NYT. Holiday Movies.

Dave Kehr has a terrific piece on the journey The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is making from the F Scott Fitzgerald story through to its opening on Christmas Day.

A Christmas Tale, the new feature by the French director Arnaud Desplechin, is haunted by the ghosts of holiday movies past - and not just the ones you'd expect," writes Dennis Lim. The film "owes a debt to Ingmar Bergman's autobiographical magnum opus, Fanny and Alexander, which opens with one of the most famous Christmas gatherings in movies. 'It's a film I know by heart,' Mr Desplechin said in an interview last month while in town for the New York Film Festival. Another spiritual forebear, he said, was The Dead, John Huston's quietly majestic version of the James Joyce story, centered on a dinner party to mark the feast of Epiphany. A newer reference point: Wes Anderson's Royal Tenenbaums, a Christmas movie only in name, but, like A Christmas Tale, a family drama about the allure and danger of a family myth."

Scott Derrickson's The Day the Earth Stood Still, opening December 12, gives J Hoberman the opportunity to revisit the original and its reception in 1951: "The movie exudes topical hysteria; paranoia is palpable, and the spectacle of the nation's capital under martial law seems all too probable."

While we're looking back, five "Insiders" pick their holiday favorites, and there's an accompanying slide show: Who'll be watching what this season?

• Defiance director and co-writer Edward Zwick's going for Made for Each Other (1939) with Jimmy Stewart and Carole Lombard.

• Twilight director Catherine Hardwick picks The Mark of Zorro (1940) with Tyrone Power.

• Wendy and Lucy director Kelly Reichardt will revisit Max Ophüls's Reckless Moment (1949).

• "'Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) could be the most subversive American film ever,' writes Jenny Lumet, screenwriter of Rachel Getting Married."

• Valkyrie screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie? Die Hard.

"The Australian director Baz Luhrmann has compared the story of an uptight but headstrong aristocrat and a scowling but super-hot cattle driver, thrown together by fate in his new film, Australia, to the unlikely riverboat romance in The African Queen," writes Eric Wilson. "Truth be told, the adventure may have more in common with a bigger ship, perhaps the Titanic. There's the grand period wardrobe - the epic yarn begins just before World War II - and an unexpected disaster at the end." And there's a slide show: "The Look of Australia."

Besides a clip from the original interview and a trailer for the film, there's a cute little sliding bar illustration accompanying Sylviane Gold's piece on the making of Frost/Nixon. For more, see the London Film Festival entry.

"It took two years of high-level negotiations to arrange a meeting with Daniel Craig." But Sarah Lyall's got her interview. For more on Quantum of Solace, click here (middle of the page) and here.

Terrence Rafferty talks with Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg and director Catherine Hardwicke about why they're sticking very, very close to Stephenie Meyer's book.

Once again, Karen Durbin's selected "Five Attention-Getting Turns," performances to watch out for. Roll the clips: Freddy Rodriguez in Nothing Like the Holidays, Alison Pill in Milk and Francois Begaudeau in The Class. Durbin's other two: Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road and Alexa Davalos in Defiance.

Charles Taylor and Stephanie Zacharek highlight some of the most notable DVD releases of the coming months.

Posted by dwhudson at November 1, 2008 6:58 AM