Winter break prime time for season’s best flicks

Ah, Christmas break ‘mdash; time to go home, see your high school friends and remember why you… Ah, Christmas break ‘mdash; time to go home, see your high school friends and remember why you spent 18 years waiting until you could leave for college. If spending the next three weeks at home with your family sounds scarier than breaking your calculator during an Algebra final, don’t worry. Hollywood has your back with a full calendar of cinematic distractions to keep you out of the house this holiday season. Dec. 12 ‘mdash; Disappointed you’ll never really see Vincent Chase in ‘Medellin’? Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Che’ may be the next best thing ‘mdash; if you’re in New York or Los Angeles for the holidays, spend a day with Che in this four-hour biopic of the Argentinean Marxist that inspired millions (of T-shirts). Keanu Reeves and a robot named Gort star in ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still,’ a sci-fi adventure with an environmentalist agenda. It should be like ‘Wall-E,’ if Wall-E disintegrated people with a laser beam fired from his eyes. If alien devastation and guerrilla warfare sound too somber, you could always see ‘Doubt,’ in which Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a Catholic priest accused of molesting a young boy. Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year. Dec. 17 ‘mdash; This week on ‘Friday Night SmackDown,’ it’s a cage match between two grizzled old Oscar hopefuls! In one corner, Mickey Rourke as a washed-up muscle man in ‘The Wrestler.’ After taking the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, this film could walk away with some gold statuettes and an oversized novelty gold belt. In the other corner is Clint Eastwood in ‘Gran Torino,’ a rifle-wielding loner who brings vigilante justice to his troubled neighborhood. He’s kind of like Dirty Harry, except old and yelling at the kids next door to get off his lawn. Dec. 19 ‘mdash; The marketing for ‘Seven Pounds’ doesn’t give away much ‘mdash; apparently the studio realized that people will see just about anything if Will Smith is in it. This could be his ninth consecutive film to surpass a $100 million domestic gross ‘mdash; and who knows, maybe his ticket to nabbing the Oscar he deserved for ‘Bad Boys II.’ If you don’t like your ’90s comic icons Big Willy style, take solace in ‘Yes Man’ ‘mdash; a Jim Carrey comedy in which he says ‘yes’ to every proposition, no matter how bad it may sound. Like starring in ‘The Number 23.’ Dec. 25 ‘mdash; Slip into your brand new reindeer sweater from Aunt Agnes and hit the theater ‘mdash; today’s the big show! First up is Bryan Singer’s ‘Valkyrie.’ The financial stakes are high for MGM’s suspense thriller, and the competition is fierce. Still, the Christmas day release of a movie about killing Hitler seems a little too convenient ‘mdash; Jewish audiences, MGM wants your money! If cuddly puppies are more compelling than Tom Cruise in an eye patch, there’s always the comedy ‘Marley ‘amp; Me.’ Based on the bestselling memoir, Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston star as a couple that adopts a misbehaved yellow Labrador. Spoiler alert: If you see this movie, your girlfriend will insist that you buy her a dog. You could take her to see Frank Miller’s ‘The Spirit’ instead ‘mdash; based on the overwhelmingly negative reaction to early clips, this stepchild of ‘Sin City’ could be the unintentional comedy hit of the season. Of course, the movie to beat this Christmas is David Fincher’s ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.’ Based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, ‘Button’ is widely predicted to be this year’s Oscar heavyweight. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett star in this epic, expensive, visually fantastic love story for the ages. The last time we saw a movie like that helmed by a prolific and notoriously difficult director was ‘Titanic,’ and you remember how that turned out.