While I’m certainly thrilled to have friends and family to share this holiday with, I can’t help but think about movies - because really that’s what I think about most of the time. I’d like to take a few moments before the food coma sets in to offer my sincere gratitude to those that helped make the artform I love so much fun over the past twelve months.

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It may interest readers to know that, for certain prominent movie databases, it is the official editorial position that the genre of “epic” be applied sparingly — and almost never for new movies. This makes enough sense if you think about it: the great equalizer of CGI has changed the playing field, and there’s no longer a feeling of grandness in the casts of thousands and exotic locales that once made movies like The Ten Commandments and Lawrence of Arabia live up to their classification. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s still a shame — at least in the case of Baz Luhrmann’s 2008 film Australia, which is, in the classic sense of the word, epic.

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Holiday comedies are basically a pass/fail situation; almost no movie produced exclusively for people who are already at the mall and feeling seasonally inclined from hearing the Muzak version of “Santa Baby” 18 times is going to be an opus of hilarity. Holiday movies can, however, be really bad (or at least really mediocre, which is arguably worse), so it’s not like there’s nothing to strive for in the genre. Lucky for Four Christmases, it passes — not with flying colors, but not by the skin of its teeth either. It’s well acted and it’s entertaining — and who can resist a movie where Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau are brothers, and Robert Duvall is their dad?

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As the first openly gay man to hold elected office in California, Harvey Milk served as the spokesperson for the gay rights movement in the ’70s, in San Francisco and, by extension, the United States. Practically from the moment of his assassination in 1978, people have been trying to get Milk’s remarkable life story onto the screen, and thanks to Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn, it was worth the wait. The movie follows the final years of Milk’s life, starting when he leaves New York with his partner, Scott Smith (James Franco), and opens a camera store in the now-famous Castro District of San Francisco. He faces bigotry based on his sexual orientation, but responds with serious action, spearheading a campaign of activism that organizes the gay community into a group with genuine financial strength — a strength that Milk translates into political muscle. With his leadership, the community publicizes the unfair treatment often suffered at the hands of cops, who are occasionally physically abusive, and often can’t be bothered to investigate the murders of gay men. All the while, Milk continues his attempts to win a seat on the city’s Board of Supervisors, even as his devotion to politics leads to the breakdown of his relationship.

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Like clockwork, the Transporter series keeps on tickin’, and delivering all of the kicks, jabs, quips, and explosions one has come to expect from the franchise. Though this third installment is not quite as nuts as the second film, it’s nevertheless firmly set in the same ridiculous mold. Fans of tongue-in-cheek tough-guy cinema will appreciate the goods on display here — even if they find it a bit forgettable afterward. This time, producer/screenwriter Luc Besson is back to his old tricks, adding a hot, young female into the equation, and letting the film coast on the shaky chemistry between her and Jason Statham. To be sure, though, this is still a succession of films that understands the power of hard kicks, scene-chewing villains, and a sense of fun that continues to be a refreshing change of pace in action cinema’s current, dour landscape.

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With all the terrifyingly manic buzz surrounding the vampire teen romance extravaganza Twilight, we thought it might be a good idea to send more than one member of the AllMovie staff to see it. The benefits of this are twofold: we got to report back with a variety of perspectives on this newly gigantic franchise, and we also had enough of us there to implement a buddy-system, so nobody could be injured by the shrieking herds of teenage girls filling the aisles of what turned out to be a very open-to-the-public press screening. So whether you’re a devoted fan poised to flame anybody who speaks ill of the sexy (but sexless) undead, or you just need a heads up on who the surly looking kids on the Hot Topic t-shirts are these days, read on and get the necessary info as AllMovie’s Cammila Albertson, Jason Buchanan, and Perry Seibert each offer their report.

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Here’s the deal with Twilight: Edward Cullen, a 100-something-year-old vampire who doesn’t look a day over 17, is attending high school along with his adoptive vampire family. He’s beautiful (Robert Pattinson is on the path to being the most sought-after man-child since Romeo + Juliet-era Leonardo DiCaprio), he can read minds, and virtually all of his female classmates alternate between lovesickness and trepidation (the Cullens are all a little unsettling in their beauty). In any case, he isn’t interested. Enter Bella Swan, Teenage Girl. She’s the new kid in a small, perpetually overcast Washington town called Forks. Her first days of school aren’t exactly traumatizing; she makes friends easily and attracts her fair share of Forks boys, but she still doesn’t feel she fits in and misses her home in Arizona. Everything changes after she locks eyes with Edward Cullen, who doesn’t know if he should kill Bella (he admits the scent of her blood is like his “brand of heroin”) or allow himself to fall in love with her. This is where The Teen Girl Effect comes into play. Twilight is grade-A film crack. The dialogue leaves much to be desired and the special effects are like something out of an old episode of The Outer Limits. Edward’s inner struggle to resist the allure of Bella’s blood, and Bella’s mixed feelings and hurt regarding Edward’s erratic behavior plays like a rushed attempt at paving the way to their first kiss.

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Sometimes a story is so beautifully simple that it’s impossible to muck it up, and the animated 3-D Bolt is a perfect example. The premise: A cute little dog named Bolt (John Travolta) and his loving tween-girl owner, Penny (Disney It Girl Miley Cyrus), are the stars of a hit action TV show about a small White German Shepherd with superpowers. The producers of the show believe the program’s success stems from Bolt’s realistic “acting,” so to that end, they never let the canine star in on the fact that he’s on a TV show, hiding all the cameras and crew so that Bolt grows up thinking he really does have heat vision, a super bark, and the ability to stop trucks with his head. One day, thanks to a series of misunderstandings and misfortunes, Bolt accidentally gets mailed to New York City, sending him on an adventure-filled cross-country journey back to Penny in Hollywood. During his trek, Bolt learns the truth about himself, and makes new friends in the form of a streetwise alleycat and an overly enthusiastic hamster.

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