Hollywood is always mindful of the calendar, which may be why this Thanksgiving weekend — when families gather together — is blessed with three new movies suitable for everybody.

"The Muppets" • There's only one problem with "The Muppets": The grown-ups may like it more than the kids will.

This funny, tuneful, colorful movie brings back Kermit the Frog and his fuzzy and felt pals — Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, Gonzo the Great, Rowlf the Dog and the rest — in a story that capitalizes on our nostalgia for the Muppets for emotional cues and ironic chuckles.

The story begins not with our familiar Muppet characters, but with a new one: Walter, a regular guy growing up with his brother Gary (played by Jason Segel, who co-wrote the film with Nicholas Stoller) in Smalltown. Walter is the world's biggest Muppets fan and jumps at the chance to accompany Gary and his girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams), on a trip to Los Angeles so he can possibly see his heroes.

The original Muppet Studios, though, are broken-down and abandoned — and targeted by greedy tycoon Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) for oil drilling. Walter learns the only way to save the studio is to raise $10 million, so he enlists Kermit to reassemble the Muppets and stage a telethon. (There's humor aplenty in the Muppets' current job situations.)

Segel and Stoller (who collaborated on "Forgetting Sarah Marshall") and director James Bobin ("Flight of the Conchords") are respectful to the Muppet traditions. So when Gary, Mary and Walter recite the lyrics to "The Muppet Show" theme song to coerce Kermit out of retirement, it brings a tear to a Muppet fan's eye. But they aren't so respectful that they can't have fun with the conventions, such as when they find Fozzie in Reno fronting a fake "Moopets" act (and, yes, that's Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl as an ersatz Animal).

Still, the humor is accessible even to people who don't know the Muppets — and a few of the musical numbers and celebrity cameos reach to the younger audience in a way that doesn't feel like pandering. The people behind the Muppets again prove their great talent at reshaping old-fashioned entertainment into something fresh, funny and deeply felt.

"Hugo" • It may seem strange that Martin Scorsese, master of dark dramas, has adapted a children's book. But after watching "Hugo," it's impossible to imagine anyone but a movie buff like Scorsese making this fiercely idiosyncratic movie.

Hugo (Asa Butterfield) is a lonely orphan living in the rafters of the Paris train station in 1931. He winds the station's clocks, steals croissants from the cafe to survive and tries to stay a step ahead of the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), an officious policeman with a rusty brace on his left leg. He also tries to rebuild an automaton, a mechanical man salvaged from a musem by Hugo's late father (Jude Law).

Hugo's life changes when he is caught stealing by Georges (Ben Kingsley), the old man who runs a toy store in the station. Hugo starts working for Georges, using his talent for repairing mechanical things. He is also befriended by Georges' goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz), a book-loving girl who is desperate for an adventure. That adventure presents itself when Hugo discovers Isabelle owns a key that fits into his father's automaton — and when they find a connection to the forgotten French film master Georges Méliès.

Scorsese populates the Paris train station with a gentle cast of characters: a shy flower seller (Emily Mortimer), an imperious bookshop owner (Christopher Lee), and an aging news vendor (Richard Griffiths) and the cafe owner (Frances de la Tour) on whom he dotes.

Adapting Brian Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Scorsese and writer John Logan ("The Aviator") tap into our shared love of magic in its many forms — both the conjuring arts of the stage magician and the shared illusions of the movies. Scorsese pays tribute to the silent-film era with a rousing montage of classic images (Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks and more) and by audaciously re-creating some of those images within the story.

And Scorsese builds on that movie magic with some new tricks. His bold use of 3-D, from a swooping opening shot through the train station to a startling close-up of Baron Cohen (in which his head seems to pop out of the screen and devour the front row), will have audience members jumping the way the first movie audiences reacted to the wonder of motion pictures.

"Arthur Christmas" • The folks at Britain's Aardman Animation take to computers (as they did in "Flushed Away") for a witty and warm story that takes us behind the scenes at the North Pole on the busiest night of the year: Christmas Eve.

Santa Claus — or, at least, the latest member of the family to take the job, Malcolm (voiced by Jim Broadbent) — is delivering millions of toys, aided by a souped-up rocket-powered sled known as the S-1, a crew of commando elves and an elf-staffed mission control led by Malcolm's hyperefficient son Steve (voiced by Hugh Laurie). Malcolm has another son, Arthur (voiced by James McAvoy), a bumbling but good-hearted lad relegated to replying to kids' letters to Santa.

On this Christmas, when Santa mulls whether to retire after 70 years and hand the reins over to Steve, a glitch occurs in the system — and one little girl in Cornwall, England, doesn't get the bike she wanted for Christmas. Steve convinces Santa that it's no big deal for one child to not get a present. But Arthur, who remembers the girl's letter, is determined to deliver the bike and reward her faith in Santa. Arthur flies off with Malcolm's predecessor, GrandSanta (voiced by Bill Nighy), on the old reindeer-powered sleigh, with a gift-wrapping elf, Bryony (voiced by Ashley Jensen), as a stowaway.

Director Sarah Smith (whose roots are in British TV comedy) and her co-writer, Peter Baynham ("Borat," "Arthur"), bring a sprightly humor to the tinsel-wrapped story, but also a good deal of heart and an underlying faith in the power of Christmas. "Arthur Christmas" makes a welcome addition to the holiday movie lineup, because it's a movie you can watch repeatedly without it becoming as stale as last year's fruitcake.

movies@sltrib.com

Twitter: @moviecricket

facebook.com/nowsaltlake; facebook.com/themoviecricket —

HHHhj

Arthur Christmas

HHHhj

Hugo

HHHhj

The Muppets

Where • Theaters everywhere.

When • All three open Wednesday, Nov. 23.

Rating • All three are rated PG — "Arthur Christmas" and "The Muppets" for some mild rude humor, "Hugo" for mild thematic material, some action/peril and smoking.

Running time • "Arthur Christmas" is 97 minutes; "Hugo" is 125 minutes; "The Muppets" is 97 minutes, plus a five-minute short, "Toy Story Toons: Small Fry."