KEY POINTS:
Here's what else is on offer in the coming holiday period.
Australia
You may have heard about this one - mixed reviews at home, a low box
office uptake in the United States. But the only member of the TimeOut staff who's seen it so far pronounced
it "an Aussie artist's greatest
love letter to the Lucky Country since Rolf's Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, but a little longer". Opens Boxing Day.
Bedtime Stories
Adam Sandler family movie about a handyman who finds the lavish stories he reads his nephews and niece start coming true. Opens Boxing Day
Frost Nixon
Ron Howard's dramatisation of the battle of wits and wills between David Frost and Richard Nixon when the disgraced president ended his silence after the Watergate scandal with a series of interviews with the
British broadcaster. Opens Boxing Day
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
A reported return to form for Woody Allen as he directs Scarlett
Johansson, Penelope Cruz, and Javier Bardem in a story of romantic
entanglements set against the Spanish capital. Opens Boxing Day
Yes Man
Stars Jim Carrey as a guy who has to say yes to everything for a
year. Not to be confused with the Jim Carrey movie - Liar, Liar - where he played a guy who couldn't fib for 24 days. Oh and this one stars our own Rhys Darby. Opens January 1
Bolt
Rounding out the season's animated films is this Disney offering about
Bolt the TV wonderdog who doesn't realise his action hero life isn't actually real, until he ends up in New York and has to get home to
Hollywood with a couple of other oddball pets in tow. John Travolta gives Bolt his bark while tween superstar Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) is the voice of Penny, Bolt's owner and TV co-star. Opens January 1
The Spirit
Frank Miller's second directing effort after adapting his hardboiled Sin
City for the big screen is about the vintage masked superhero crimefighter who gets a monochromatic visual treatment and an arch enemy - "the Octopus" - played by Samuel L. Jackson. Opens January 8
Seven Pounds
Will Smith in meaningful mode again as a depressed Inland Revenue guy who mysteriously drops into the lives of strangers in an apparent bid to help them, only to fall in love with one. It reunites Smith with
director Gabriele Muccino, the director of The Pursuit of Happyness. Connor Cruise - the 13 year-old son of Tom and Nicole Kidman - plays a younger version of Smith in some scenes. Opens January 15.
Doubt
John Patrick Shanley directs his own script, based on his Pulitzer-
winning play about the rivalry between a nun and a priest at a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964. Stars Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius who accuses Phillip Seymour Hoffman's Father Flynn of molesting one of the students. Opens January 15.
Hotel for Dogs
A couple of orphans start a home for dogs in an abandoned hotel, inventing all sorts of devices - including a super-duper-pooper-scooper - to help keep their guests happy and entertained. Opens January 15.
