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Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is my favorite Christmas story and I love it in just about any of its movie incarnations. "Bah, humbugs" have been muttered by Scrooges played by top-notch dramatic actors like George C. Scott and Albert Finney, former Miss America Vanessa Williams, former Fonzie Henry Winkler, and former Saturday Night Live star Bill Murray. I love them all. But here are my very favorites, the ones I try to watch every year.

5. Mickey's Christmas Carol Who better to play Scrooge than his namesake Scrooge McDuck? And who better for the part of the unquenchable Bob Cratchit than Mickey Mouse? This compilation DVD includes other Christmas goodies "The Small One" and "Pluto's Christmas Tree."

4. The Muppet Christmas Carol has the distinguished actor Michael Caine as Scrooge and the equally distinguished Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit. Special mention of A Sesame Street Christmas Carol as well.

3. Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. The voice talent is outstanding, with Broadway star Jack Cassidy (father of teen idols David and Shaun) as Bob Cratchit and of course Jim Backus as Mr. Magoo, in this version an actor playing the part of Scrooge. The tuneful songs were written by Bob Merrill and Jule Styne, who later went on to write "Funny Girl." (The legend is that their song "People" was originally written for this movie.)

2. A Christmas Carol This MGM classic features the top stars of the 1930's. Watch for future "Lassie" star June Lockhart as one of the Cratchit children -- her real-life father Gene Lockhart played Bob. (He also appears in another Christmas classic, as the judge in Miracle on 34th Street.)

1. A Christmas Carol This is the all-time best, with the inimitable Alistair Sim as Scrooge. There has never been a more embittered miser or a more jubilent Christmas morning rebirth. When he orders that turkey for the Cratchits and walks into his nephew's celebration at the end, everything Dickens hoped for from his story is brought to life.

This sugarplum of a movie is held together with good intentions and paperclips, but its appealing cast and seasonal sweetness make it -- if not the perfect holiday treat, a pleasantly enjoyable one, especially welcome because there are so few Christmas stories about African-American families.

An adventure-romance-comedy about a just-divorced couple who join forces in pursuit of sunken treasure reunited Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Despite the considerable -- and well-displayed -- charms of its stars, there is not enough adventure, romance, or comedy to make it work.

Tess (Hudson) has just divorced Finn (McConaughey), mostly for being hopelessly unreliable. Or, as someone says to her, not without some sympathy, "You married a guy for the sex and then expected him to be smart." She is working as a steward on a yacht owned by the fabulously wealthy Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland). When Finn shows up with a story about a lost Spanish ship carrying gold and jewels, Nigel thinks it might keep his celebutante daughter Gemma (Alexis Dziena) on his boat and out of the tabloids to see if they can find it.

It's The Shawshank Redemption part two, or it tries to be. It has voiceover narration by Morgan Freeman. It has an inspiring and life-affirming friendship -- featuring Morgan Freeman. It just is not very good.

If you've seen the trailer, you've seen the movie. And if, after seeing the trailer you want to see the movie, then you will get what you are expecting, a formulaic feel-good story of two dying men who finally learn how to live. There just will not be one original or authentic moment along the way. This is the kind of thing old pros Freeman, Jack Nicholson, and director Rob Reiner can pretty much phone in, and that is what they do.

We know the minute we see bombastic Jack Nicholson insisting that the hospitals he owns are not health spas and that everyone shares a room, no exceptions, that soon he will be sharing a room and won't be happy about it. We know that when saintly though embittered Morgan Freeman shows up in that other bed in the room, they are there to teach each other important life lessons about the importance of connections and living life to the fullest.

But the movie's idea of living life to the fullest is, well, not very full. It consists of sky-diving and tourism. There are some moments of family reconciliation that are thrown in toward the end but never shared, much less explored. Dying just seems an excuse for a geriatric, spend-it-all Spring Break.

The movie continually undercuts its own ostensible messages. It preaches authenticity but practices facsimile. It preaches tenderness but fetishises hedonism. It preaches on behalf of home but glamorizes running away. Freeman and Nicholson are always watchable, but the best their finer moments in this movie can do is remind us of how much better they are in other films.

Same "stick it to the man" story. Same stoic, emotionally damaged but still a fighting machine (mean, yes; lean, not so much) who can take on a hundred guys with guns because he is so well trained and so pure of heart.

Also because he wrote and directed it.

Yes, Rambo is back. We first met him in 1982's
First Blood (The Man = abusive cops), followed by Rambo - First Blood Part II (The Man = Viet Cong and corrupt politicians) and Rambo III (The Man = Soviets in Afghanistan). Twenty years later, there are still bad guys that only the last true morally righteous person on earth -- or an aging movie star looking for an audience -- can take on. For tonight's performance, the part of The Man will be played by the military junta that controls Burma.

The first movie ended with historian/treasure-hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) triumphant, with riches, a dream house, and a dream girl, historian/knockout (and conveniently named) Abigail Chase ("Troy's" Helen Diane Kruger). He has pretty much lost all of that...

In 1935, the debate team from a tiny all-black college took on the top white team in the country and they won. This is that story, Oprah-fied to be sure (Winfrey's company produced the film), but powerfully told by...

Hillary Swank does not have the chin for romance or the rhythm for comedy. Her two Oscars were for earnest, androgynous roles (“Boys Don’t Cry” and “Million Dollar Baby”) that made the most of her strong jaw and lanky...

It is not easy to take a wealthy socialite, a powerful Congressman, and a CIA agent, have them played by three Oscar-winners, two who are genuine box office gold, and make them look like the underdogs, but in this...

The most successful movie studio in Hollywood history is Pixar, which created the first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story. Every one of their films has not only made money, but every one has made over $100 million. What is even...

Stories, especially movies, are usually linear and organized in part because stories are how we make sense of the world but mostly because of the limits of time. If we are only going to give two hours of our...

It's time for the q-word again. Every year, it seems, there is some audience-favorite-quirky-little-indy -- that category is now a genre of its own, like thriller and romantic comedy. 2006's Little Miss Sunshine was called "this year's Napoleon Dynamite....

Novelty songwriter Ross Bagdasarian noticed that speeding up the audio recordings creatd a high-pitched sound in 1958, and used that technique in his song "The Witch Doctor." It was a hit. And so, he created the singing chipmunks, Simon,...

Fairy tales and modern-day Manhattan find a way to live happily ever after in this adorable Disney story about the adventures of a prince, an almost-princess, and an evil queen in New York City....

Will Smith plays the last man on earth in this third movie based on Richard Matheson's novella. Scientist Robert Neville was immune to the virus that wiped out everyone. He spends his days hunting for food in the deserted streets...

Those who are willing to open their hearts to this urban fairy tale will find its pleasures, as long as they they don't think about it too hard....

Hal (Reece Thompson) has something say but he has a lot of trouble saying it. On the bus, he can practice asking for pizza, but when it comes to the moment and he is standing in the cafeteria line, he...

There is undeniable little girl appeal in this story of a big, selfish meanie of a quarterback who is tamed by the 8-year-old daughter he never knew he had. Some audiences will find it as sugary as a fruit-scented princess...

Jane has a special closet in her apartment filled with 27 dresses so ugly that only two things can be true: (1) they were all bridesmaid's dresses, and that means (2) all 27 brides assured her that they could...

The Veggie Tales have produced a series of popular computer-animated videos for children and their families, with fruit and vegetable-inspired characters in engaging and funny stories with gentle moral overtones. Their new feature film does not mention God, as the...

Ice Cube was once a member of the fiercely provocative gangsta rap group N.W.A. (for N****** With Attitude). He is now a prolific Hollywood producer with franchise films from R-rated (the Friday series) to family-friendly (Are We There Yet?)....

It opens with a scorching contrast of light and darkness. Alone at the bottom of a dark pit, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) stubbornly scratches and claws in the mud. High above, a pitiless sun bleaches a remote desert landscape. Plainview...

Writer-director Michael Davis has stripped the action movie down to its essence in a mind-blowing mash-up fueled with testosterone, adrenaline, and weapons-grade plutonium. No esoteric references in the title. No Robert McKee-mandated 10 pages at the beginning to make us...

In the grand tradition of "he followed me home -- can I keep him?" movies, we have seen movies about children who are brought to adventure and understanding through dogs, horses, cats, a whale, a dolphin, dragons, geese, and...

Marjane Satrapi brings her award-winning graphic memoir to the screen in a powerful story of growing up in Iran as the Shah was ousted and hopes for democracy were crushed by the rise of the fundamentalists. Named for the legendary...

Childhood tragedy and attendant guilt feelings. A big career-defining concert followed by a flashback of everything that went before. Adults amazed by early evidence of extraordinary talent and feel for music. Tragedy and loss to overcome. A first wife who...

There could be no better match for the gothic saga of the barber who slit men's throats and the baker who made their bodies into pies than director Tim Burton, the master of the macabre. Here working with Johnny...

This is an enchanting story that lives up to the promise of a "once upon a time beginning," filled with romance, adventure, magic, and wit. It has witch sisters who need to find a fallen star to make the potion...

This faithful adaptation of the worldwide best-seller puts a struggle for personal redemption and atonement in the context of devastating divides, ethnic, cultural, poltical, and moral, set in Afghanistan before, during, and after the Soviet invasion of 1979. Loyalty,...

There is not much story here. The set-up was two movies ago, when a man with a gunshot wound was fished out of the water. He had no memory but when it came to the tricks of the spy trade,...

Everything is changing again for Harry Potter. Back when Hagrid explained to him for the first time at age 11 that his parents had not died in a car crash but in a battle with an evil wizard and that...

Little toy jungle animals are lined up on the rug. Typewriter keys bang like gunshots. Briony (Saoirse Ronan) is writing a play called "The Trials of Arabella." It is 1935 England, a dream of a summer afternoon on a...

Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) is disobedient, obstinate, crafty, and skeptical. In other words, she challenges authority, she is is a creative thinker, and she is in the grand tradition of the heroes of classic adventure stories. And this...

Cheerfully outrageous and unabashedly offensive, this saga of three high school seniors in search of sex and liquor works because the vulgarity is in the context of a very sweet story about growing up and leaving home. It centers on...

Oh, we all love to feel superior to rich people, don't we? It makes us feel so nice and smug. They may have the fancy apartments and couture, but we have a lock on authenticity and unpretentiousness, right? That's...

The people behind "March of the Penguins" have put together another endearing story of life in the coldest place on earth. This time, it is the story of two newborns, a polar bear called Nanu and a walrus named Seela....

When all the world is caught up in Christmas, it can help to have some DVDs on hand to explain that some people celebrate a different holiday at this time of year, especially when the stories and songs are...

Judy Barber wrote a wonderful comment about this neglected gem: One of THE sweetest movie or video is Emmet Otter Jugband Christmas, a muppet video. I make everyone watch it at Christmas. And the funnest thing about it is...

If the "Transformers" were the snips and snails and puppy dog tails of the toys-to-movie genre of the summer of 2007, the Bratz were the sugar and spice....

It will blow the box of popcorn out of your hand....

In the most incongruous mismatch of literature and movie treatment since Demi Moore flounced around in "The Scarlet Letter," director Mike Newell has taken a lyrical meditation on love, patience, devotion, loss, betrayal, and fever and turned it into...

It is more op-ed than movie. "Lions for Lambs" is a well-meaning attempt to encapsulate and move forward one segment of our current political debates. But it is mostly speeches, not stories....

Good intentions often make bad movies....

Just as Entertainment Weekly picks the 1988 Die Hard as the greatest action movie of all time, Bruce Willis comma-ti-yi-yippies it up again for NYPD’s John McClane’s fourth explosion-and-wisecrack-fest. Number three is still my favorite, but this latest installment has...

Ashima (Indian superstar Tabu) pauses before entering the living room to meet her prospective bridegroom and his family. Their shoes have been left outside the door, according to the customs of her home in India. Ashima sees that inside the...