Well, here we are at the week when Hollywood decides what people are just dying to see on the biggest moviegoing day of the year: Christmas. The prophets and visionaries have declared that this year that comes down to Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, It’s Complicated, Nine, Sherlock Holmes and Up in the Air.

Since we have snow, let’s take a cursory glance at snow in the movies. Most cineastes are, of course, well aware that most of the time movie snow has only the slightest relation to real snow. Anyone who’s seen Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night knows that it might easily be soapy foam. Anyone who doubts this should look at the feet of Woody Allen and Harold Gould during the snowy duel scene in Allen’s Love and Death. That’s merely the tip of the snowflake.

Before we get down to the theoretical event of the week—and possibly of the year—I want to note that something else is showing up locally this week. I’m not sure I’ve ever fielded more questions about when a movie is going to get here than I have in the case of The Road. Well, here it is.

The other day during the press screening of Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, I happened to notice that Jackson made a cameo appearance in the movie. Aptly enough, he showed up as a customer in a camera shop playing around with a movie camera. This isn’t the first time, Jackson’s put himself in one of his movies.

Perhaps because I’ve already seen The Damned United and Invictus (reviews for both are in this week’s paper), this seems like a very light week, especially this close to Christmas. Once you cross those off the list—and you really shouldn’t, especially The Damned United—the only big release you’re left with is Disney’s The Princess and the Frog.

These days the onset of the festive season means one thing – movies. Movies I haven’t seen and movies I need to see again. They come to me in various ways – mostly these days in the form of screeners, which are less expensive than setting up theatrical screenings.

The good news is that Fantastic Mr. Fox (review in this week’s Xpress), Pirate Radio, A Serious Man and An Education are all still in town. In fact, while Fantastic Mr. Fox underperformed most places, it did considerably above the national average locally – a pattern I expect to hold if it has the Asheville appeal of Wes Anderson’s last two films.