Seriously? “Four Christmases” topped the box office for a second straight week? I figured the “Punisher” movie would at least give it a run for its money …

I guess not all comic-book movies are a license to print money. And I guess you can get a lot of mileage out of those baby-barf TV spots. Oh, and “Twilight” is still doing well.

Just a bad weekend all around, then. I hope you at least got some shopping in.

It’s another busy, end-of-the-year kind of day for me, so here’s a quick breakdown of this week’s new releases:

“Adam’s Wall”: Michael MacKenzie’s low-key drama finds a Jewish teen living in Montreal falling for an Orthodox Christian girl from Lebanon in one of those Romeo-Juliet situations. Rad found it awfully calculating; Damian found a little more to like.

“Confessions of a Porn Addict”: I haven’t really been able to enjoy Spencer Rice’s self-conscious performances ever since he and Kenny Hotz first painted themselves as struggling hucksters in 1997’s “Pitch”. And now he’s playing a compulsive masturbator or something. Andrew and Jason both say it’s okay; I believe them, but I’m still gonna wait for the DVD.

“Down in the Dirt“: I loathed Justin Simms’ posturing tale of a grubby-artist woe at TIFF, and don’t like it any more now. But there are a lot of Bukowski wannabes out there who’ll dismiss my complaints as sour grapes and see it anyway. I just hope they can afford to blow the $13.

“Frost/Nixon“: The screen version of Peter Morgan’s stage play has everything you’d expect from a Ron Howard movie — glossy production values, top-tier casting, and professional construction. It also has that weird neediness that distinguishes most of Howard’s movies — SEE HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS!!! — but Frank Langella and Michael Sheen pull it together in the gripping final act. Langella’s totally gonna land that Oscar nomination this year.

“A Touch of Spice”: The formative childhood experiences of a Greek astronomer (Georges Corraface) are illustrated through flashbacks in Tassos Boulmetis’ … hey, hang on, this movie is five years old! Barrett and Damian find it hasn’t gotten any better with age.

Also opening today: “Punisher: War Zone”, which brings back crazy ol’ Frank Castle for another round of shooting them up, and “Nobel Son”, which appears to be the movie Randall Miller and the cast of “Bottle Shock” made on their off-days. Umm … those DVDs will be out soon, too, right?

It’s taken a full month, but the FIPRESCI website has finally posted my jury’s Vienna reports; the main page can be found here, and my review of Morgan Dews’ outstanding documentary “Must Read After My Death” is here.

If any Canadian distributors happen to be reading, this would be a hell of a picture to book into the Royal for a limited run. Just, you know, if that might be something you’d like to do.

Come on, people: “Four Christmases” topped the Thanksgiving box-office weekend? I mean, sure, at 88 minutes it’s the shortest of all the new releases — even “Bolt” is longer — and can therefore have the most performance, but there’s the other thing: It’s terrible.

Of course, quality is never an issue at the ticket counter. But I’m still surprised that “Australia” placed above “Transporter 3”, coming in with $14.8 million to action sequel’s $12.3 million gross: The first two “Transporter” films did reasonably well, and “Australia” comes in at nearly three hours, which means even fewer shows per day.

I guess people still love their epic historical romances. Which is handy, actually, since they’re the subject of my latest Sympatico/MSN gallery — movies built around the collision of passion and history. And no, the “Lord of the Rings” movies are definitively not eligible.

You know the ending of “The Italian Job”? The original, not the remake.

It’s a literal cliff-hanger, with Michael Caine and his merry band of thieves literally balanced on the edge of disaster — their stolen gold bars in one end of a recreational vehicle, the gang on the other, as the RV teeters over the edge of a cliff.

If the thieves move toward the gold, the van will tip over the side. If they move toward safety, the gold will shift, and the van will tip over the side. If they do pretty much anything rash or stupid, the van will tip over the side. So the movie just leaves them — and us — hanging.

Well, England has had enough. Last week, the Royal Society of Chemistry challenged the nation to find a scientifically legitimate solution to the problem, based on the evidence provided by the film (and rejecting “the employment of a helicopter” as a possible fix).

But wait! In a recent BBC interview, Michael Caine says he’s had the answer all along, and even claims they’d shot it back in 1969:

The star says he would have saved them by “switching on the engine”, burning off petrol until it righted itself.

“I crawl up, switch on the engine and stay there for four hours until all the petrol runs out,” he said.

“The van bounces back up so we can all get out, but then the gold goes over.”

“There are a load of Corsican Mafia at the bottom watching the whole thing with binoculars. They grab the gold, and then the sequel is us chasing it.”

I have my doubts about the practicality of this solution — it’s kind of anticlimactic after the intentional anti-climax of the cliff-hanger, which is presented with surprising grace when compared to the freneticism of the action that leads up to it. It very much feels like the movie’s supposed to stop there.

On the other hand, should that inevitable 40th anniversary DVD of “The Italian Job” should include the alternate ending, I will make with the shrugging and simply say that, you know, they were right to go with what they did.

Today’s opening of Arnaud Desplechin’s lovely “Un Conte de Noel” is a suitable bridge between American Thanksgiving and the Christmas season; if you haven’t yet been sucked into the swirl of holiday shopping, you could do far worse this weekend than spend a few hours in its company.

There’s some other stuff landing in theaters over this blockbuster-crammed weekend, but nothing to get too worked up about … it’s mostly what the kids call “counterprogramming”, a handful of documentaries and festival pickups that never really had a chance at distinguishing themselves. Better to dump ’em now and blame the big movies for their meager receipts.

“FLicKeR”: Nik Sheehan’s documentary dusts off the artistic legacy of Brion Gysin, whose Dream Machine device was purported to induce a transcendent state by means of visual stimulation — basically, you watched the flashing lights and you got high. Susan likes it; I found it amusing enough at Hot Docs, I guess, but it’s the kind of curio that’ll play just fine when you run across it on cable sometime next year.

“I Think We’re Alone Now”: Hey, remember Tiffany? Jeff Turner sure does — he’s been stalking her for twenty years! Sean Donnelly’s documentary about the subculture of obsession puts his fervent worship under the microscope, as well as that of another Tiffany admirer who may be even more tragically complicated. But, as Barrett puts it: Tiffany? Really?

“The Killer”: Screenwriter Cedric Anger (“Le Petit Lieutenant”) makes his directorial debut with this drama about a hit man (Gregoire Colin) who comes to an odd, vaguely existential arrangement with his latest target (Gilbert Melki). I was already overloaded with stuff for this week’s issue, but Barrett and Kieran make it sound pretty intriguing.

“Restless”: Never having been much of an Amos Kollek fan, I let his latest film — about an Israeli exile and his sniper-trained son who meet up in New York after two decades apart — slide past me during TIFF. The middling reviews from Rad and Damian convince me I made the right choice.

Still need something to see? Cinematheque Ontario is screening a new print of Francois Truffaut’s “The Wild Child” tonight and tomorrow, and tickets are still available.

Jeez, you people are demanding.

Want to catch up to yesterday’s wave of movies? Pick up a copy of today’s NOW, which features my reviews of “Australia“, “Four Christmases” and “Transporter 3“.

And once you’re done with those, read my interview with Arnaud Desplechin, whose lovely “Un Conte de Noel” was one of the highlights of my first Cannes. When it opens tomorrow, you really ought to see it.

And if you’re reading this from the States, well, happy turkey day. Me, I have to spend my morning watching Meryl Streep yelling at Philip Seymour Hoffman. It’s a living.

The Wednesday before American Thanksgiving is always clogged with would-be blockbusters; this year, we also see Focus Features try to put one of its smaller films out in front of the crush of December Oscar contenders. Proper reviews will appear in tomorrow’s paper (except for “Milk”, which Susan reviewed last week), but here’s a special sneak preview just for you!

“Australia”: Baz Luhrmann makes yet another berserk cross-genre construction, in the style of “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet” and “Moulin Rouge!”, but this time he comes up with a mess that is in no way glorious — it’s just a frenetic, convulsive hodgepodge of ill-conceived steals from other movies. And Nicole Kidman really has to stop with the whole light-comedy thing. (My full review will appear in tomorrow’s paper.)

“Four Christmases”: Speaking of people who have to stop trying to be funny: Has Reese Witherspoon ever worked in a comedic context? She was perfectly cast as the humorless villain of “Election”, but in movies like “Legally Blonde” she’s always struck me as too flinty and poised to actually get laughs. (Also, I think the “Legally Blonde” movies are terrible.) In Seth Gordon’s atrocious holiday comedy, Witherspoon’s Type-A stiffness grates up against Vince Vaughn’s chatterbox flailing in the worst possible way. And then the movie starts.

“Milk”: Remember when Oliver Stone and Robin Williams were planning to make their Harvey Milk biopic? Around, say, fifteen years ago? I’m pretty sure Dustin Lance Black’s screenplay is the one they were going to use — a generic hagiography that focuses on Milk’s political accomplishments and tells us almost nothing about the man himself. Sean Penn and James Franco are still pretty great, though.

“Transporter 3”: All I’m saying is, it’s no “Transporter”. Or even “Transporter 2”, for that matter. I still eagerly await “Crank 2”, though.