wrapping up the holiday cinema offerings

As bitter winds blow and flurries fly, folks of all ages are looking for affordable ways to spend some quality out-of-the-house indoor time this holiday season. Fret not—the movie house doors are always open. The five weeks between Thanksgiving and the New Year traditionally account for 20 percent of annual box office receipts, and the studios know it. Having already been served up some whizbang action with “Quantum of Solace,” the epic romance adventure of “Australia,” the Disney-fed puppy antics of “Bolt,” and the prerequisite family dysfunction comedy of “Four Christmases,” this year’s upcoming cinematic haul of presents pulls a wildy broad selection out of the bag. Deluged as the season is with last minute Oscar bids and big studio multiplex mania, there’s plenty to go around for just about every taste.
at the multiplexes

This week, for example, “Punisher: War Zone” recruits “Rome” centurion Ray Stevenson as the third actor in as many attempts to portray Marvel Comics’ heavily armed, heavily violent vengeance machine Frank “The Punisher” Castle.

This coming week, in “Milk,” Sean Penn brings all his considerable charisma to bear with a brilliantly textured performance as slain San Fran gay rights activist and political leader Harvey Milk. Kate Winslet headlines “The Reader” as a WWII era 30-something with a disturbing secret that threatens to shatter her affair with a young student in Germany.

If those feel a little deep for you, you can always turn to Keanu Reeves, who steps up as a mysterious alien visitor with a badass robot enforcer in an ultrabudget remake of 1953’s seminal sci-fi classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

The week after that, actor-director Clint Eastwood dusts off his growly “Dirty Harry” act and mixes in the “Million Dollar Baby” formula to portray a grumpy old codger mentoring a troubled gangland youth in “Gran Torino.”

Opening to limited release that same week, director Darren Aronofsky puts Mickey Roarke in his first relevant role in a decade as a rapidly rusting professional fighter desperate to hold on to his waning glory days with “The Wrestler.” Right on its heels, Dec. 19 sees Jim Carrey returning to his spastic loudmouthed roots in “Yes Man.”

After the success of “Ratatouille,” an adaptation of the Newbery Award winning bestselling French rodent adventure “The Tale of Despereaux” was fairly inevitable. It features animation that looks top notch though, along with the voice talents of Emma Watson, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick.

Then comes the Big Day itself—Dec. 25. Frank Miller’s “Sin City”-ish hero noir “The Spirit” should catch a good number of comic book and action aficionados. Opening in wide release,

“Frost/Nixon” has Frank Langella reprising his Tony Award winning role as Tricky Dick in director Ron Howard’s adaptation of the Broadway hit play that recounts Nixon’s first public admission of his culpability in the Watergate scandal. Never one to be out-villianed, director Brian Singer (“The Usual Suspects,” “Superman Returns”) opens “Valkyrie” the same day, with Tom Cruise decked out in a Nazi uniform in the true story of a man who led a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler.

In their first box-office toe-to-toe since their famously tabloidable breakup, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston each have a picture opening Christmas Day, too. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” features Pitt in the title role, with a screenplay by the writer of “Forrest Gump” and wunderkind director David Fincher (showing a softer side after films like “Fight Club” and “Zodiac”), in an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story about a man aging backwards into youth through 70 years of American history. On the lighter side, Aniston stars with Owen Wilson as a couple learning crucial life lessons from their feisty golden retriever in “Marley and Me.”

at the independents

Always champions of independent and foreign language fare, The Music Hall in Portsmouth and the Screening Room in Newburyport have some terrific, if lower profile pictures lined up. The Music Hall will show the acclaimed French romance-thriller “A Girl Cut in Two,” by celebrated director Claude Chabrol, starting Dec. 15, and after that, will feature the usually button-cute Anne Hathaway taking a sharp dramatic turn as a barely recovering drug addict whose considerable problems follow her home to the family in “Rachel Getting Married.” The Screening Room offers a venomous family reunion as only the French could deliver it with a two-week run starting on Christmas Day of “A Christmas Tale,” starring a lustrous Catherine Deneuve and Matthieu Almaric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”). Both theaters conclude the year on a lighter note with “Happy-Go-Lucky,” starting Dec. 26 in both houses. Mike Leigh’s simple, breezy story of an incorrigibly optimistic London schoolteacher played to some delight at The Music Hall’s “Telluride by the Sea” this year. The Music Hall finishes off its 2008 film schedule with a single screening of visionary director Julie Taymor’s (“Titus” and Broadway’s “Lion King”) Beatles-infused psychedelic musical trip through the late 1960s, “Across the Universe.”

In addition, there are many community film series being screened digitally at smaller rooms and libraries around the Seacoast. Weeks Public Library in Stratham features newer animated and family fare every Tuesday afternoon. On Thursday, Dec. 11, Portsmouth Public Library will screen 1995’s “Joyeux Noël,” which tells of WWI’s historic front line Christmas truce (a story also recently featured in The Music Hall’s stage play “All is Calm”) with a post-show discussion. The Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport launches its “Frosty Festival” for the kids on Saturday, Dec. 13, including Frosty themed games, sing-alongs and face painting, to conclude with a big screen viewing of the 1969 Rankin and Bass cartoon classic. The Kennebunk Free Library concludes its “Lesser Known Christmas Classics” series on the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 16, with “The Shop Around the Corner,” starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan.

To wrap up the wrap up on an ominously sad and Scroogish note, the Ioka Theater in Exeter appears to be shuttering itself after some 93 years in the entertainment biz. The Ioka will feature two screenings each Saturday of 1994’s “The Nutcracker” performance by the Kirov Ballet, with a final show on Christmas Eve. Let’s all hope the Ioka gets the holiday miracle it deserves.