“This weird mashup of The Zookeeper (with Matt Damon instead of Kevin James as the suddenly single guy who talks to the animals) and The Descendants (a man grieving for his wife and taking his two kids on a journey of discovery) might seem an odd detour for Cameron Crowe, who in his early 20s wrote the Rolling Stone article that became the 1982 teen comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

“Crowe graduated to writer-director and made three good movies: Say Anything…, Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. That last film came out more than a decade ago, yet such was our pleasure in it and its siblings that we’re still in mourning for his late talent. How could we have known that his last film, Elizabethtown, about a depressed man coping with a family death, was not an arrant misfire but the launching of Crowe’s soupy-sappy period?” — from Richard Corliss‘s 12.22 Time review of We Bought A Zoo.

I’m not quite down with the punctation of Mr. Clooney’s first sentence. The “quite honestly, I am” isn’t necessary. The second passage should read “Democrats eat their own — they find singular issues and go, ‘Well, I didn’t get everything I wanted.”’ And the third passage should read “Republicans are always better at this. If Obama was a Republican running,” etc.

I’d been meaning to re-watch Melancholia, but putting it off at the same time. Then I saw this still and decided to watch it again without fail.

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Jerome Simpson leapt over Arizona Cardinals linebacker Daryl Washington for a touchdown yesterday. Jamie Foxx did the same thing in Oliver Stone‘s Any Given Sunday…but he didn’t land on his feet.

You can never foresee a fall-holiday lineup a year or ten months ahead of time. Winners are always concealed. Surprises always happen. That said, 2012’s award season seems undernourished. September through November, I mean. December looks decent. This is only a first-glance, cut-and-paste spitball list. A mere 16 films. HE conveys special interest.

September 2012: Argo (9.14, HE), d: Ben Affleck, cast: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Kerry Bishe, Kyle Chandler; Looper (9.28, HE), d: Rian Johnson, cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo; Savages (9.28, HE), d: Oliver Stone, cast: Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch, Demian Bichir. (3)

October 2012: The Gangster Squad (10.19, HE); d: Ruben Fleischer, cast: Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone; Untitled David Chase ’60s “Music-Driven” Film (1.19, HE), d: David Chase, cast: James Gandolfini, Brad Garrett, Bella Heathcote, Christopher McDonald. (2)

November 2012: The Silver Linings Playbook (11.21, HE), d: David O. Russell, cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles; Gravity (11.21, HE), d: Alfonso Cuaron; cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney. (2)

December 2012: Les Miserables (12.7, HE), d: Tom Hooper, cast: Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway; Great Hope Springs (12.14), d: David Frankel , cast: Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (12.14); Untitled Kathryn Bigelow Osama bin Laden Film (12.14, HE); This Is Forty (12.21, HE), d: Judd Apatow, cast: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, Melissa McCarthy; World War Z (12.21), d: Marc Forster, cast: Brad Pitt; Lincoln (mid to late December, HE), d: Steven Spielberg, cast: Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones; Django Unchained (12.25, HE), d: Quentin Tarantino, cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Sacha Baron Cohen; The Great Gatsby (12.25, HE), d: Baz Luhrman, cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher. (9)

If We Bought A Zoo (20th Century Fox) winds up with $11.7 million for the four-day holiday, as projected by Deadline‘s Nikki Finke, it will have averaged $3753 at 3117 theatres, or $938 per day. That’s not good. One reason is that guys like my 23 year-old son Jett, who’s now sitting next to me at a sports bar on First Avenue and 7th Street, smelled “Disney family shit” and wanted no part of it.

If a movie poster is defaced more than once on New York subway walls, it indicates that on some level “the people” are not happy with the idea of the film in question. They’re irritated or pissed off about it…something. Don’t ask me to explain; I just know that poster defacement can be a bad omen.

Saturday, 12.24, 2:35 pm — Myrtle-Willoughby stop, G line.

Late December is always a time for summing things up and connecting with core values. And one sure way of understanding or revealing those values is to play the “clap three times” game. If you could magically erase some aspect or manifestation of human nature by clapping three times, what would that be? Obviously an ugly thought in one respect (i.e., humanitarian tolerance is a virtue), but imagine what a blessing it could be for the planet to eliminate venality and ignorance in one fell swoop.

It’s not an attractive thing to admit, I realize, but if with three claps I could make every last Rick Perry admirer vaporize…along with every corporate greedwhore, every last Kardashian, every last global-warming denier, every last rural conservative who believes that Christians are God’s chosen flock, and every last easily manipulated movie-moaner (exemplified by but not limited to that not-terribly-bright woman who sat behind me during my first viewing of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close along with the general mentality that sincerely worships War Horse), I would do so in a heartbeat.

This is obviously not a very Christmassy thing to reflect or dream upon…sorry. I respect and value traditional holiday spirit. But tell me how the planet wouldn’t be an immensely healthier place with these elements gone and under the cornfield.

Four years ago I ran a piece about the most pleasing and nourishing Xmas movies you can watch. I thought I’d re-rerun it because (a) it contains elements of profound truth, and (b) I have to catch a train back to NYC in an hour or so and haven’t time to write a fresh article. Maybe a new thought will occur as I re-format.

Okay, here’s one. The best Christmas holiday flicks are ones that you know backward and forward and agree with wholeheartedly, and which basically say “you the watcher are an okay person…you believe in decency and fairness and compassion and menschy values.” An ideal Christmas movie, for me, is Billy Wilder‘s The Apartment, and I would probably re-watch it today or tomorrow if the Bluray was available.

Another good Christmas movie is Tuesday, After Christmas — put that in your pipe and smoke it.

“Christmas is a vibe about caring, giving, compassion for the lessers,” I wrote on 12.15.07. The spirit of this holiday may not be a tangible reality until you find yourself giving five bucks to a guy begging for gas money or your car is stuck in a snowstorm and two guys jump out of their cars to give you a push (which happened to me three nights ago), but when real life comes up short a semblance of this is somewhat evident in this and that film.

“Few films capture this better than John Ford‘s The Grapes of Wrath. Yes, I’m thinking again of that diner scene I wrote about a week ago. Other films with genuine humanitarian compassion: Joseph Losey‘s The Boy with the Green Hair, Todd Browning‘s Freaks, Peter Davis‘s The War at Home.

“The only bona fide Christmas film that exudes a portion of this is the 1951 British-made Scrooge (a.k.a., A Christmas Carol) with Alistair Sim.

“True Christmas spirit is less evident in the standard holiday sap classics — It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story, Home Alone — that Dave Barry types bring up each and every year.

“I tried re-watching It’s a Wonderful Life a few weeks ago, and found it very hard to stay with. I needed time-outs, pauses, walks around the block. Talk about a film that is chock-full of treacly speed bumps. Is there a more toxic poison than yellowed sentimentality? I hate — hate — the way those bank examiners begin singing ‘Hark, the Harald Angels Sing’ with everyone else at George Bailey’s home at the very end.

“It is time to shut this movie down and keep it down.

“It’s a Wonderful Life‘s popularity is due to its touching central theme, which says that no one with friends is a failure. That’s a true statement if you’re talking about real friends and not just good-time, fair-weather drinking buddies, which are easier to come by. I’ve known many people in my life whose definitions of friendship are on the flexible side. A fair-sized percentage of those who believe that this 1946 Frank Capra film is touched by greatness are, I suspect, among this group.

“I’ve always hated Bob Clark‘s A Christmas Story. A Miracle on 34th Street is a passable thing, at least as far as Edmund Gwenn‘s Kris Kringle is concerned. I know that I’ve found it less offensive than It’s a Wonderful Life over the years. I probably need to see it again.”

Kim Kardashian tweeted this about ten hours ago. Imagine having a dad who shares so little of himself on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis that he gives you a Christmas gift guaranteeing four hours of daddy face time — heart-to-heart intimacy, counsel, advice, hugs. That is truly venal