‘Hobbit,”Jack Reacher’ among holiday movie season offerings

Odds are, you're either still too groggy from Thanksgiving dinner or too banged-up from having wrestled a stranger to the ground during a pre-dawn sale to care.

But the holiday movie season is officially under way. At least on the handful of screens that aren't showing "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2."

Even more so than the summer movie season, the holidays are a magical time where practically anything can happen.

Santa Claus can be a buff, heavily inked Russian ("Rise of the Guardians"). The diminutive Tom Cruise can play a 6-foot-5-inch barrel-chested vigilante ("Jack Reacher"). And a roughly 300-page novel somehow can be divvied up into three - count 'em, three! - blockbuster prequels (starting with "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey").

Here's a look at some of the highlights. And, as always, release dates are subject to change.

THIS WEEK

While transporting his family's animals, a young zookeeper's son (Suraj Sharma) survives a harrowing shipwreck only to be lost at sea, trapped in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, in "Life of Pi," a dreamlike drama from director Ang Lee.

An intimidating Santa Claus (voiced by Alec Baldwin), a warrior-priest Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), a hummingbird-esque Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), a juvenile delinquent Jack Frost (Chris Pine) and a silent Sandman team up to save the world from an evil spirit (Jude Law) in the animated "Rise of the Guardians."

When North Korean paratroopers invade Spokane, Wash., a group of high schoolers (led by Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson and Adrianne Palicki) and a Marine (Chris Hemsworth) take to the woods and fight back using guerrilla tactics in the "Red Dawn" remake.

And after losing his house, his wife and his job, not to mention spending eight months in a mental institution, Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) moves in with his parents (Robert DeNiro and Jacki Weaver) and bonds with a young widow (Jennifer Lawrence) with plenty of problems of her own in "Silver Linings Playbook," a dark romantic comedy from director David O. Russell.

NOV. 30

Brad Pitt stars as an enforcer called in to restore order after a Mob-protected card game is robbed in "Killing Them Softly," a darkly comic crime thriller based on the novel "Cogan's Trade," co-starring Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini and Ray Liotta.

Keira Knightley, Jude Law and Aaron Taylor-Johnson form the classic Russian love triangle in the latest retelling of the historical drama "Anna Karenina."

And a group of mercenaries tries to rescue a young woman (Emma Fitzpatrick) from a killer known as The Collector and the abandoned hotel he's turned into a maze of torture in the horror sequel "The Collection."

DEC. 7

After pairing off with Jennifer Aniston ("The Bounty Hunter") and Katherine Heigl ("The Ugly Truth"), Gerard Butler completes the romantic-comedy trifecta as a down-on-his-luck soccer coach romancing Jessica Biel in "Playing for Keeps."

DEC. 14

Gandalf, Gollum and the gang are back, this time in the story of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," the first film in the new trilogy from director Peter Jackson.

And, using the filming of "Psycho" as a framework, the romance between the legendary director (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife and collaborator, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), is explored in "Hitchcock."

DEC. 19

When his conscience gets the better of him, an inventor (Seth Rogen) invites his mother (Barbra Streisand) along on a cross-country journey - complete with the obligatory stop in Las Vegas - in the comedy "The Guilt Trip."

And the Disney-Pixar hit about two employees (voiced by John Goodman and Billy Crystal) of Monstropolis, a city powered by the screams of children, gains a dimension with the re-release "Monsters, Inc. 3D."

DEC. 21

A young couple is transported inside the Strip's Cirque shows - "Believe," "Ka," "Love," "Mystere," "O," "Zumanity" and the late "Viva Elvis" - in the 3-D extravaganza "Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away," from executive producer James Cameron.

A former military investigator (Tom Cruise) searches for a deadly sniper in "Jack Reacher," based on the series of novels by Lee Child.

And, five years later, Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann revisit their "Knocked Up" characters in the spinoff comedy "This is 40."

DEC. 25

A German-born bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) and a slave (Jamie Foxx) team up to track down criminals in the pre-Civil War South in writer-director Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson.

Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper ("The King's Speech") and Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen bring the musical "Les Miserables" to the big screen.

And hijinks ensue when a couple (Billy Crystal, Bette Midler) agrees to baby-sit their grandkids in "Parental Guidance."

Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@
reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567.