Holiday movie forecast - Warm comedies

LOS ANGELES

At last, a holiday-movie season with real tinsel. n Amid the blockbuster big guns of "The Matrix Revolutions" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," Hollywood serves up a wealth of warmhearted fare to put audiences in the holiday spirit, including three very different Christmas-themed comedies:

"Elf" is a merry boy-raised-by-Santa's-helpers tale starring Will Ferrell as a towering human who leaves his adopted home at the North Pole to find his real dad (James Caan) in New York City. Ed Asner plays the world-weary Santa Claus.

"Love Actually" is a big, fat ensemble romance set in the weeks before Christmas, with whipsmart dialogue and a cast of lovelorn Londoners including Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Laura Linney and Hugh Grant as Britain's bachelor prime minister.

"Bad Santa" stars Billy Bob Thornton (who pops up briefly in "Love Actually" as the imperious U.S. president) in a black comedy about a thief who learns the meaning of the season while posing as a mall Santa to pull a robbery.

Directed by Terry Zwigoff, who made the art-house hit "Ghost World," "Bad Santa" co-stars the late John Ritter as the mall manager. With Joel and Ethan Coen as executive producers, the movie promises a blend of sentiment and Coen brothers weirdness, Thornton said.

"It's like an episode of 'South Park' that turns into 'It's a Wonderful Life,"' Thornton said. "It's definitely the alternative Christmas movie. ... We'll hit you with a right cross, then the other holiday movies will come along to bandage you up."

"Elf" is a crowd-pleasing mix of slapstick, fish-out-of-water silliness and childlike heart as Ferrell takes Manhattan with nothing more than his bottomless Christmas cheer and a dorky elf suit.

Ferrell said he could relate to the character's naive innocence and holiday spirit.

"One of the things that struck me about playing this character is that it was so appealing to play someone who's very earnest, is completely nonjudgmental and accepting of anyone and everyone," Ferrell said.

"Love Actually" could have taken place any old time, but writer-director Richard Curtis -- who wrote "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Notting Hill" -- said "Christmas is the time when you sort of have a go at things romantic. ... It's the time when love is most likely to burst out both in its happy and sad forms, and people are most likely to say the unsayable."

A cast of others

Among Hollywood's other comfort-food movies for the holidays: "Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat," with Mike Myers; "Mona Lisa Smile," starring Julia Roberts as a progressive art-history teacher who inspires students at a close-minded women's college in the 1950s; Eddie Murphy's "The Haunted Mansion," a family comedy based on Disney's theme-park attraction; the romantic comedy "Something's Gotta Give," featuring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in the story of a womanizer who loses his taste for sweet young things when he falls for someone in his own age bracket.

Also: a remake of "Cheaper by the Dozen," with Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt as a couple that missed a few Planned Parenthood sessions on their way to having 12 kids; Martin again as the villain in "Looney Tunes: Back in Action," a live-action and cartoon combo that pairs Brendan Fraser with Bugs, Daffy and other Warner Bros. favorites; the huge-screen IMAX exclusive "The Young Black Stallion," a prequel to the 1979 horse tale; and "Peter Pan," a live-action adaptation of J.M. Barrie's story of young girl Wendy and her pal Peter, the boy who won't grow up, directed by P.J. Hogan ("My Best Friend's Wedding").

Jason Isaacs, who plays the villainous Capt. Hook and Wendy's father, said people who know the story only from Disney's spry animated version will be surprised at the movie's dark depths. The film also casts a boy, Jeremy Sumpter, as Peter, breaking with the old stage tradition of putting older women in the role.

"I remember having seen one of these horrible stage versions with slightly menopausal women dressed in green tights, slapping their thighs," Isaacs said. "As a young boy, I couldn't understand why this little girl Wendy fancied this 50-year-old woman."

The season's serious fare includes four heavy-duty 19th century tales: "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," with Russell Crowe as a Napoleonic-era British ship's captain in a deadly high-seas duel; "The Missing," Ron Howard's savage Western about redemption between a pioneer woman (Cate Blanchett) and her estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones); Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellweger in "Cold Mountain," adapted from Charles Frazier's Civil War best seller; and Tom Cruise in "The Last Samurai," about a disenchanted American soldier who finds renewal amid culture-clash strife in Japan.

Also coming are "21 Grams," starring Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro in a sober drama of grief and mortality; Tim Burton's "Big Fish," with Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor in a father-son reunion fantasy; "House of Sand and Fog," the story of an ex-Iranian bigwig (Ben Kingsley) fighting for possession of a home with its former owner (Jennifer Connelly); and Michael Caine in "The Statement," Norman Jewison's thriller about an aging Nazi collaborator running from assassins.

For laughs, the Farrelly brothers deliver "Stuck on You," with Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins trying to live separate lives. The romantic comedy "Love Don't Cost a Thing" stars Nick Cannon as a geek who gets to date a babe in a remake of the teen flick "Can't Buy Me Love."

On the action and horror front, "Gothika" stars Halle Berry as a psychiatrist with no memory of the crime she's accused of committing -- the murder of her husband. John Woo directs Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman in "Paycheck," a sci-fi thriller about a corporate hired gun trying to piece together his erased memory. "Timeline" features Paul Walker and Frances O'Connor in a tale of archaeologists hurled back in time to hazardous 14th century France.