I haven’t linked to many MSN Movies galleries in the last month or so, but don’t worry — we’ve been holding them in reserve for the holiday season, where they’ll be rolled out between now and the end of the year. Forethought!

And here’s one for you: The Worst Christmas Movies Ever, an assortment of terrible, horrible, no-good features that just happen to have seasonal themes. Yes, “Fred Claus” is on the list. No, “Surviving Christmas” isn’t. I still believe Ben Affleck knows exactly what he’s doing in that one.

And yeah, I left “Four Christmases” out. That one needs to marinate for another couple of years so we can see whether it’s truly awful, or just a mediocrity to be forgotten, like that road movie with Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Patience is everything in this game.

With a three-day gross of $43.6 million, “Tron Legacy” — which may also be spelled “Tron: Legacy” or “TRON: Legacy”, depending on your level of nerdiness — dominated the weekend box office like a User dominates programs, despite the fact that the whole Users-and-programs thing is one of about half a dozen notions from the original movie that goes wasted in the bigger, shinier sequel. (Once again, folks, I wanted to like it, but it just wouldn’t let me.)

Ah, well. It was a fait accompli for Disney’s 3D super-sequel, which has been pegged a box-office hit ever since ComicCon 2008, where a showreel set geek hearts aflutter. One wonders whether they’re still as dazzled after seeing the movie, or if they just want to play the tie-in videogames while drinking blue Slurpees and playing the Daft Punk CD really loud.

The week’s other 3D newbie, “Yogi Bear”, came in a distant second with $16.7 million, while last week’s topper, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader“, placed third with $12.4 million — closely pursued by “The Fighter“, which earned $12.2 million. And in more heartening news, audiences stayed away from the mediocrity of James L. Brooks’ “How Do You Know“, which opened in eighth place with just $7.6 million. Now all we have to do is keep them from returning to “The Tourist“, and we can all sleep soundly at night.

I visit the geek-chic website io9 almost as often as The AV Club; it’s a great way to pass time while waiting for someone to reply to an e-mail, or to see how my fellow obsessive nerds are responding to “Tron: Legacy”.

Sometimes, though, they go above and beyond. A couple of years ago, Charlie Jane Anders wrote a brilliant straight-faced takedown of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”, taking the extremely unlikely position that Michael Bay had intentionally created a Surrealist masterpiece … and this weekend, Cyriaque Lamar digs far deeper into “Yogi Bear” than Warner Bros. would prefer.

Check it out:

Yogi is “smarter than the average bear,” which implies that his intelligence is some form of mutation. To make matters stranger, Yogi and Boo Boo do not associate with other brown bears. When Yogi tries to give Ranger Smith dating advice, he suggests that Smith urinate on Rachel to mark his mate. Not only is this the first golden shower joke I’ve ever heard in a PG-rated film, it is also a tacit acknowledgement that Yogi is conversant in the bears’ ways.

Like the tagline says: Great things come in bears. And sometimes, great things come out of ridiculous taglines like “Great things come in bears”. Like this episode of the “Doug Loves Movies” podcast.

Just trust me.

It’s a week before Christmas, and you know what that means: Awards bait and would-be blockbusters are rolling onto megaplex screens everywhere to joust for your holiday dollar. Here’s a quick run through the newest releases.

“The Fighter“: David O. Russell’s generic boxing movie pits naturalistic performances from Mark Wahlberg and Amy Adams vs. over-the-top Method madness from Christian Bale and Melissa Leo. And as far as I’m concerned, everybody loses … though a number of my colleagues (and several other critical orgs) are going gaga for Bale and Leo.

“How Do You Know“: James L. Brooks’ latest attempt to build a movie out of a handful of random character notions and a couple of one-liners is not the worst thing he’s ever done, but I’m pretty sure it started out as more of a drama than it is now. When Owen Wilson is a more appealing screen presence than Paul Rudd, there’s something terribly wrong with your film.

“Rabbit Hole”: The last thing I expected from John Cameron Mitchell, the director of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Shortbus”, was intimacy and restraint. But I agree with Susan; he’s done a remarkable job with this devastating drama about a couple trying — and mostly failing — to cope with the sudden death of their young son. Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman are absolutely terrific as the leads, and Dianne Wiest and newcomer Miles Teller are pretty great, too.

“Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale“: A drilling expedition in a Finnish mountain range opens Santa’s tomb, unleashing some decidedly non-festive chaos on a nearby village in Jalmari Helander’s oddball comic nightmare. Slow to start, but the last third is fantastic.

“Tron Legacy”: The good news? The effects are fantastic, the 3D looks great and Jeff Bridges doesn’t just phone it in. The bad news? Joseph Kosinski’s long-awaited sequel is an overlong, underwritten light show that — just like Steven Lisberger’s 1982 original — fails to unlock the potential of its innovative premise. And that’s a shame, because the first 30 minutes suggest a way to go that might have worked really well.

“Yogi Bear”: Anna Faris? Love her. Tom Cavanagh? He’s charming enough. And T.J. Miller has impressed the hell out of me on “Doug Loves Movies”. I’m glad they’re being paid and everything, but the very thought of seeing this movie makes my skin crawl. So we sent Rad instead, the poor bastard.

Yes, today’s post is going up a little later than usual. That’s because I finally had a morning without a frantic rush to file something, and the weather was less horrible than anticipated, so we took Dexter for a two-hour walk. I count that as a victory, dammit!

Also, the new issue of NOW features our holiday movie special, and aside from my brief thoughts on Canada’s Top Ten and the TFCA awards, my contributions are entirely of the review nature, so I’ll post those links when the movies hit the megaplex.

(Of the films opening at the Lightbox today, Glenn got “I, Don Giovanni” and Susan landed “The Tempest”. Just the way the schedule shook out.)

Oh, and speaking of the TFCA awards, those of you who haven’t yet caught up to “The Social Network”  should know that Sony just announced its home-video release date: January 11, 2011, the day before the TFCA Awards gala. I wonder how many people will notice that the distributor has chosen a street date that can be expressed in binary.

The Toronto Film Critics Association — of which I am the vice-president, which still feels like a responsibility that should really be shouldered by a grown-up — has announced its awards for 2010, and we’ve favorited David Fincher’s “The Social Network” in a big way.

Fincher’s movie took Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg) and Best Supporting Actor (Armie Hammer). In other categories, Jennifer Lawrence and Hailee Steinfeld were named Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for their breakout roles in “Winter’s Bone” and “True Grit”, respectively, while Banksy’s “Exit Through the Gift Shop” won both Best First Feature and the Allan King Documentary Award.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” won the Best Foreign-Language Film award, and DreamWorks Animation’s “How to Train Your Dragon” was named Best Animated Feature.

We also awarded our Jay Scott Prize for emerging talent to Daniel Cockburn, director of the terrific TIFF discovery “You Are Here” and the first TFCA award winner who has ever been in my kitchen. (I know, it sounds prejudicial, but when you get the chance to make that reference, you take it.) And Bruce McDonald was given a special citation for his banner year, producing and releasing three features and a documentary.

Of course, our news was inevitably overshadowed by the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations — but I think we can take some pride in our conviction that neither “Barney’s Version” nor “The Tourist” are comedies. (Seriously, guys, just have ten nominees for each acting category. You’ll look a lot less silly.)

The weekend’s box office is in, and frankly it’s not great news for anyone. Two would-be powerhouses, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” and “The Tourist”, opened with underwhelming grosses of $24.5 million and $17 million, respectively — an indication that audiences aren’t quite as enamored of the “Narnia” franchise, or Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, as they were expected to be.

That’s good, I think, because both of those movies are pretty sorry excuses for entertainment, and it’s heartening to see people waiting on word of mouth (or reading reviews) before shelling out for a ticket. Or maybe the winter storm kept people trapped at home, where they watched “Prince Caspian” on Netflix and realized there’s just no reason to keep indulging this franchise. Either way it’s a win, right?