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If you're looking for a new movie for Christmas Day, there are some great options — and some not-so-great ones.

You've probably heard that "The Interview" is opening in theaters this Christmas — which is good news for freedom of speech and the power of indie movie theaters, but bad news for the other movies opening this holiday weekend.

"The Interview" was not screened for Utah critics — seriously, we were thisclose to watching it when Sony canceled last week — so The Cricket will catch up with it and post a review Friday. (Sorry, but The Cricket is not letting Seth Rogen cut into his Christmas.)

The best of the other movies this week is "Into the Woods," director Rob Marshall's long-delayed adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's classic musical reworking of classic fairy tales. The ensemble cast — Meryl Streep as The Witch, Emily Blunt as The Baker's Wife, James Corden as The Baker, Anna Kendrick as Cinderella, Chris Pine as a charming prince, Lilla Crawford as Little Red Riding Hood — throw themselves into Sondheim's complex songs and edgy themes with aplomb, and the results are mostly magical. (The one sour note: Johnny Depp's turn as The Wolf, but that's brief and easily dismissed.)

The disappointment this week is "Unbroken," director Angelina Jolie's piously dull survival drama. The movie chronicles the life of Louis Zamperini, a U.S. Olympic runner who competed in the 1936 Berlin games, who during World War II survived brutality in a Japanese POW camp. Young British actor Jack O'Connell depicts Zamperini's struggles stoically, but Jolie's focus on merely the pain of Zamperini's life misses a bigger, more interesting picture.

Another biopic set during World War II, "The Imitation Game," is also slightly disappointing. This look at Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who led the effort to crack the Nazis' Enigma code — and, in the process, building the precursor of the modern computer — is a watered-down thriller that sounds smarter than it is because of all the British accents. Benedict Cumberbatch gives a fine performance, though, as the misanthropic, detached Turing.

A better biopic is "Big Eyes," in which director Tim Burton tells the story of Margaret Keane, the painter responsible in the '60s for those kitschy-cool portraits of children with the massive eyes. Burton and screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (who also wrote Burton's "Ed Wood") show Keane (Amy Adams) as a divorced mom who falls for the charismatic Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), only to learn he's a fraud who sells her work under his name. Burton reins in his crazier impulses, to tell a story that's fascinating enough without them.

"The Gambler" stars Mark Wahlberg as an English professor who's also a gambling addict, who goes to high-stakes casinos and runs up debts to some very bad people. Director Rupert Wyatt ("Rise of the Planet of the Apes") provides style to burn in this tough-talking remake of James Toback's 1974 noir drama (which starred James Caan), and gives plenty of material for Wahlberg and supporting players John Goodman, Jessica Lange and Michael Kevin Williams.

Lastly, the Tower Theater has the documentary "The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness," an inside look at Japan's acclaimed animation house Studio Ghibli. Some of the details are a bit obscure, but watching Hayao Miyazaki as he fashions his final film, "The Wind Rises," is fascinating.