NYT. Holiday Movies.

Remember when the holiday season began the day after Thanksgiving? Retailers, Hollywood included, who would undoubtedly prefer to celebrate Christmas all year round, have at least managed to haul the starting line up to the moment the Halloween costumes are packed away. And so, not even a full week into November, we have the New York Times's "Holiday Movies" special.

If the cultural battle of the season pits Aslan and his Christian warriors against Harry Potter and his fellow wizards, the NYT seems to be betting on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Even so, right alongside Lorne Manly's backgrounder on the CS Lewis adaptation runs an ad for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which otherwise warrants a poster that might have fared better running a week ago.

For readers of this blog, Caryn James may have the most interesting piece of the package:

[Terrence Malick's] legendary status as some bizarro genius (and it's hard to argue with that) accounts for the great curiosity about his fourth film, The New World, a version of the Pocahontas story with Colin Farrell as the least anonymous of John Smiths. New Line Cinema hopes to release the film on Dec 25, and hope is the operative word; the original November release was postponed so that Mr Malick could go on editing. That can't be reassuring coming from a man who spent nearly a year editing Badlands (1973) and two whole years editing Days of Heaven (1978). Yet even now those works seem as nearly perfect as films can be.

For those in a hurry, Manohla Dargis picks up a phone and races through the schedule, picking out one she's most looking forward to, Syriana, and recommends Brokeback Mountain, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and Hidden.

Speaking of which. Alan Riding meets Michael Haneke. Other interviews and profiles: Lola Ogunnaike with Rosario Dawson (Rent) and Sharon Waxman with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Match Point). Then, of course, special regular Karen Durbin highlights five performances to keep an eye out for (slide show).

Back to the making-of-type pieces: David M Halbfinger on Memoirs of a Geisha, Jesse McKinley on The Producers and Margy Rochlin on Get Rich or Die Tryin'.

Finally, after a good browse, the print-n-keeps: Dave Kehr's annotated list of current and upcoming releases (November and December and January) and Stephanie Zacharek and Charles Taylor's recommendations for the next couple of rounds of DVD releases.

Posted by dwhudson at November 6, 2005 8:51 AM