Cinematic Christmas: The holidays have arrived early at a cineplex near you

Call me crazy but it doesn't really feel like the holidays this year without Hobbits, elves and other fantastic "Lord of the Rings" creatures. After all, they ruled theaters during the past three holiday seasons.

Also missing in action is young wizard-in-training Harry Potter, who had his third outing during the summer this year, but will be back on a Christmas schedule in 2005.

Not that the competition will complain, of course. It's a wide berth for such perennial holiday-movie stars as Tom Hanks ("The Polar Express") and Jim Carrey ("Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events") and Nicolas Cage ("National Treasure") and Tim Allen ("Christmas With the Kranks") . . . oh, and then there's the big-screen debut of SpongeBob SquarePants ("The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie").

Those are some of the more high-profile stars scheduled to show up in movies before the end of the year, and these holiday offerings cross every genre.

• CHRISTMAS MOVIES — movies that are actually set during the Christmas holidays — include the uniquely animated "The Polar Express," which is already in theaters, and an adaptation of John Grisham's best-seller "Skipping Christmas" as a comic vehicle for Tim Allen, now titled "Christmas With the Kranks."

• FAMILY MOVIES are led by three animated features, the aforementioned "Polar Express" and "SpongeBob SquarePants Movie," as well as "The Incredibles," which is in theaters now. Then there's a big-screen, live-action adaptation of Bill Cosby's TV cartoon, "Fat Albert," and Jim Carrey's "Lemony Snicket" (narrated by Jude Law).

• ACTION MOVIES also abound, with Nicolas Cage seeking "National Treasure," while George Clooney and his "Ocean's Twelve" mount another caper, and Wesley Snipes completes his vampire trilogy with "Blade: Trinity."

• COMEDY MOVIES are represented by "Christmas With the Kranks" (which co-stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Aykroyd) and Ben Stiller being embarrassed yet again when his in-laws "Meet the Fockers" (played by Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman).

• DRAMATIC MOVIES include the local release of the highly anticipated "The Work and the Glory," and, of course, several possible Oscar contenders — mostly real-life biographies: Oliver Stone's "Alexander," starring Colin Farrell as the legendary Byzantine conqueror; Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator," with Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes; Kevin Spacey as '60s pop singer Bobby Darin in "Beyond the Sea"; and Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in "Ray," which is already in theaters. And the long-awaited film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera."

For a complete list of scheduled films and tentative opening dates, see attached story.

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E-mail: jeff@desnews.com