Film

Top five movies and upcoming releases

Top Five

1. Elephant - Writer-director Gus Van Sant examines teen violence such as the Columbine massacre with a low-key, pseudo-documentary look at an hour inside a normal high school ready to explode.

2. Bad Santa - Billy Bob Thornton is hilarious as a crude, drunken shopping mall Santa Claus whose disguise enables him to rob shopping malls. Not for the faint of heart, but the funniest movie of 2003.

3. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - Russell Crowe strikes a dashing figure as captain of a British warship stalking a French foe. Terrific battle scenes, and a sense of nautical strategy that makes one feel smarter for watching it.

4. Shattered Glass - The true story of journalist Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) and his fabricated New Republic articles is a gripping account of media irresponsibility.

5. The Singing Detective - Robert Downey Jr. is superb as a hospitalized pulp novelist hallucinating about his life through his fiction. Based on the acclaimed 1980s BBC miniseries.

Upcoming releases

Dec. 5: The Last Samurai; My Life Without Me; Honey; Anything But Love

Dec. 12: Stuck on You; Something's Gotta Give; Love Don't Cost a Thing

Dec. 17: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Dec. 19: Mona Lisa Smile; The Cooler; The Barbarian Invasions

Dec. 25: Cheaper by the Dozen; Peter Pan; Cold Mountain; Paycheck; In America

Dec. 26: 21 Grams; House of Sand and Fog

Jan. 1: Calendar Girls

Jan. 9: Big Fish

This Weekend