Page 20 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • November 10, 2010 December to bring bonanza of big-screen features by Dennis Seuling For most people, the last month of the year conjures images of holiday celebrations. It’s also the month film studios count on to bring in the big bucks. Each year, the best films are released during the summer and in December. Whether they are hoping to draw in families when kids are off from school or vying for Academy Award nominations, studio executives position their December releases as strategically as a chess champion determines his or her next move. Highlighted here are five from more than 30 pictures scheduled to hit theaters during the 31 days of December. Recent dance films have generally concentrated on hiphop. It’s rare when a movie takes viewers behind the scenes of the ballet. In “Black Swan,” coming to theaters Dec. 1, talented New York City Ballet dancer Nina (Natalie Portman) is selected by artistic director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) for the opening production of the season, “Swan Lake,” replacing prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder). But Nina has competition from a new dancer, Lilly (Mila Kunis). The ballet requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace and the Black Swan with guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly, but Lilly is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted sort of friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side. Directed by Darren Aronofsky (“The Wrestler”), the film contains strong sexual content, violence, profane language, and drug use. “Miral” (Dec. 3), directed by Julian Schnabel (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” “Basquiat”) is the story of four women whose lives intertwine in a search for justice, hope, and reconciliation in a world overshadowed by conflict, rage, and war. The story begins in war-torn Jerusalem in 1948 when Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass, “Amreeka”) opens an orphanage for refugees that quickly becomes home to 2,000 children. One of the orphans is 17-year-old Miral (Frieda Pinto, “Slumdog Millionaire”), who arrived at the orphanage 10 years earlier, following her mother’s tragic death. On the cusp of the Intifada resistance, Miral is assigned to teach at a refugee camp where she falls for a fervent political activist, Hani (Omar Metwally, “Munich”), and finds herself in a personal battle that mirrors the greater dilemma around her: to fight like those before her or follow Mama Hind’s defiant belief that education will pave a road to peace. Jonathan Swift’s most famous work has been adapted into film many times, once as a full-length animated picture. Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” (Dec. 22) gets a comic treatment, a 3-D, modern retelling of the tale starring Jack Black as the title adventurer. Black’s Gulliver is a perpetual underachiever and wannabe travel writer at a New York Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld in the remake of ‘True Grit.’ 25 N. 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This year’s remake (Dec. 25) is directed by Joel and Ethan Coen (“Fargo,” “A Serious Man”). Fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is devastated when her father is shot in cold blood by the coward Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). Determined to bring him to justice, she enlists the help of trigger-happy, drunken U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and sets out with him -- over his objections - to hunt down Chaney. They must pursue the criminal into Indian territory and find him before Texas Ranger LeBoeuf (Matt Damon) catches him and brings him back to Texas for the murder of another man. The combination of the Western genre and the Coens’ quirky directorial style should result in far more than a traditional horse opera. 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