wounded. The show's three-week run created enough buzz for Zuaiter to jump to his next production, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, and he has gone from strength to strength ever since.