Elves, princesses, mobsters and monsters crowd Hollywood's holidays

LOS ANGELES -- Among your choices on Hollywood's holiday menu, you can have talking bees and chipmunks or savage aliens and predators. You can have jolly elves and pretty princesses or vicious gangsters and the mother of all mythic monsters. You can have music, or you can have blood. And in at least one case, you can have both.

"I remember I did try to pitch it as a musical with lots of blood," director Tim Burton recalled of his early attempts many years ago to make a movie version of Stephen Sondheim's stage hit "Sweeney Todd."

With frequent collaborator Johnny Depp in the title role, Burton finally succeeds with an adaptation of the musical about the murderous 18th century Londoner who turns his barber business into a shop of horrors.

This time of year is Hollywood's most diverse, offering a mix of dark drama, action, fantasy, and light comedy and animated films.

Among the comic and cartoon offerings: "Alvin and the Chipmunks," a blend of live-action and computer animation featuring Jason Lee and the little cartoon rodents; "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium," starring Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman in the tale of a magical toy shop; "Enchanted," with Amy Adams as a cartoon fairy-tale princess exiled by a wicked queen (Susan Sarandon) into Manhattan; and "Fred Claus," with Vince Vaughn as the black-sheep brother of St. Nick (Paul Giamatti).

Two grave, violent, brilliantly executed crime sagas could emerge as front-runners for this year's best-picture Oscar. Ridley Scott's "American Gangster," with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, and Joel and Ethan Coen's "No Country for Old Men," featuring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, have caught strong buzz in advance screenings.

Based on a true story, "American Gangster" stars Washington as a 1970s Harlem drug lord who balances brutality with altruism and Crowe as a freewheeling but upright Jersey cop on his trail.

"No Country for Old Men" is adapted from Cormac McCarthy's novel and features Jones as a sheriff tracking a merciless killer (Bardem), who in turn is pursuing a good old boy (Brolin) who made off with a fortune in drug money.

In the fantasy footsteps of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" comes "The Golden Compass," with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig leading the cast in the adventure of a young girl trying to rescue a friend in an alternate reality.

Robert Zemeckis brings the legend of "Beowulf" to life, with actors whose performances are digitally animated. The film features Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie.

Nicolas Cage returns for "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," the sequel to the 2004 smash. This time, Cage's history-minded treasure hunter sets out to clear the name of an ancestor implicated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the quest leading to a mythic cache of wealth and a secret text intended only for the eyes of U.S. leaders.

Javier Bardem, Catalina Sandino Moreno and Benjamin Bratt star in "Love in the Time of Cholera," an adaptation of the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez that traces the half-century wait of a man to win his true love.

"Atonement" features Keira Knightley and James McAvoy in a chronicle of the repercussions that follow a teenage girl's false accusations against her sister's lover.

Last man alive Will Smith fends off the remnants of humanity, who have been transformed into nocturnal fiends in "I Am Legend," a new adaptation of the novel that also was the basis for Charlton Heston's "The Omega Man" and Vincent Price's "The Last Man on Earth."

Not one, but six Bob Dylans come to the screen in "I'm Not There." Among the performers doing Dylan: Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett, who plays a Dylan-esque folk idol enraging his fans by going electric.

"August Rush" features Robin Williams, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Freddie Highmore in the story of an orphaned musical prodigy seeking his parents.