Newsweek. Holiday movies.

Newsweek's David Ansen reviews six of the big holiday movies slated for release between now and New Year's Eve; each review comes with a compact sidebar, and I'll add a few extra pointers, too.

Sweeney Todd: "[Tim] Burton isn't interested in class warfare or the industrial-age political metaphors that [Hal] Prince emphasized onstage: his Sweeney, from John Logan's adroit screenplay, is an up-close-and-personal tale of blighted passions and dark obsessions," writes . "It has an emotional intimacy that allows you to see the work with fresh eyes.... Who knew Burton would have such an uncanny feel for how to film a musical?" And Marc Peyser chats with Burton.

Elsewhere:

• "In both conception and execution, Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is the perfect marriage of artist and material," writes Nick Schager. "Yet there's nonetheless something missing... Proficient and estimable in almost every way, Sweeney Todd is deliriously bloody but never truly gets one's blood pumping."

• "Sweeney's always had a fitful second act, and it's always been more of an intellectualized exploration of class conflict than an emotional powerhouse on the scale of Sondheim's Into the Woods or Sunday in the Park with George," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club's blog. "Burton's trims and tightening make a musical that can seem exhausting on stage come off as fleet and gripping."

The Kite Runner: "[Marc] Forster's solid, unpretentious movie hits its marks squarely, and isn't afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve. Only a mighty tough viewer could fail to be moved." And Lorraine Ali talks with novelist Khaled Hosseini, Forster and Khalid Abdalla "about their hopes for the film, their love of the book and their fear of Hollywood."

Elsewhere: "Forster - whose second feature, the interracial love story Monster's Ball (2001), earned an Academy Award for its leading lady, Halle Berry, and whose third, Finding Neverland (2004), picked up seven Oscar nominations, including one for best picture - is in town promoting his sixth and most recent film, The Kite Runner," and Terrence Rafferty is there for the New York Times to hear him talk about it - and his next one: "Forster may be one of the few available movie directors to whom the complex logistics of a James Bond picture could seem like a relief."

Persepolis: "A wonderful spirit—defiant, funny, tender, self-mocking suffuses Persepolis, the entrancing animated film that Marjane Satrapi and codirector Vincent Paronnaud have made from Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novels.... In a year that has given us such marvelous animated movies as Ratatouille and Paprika, this vibrant, sly and moving personal odyssey takes pride of place." And Ramin Setoodeh meets Satrapi.

Earlier: Reviews from Cannes, Toronto and New York.

Charlie Wilson's War: "In this version of history, based on George Crile's nonfiction bestseller, the credit for the routing of the Soviet Army by the mujahedin rebels in Afghanistan belongs to a little-known congressman named Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks), a womanizing, scandal-plagued, hard-drinking, liberal pol from Texas.... At the end of this story, any informed viewer knows, lies big-time blowback. Surprisingly, [director Mike] Nichols and [screenwriter Aaron] Sorkin play this trump card timidly. Is this admirable restraint or cold feet? Are they afraid of spoiling the feel-good uplift of Charlie's victory with the harsh downdraft of history? It's as if Titanic ended with a celebratory shipboard banquet, followed by a postscript: by the way, it sank."

And Cathleen McGuigan profiles the director: "Nichols's films seem to speak for their time - The Graduate, Carnal Knowledge - and sometimes uncannily so. Primary Colors, about a presidential candidate of voracious appetites, opened just after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke.... But politics isn't Nichols's motivation. He's after singular characters he can unpeel in front of the camera."

There Will Be Blood: "Because of its subject, its grand Western landscapes and its tycoon protagonist, [Paul Thomas] Anderson's movie has already been compared, somewhat misleadingly, with Giant and Citizen Kane. However, its uncompromising portrait of egotism and greed run amuck has more in common with Werner Herzog's hallucinatory Aguirre, the Wrath of God. And as a harrowing account of an obsessively anti-social man, its emotional temperature is closer to Raging Bull. What it shares with all of Anderson's work is a blistering intensity - and filmmaking that can make your jaw drop." And Ansen recalls a visit to the set.

Earlier: Reviews and first impressions from around 12/5 and 11/9 and from Fantastic Fest.

The Great Debaters: "As you would expect from a movie from Oprah Winfrey's production company, Harpo Films, The Great Debaters is a story of self-actualization, self-reliance and the triumph of the underdog.... But if [Robert] Eisele's screenplay relies too heavily on tried-and-true Hollywood plotting, the wonderful cast does its best to make it feel fresh, finding subtleties and grace notes in roles that could have been clichés."

Allison Samuels: "Though he's hesitant to admit it, [Denzel] Washington's choices in characters have always leaned toward the noble, much as Sidney Poitier's did.... Washington, 52, is having one of the best years of his career, even as he gets ready to make his 37th film: The Taking of Pelham 123, costarring John Travolta. [American Gangster] was his biggest box-office opening to date - so he seems he's worth $40 million after all."

Posted by dwhudson at December 9, 2007 11:21 AM