Ho Ho Hollywood

Crack-dealin' druggies, washed-up couriers, crooning convicts and confused stoners are coming your way this holiday season. While the third annual DTH Holiday Movie Spectacular might not coerce you into spending all your X-mas dough in the cineplexes instead of staying home and playing with your brand-new G.I. Joe aircraft carrier, at least you'll know what you're missing.

Here goes, the top 10 most-anticipated holiday flicks:

10Auteur Gus Van Sant's last film (we won't count his color Xerox of "Psycho") was "Good Will Hunting." Need we find more to say about "Finding Forrester" (Columbia, Dec. 25 in wide release)?

Well, if you insist. It's a drama with Sean Connery as an antisocial novelist who takes under wing a black basketball player (rapper and screen newbie Lil' Zane) at an all-white prep school. Oscar winners Anna Paquin and F. Murray Abraham costar, along with Busta Rhymes (decidedly not an Osca winna . yet). Van Sant excels at reining in the schmaltz in potentially smarmy movies.

9 If there's one movie this holiday season that will intrigue the male psyche to great lengths, it's Mel Gibson's comedy "What Women Want" (Paramount, Dec. 15). In it, William Wallace, umm . I mean, Mel, after a lucky accident, finds himself able to hear the thoughts of any woman.

Geez, screw invisibility and the ability to fly. If you were a bodacious superhero, this would be the superpower to have. Walking through campus would be more entertaining than ever, and pop quizzes would never be a surprise once you have decided to be pro-estrogen in your selection of classes. Think of the possibilities .

8 How can you not instantly laugh when you hear there is actually a movie with the title "Dude, Where's My Car?" (Fox, Dec. 15)? Two guys, in the Bill-and-Ted vein of humor, wake up after a long night of beer, sex, etc., to find their prized mode of transportation stolen. No, the plot of "Dude" might not scream intellectual stimulation, but seriously, stupid films are sometimes just the perfect antidote to a week's worth of brain-busting exams.

Ashton Kutchter ("That '70s Show") and Seann William Scott ("American Pie") are, like, the two dweebs who play dumb well, evident by their equally hilarious previous roles. Buzz is also good, as "Dude" was slated to arrive in theaters next spring, but once studio execs saw the footage, they fast-tracked the comedy to bring all college students good, moronic Christmas cheer.

7 David Mamet - a man - a true man - who writes and directs plays and great fucking films, fucking films of a genius that is great. He has a style which one might immediately recognize, if one is familiar.

But lately, Mamet's been creeping away from his trademark profanity, choppy dialogue and hardened characters. "The Spanish Prisoner" was a Mametian riff on Hitchcockian themes, and "The Winslow Boy" was - gulp - rated G. Yet those films, departures both, were his best to date. So who knows if it's a good thing that "State and Main" (Fine Line, Dec. 22) seems a return to basics for Mamet? A satire about Hollywood filmmakers shooting in Vermont, we do know one definitely promising detail - the cast list: Alec Baldwin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy and Sarah Jessica Parker.

6 When Robert Zemeckis last directed Tom Hanks, the result was six Oscars, for the only somewhat-overrated "Forrest Gump." Now, in "Cast Away" (Dreamworks, Dec. 22), Zemeckis gives us Hanks as a Federal Express employee stranded on a deserted island after his plane crashes. He fights the elements and his own growing insanity while longing for the love of his former life (Helen Hunt). Some nifty special effects should make this worth seeing - although one TV spot for the film, closely watched, seems to give away the ending.

5 "All the Pretty Horses" (Miramax, Dec. 29) is not a film about a little girl on a carousel ride. It's Billy Bob Thornton's long-overdue second directorial outing, following his excellent 1996 character study, "Sling Blade." And it's got Matt Damon, Penelope Cruz and Henry Thomas (still Elliot from "E.T.," poor kid). And it's based on the National Book Award and National Critics Circle Award winner by Cormac McCarthy. And it's a Western - and unless Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" permanently killed the genre, it's about time we had a fantastic Western.

4 While Sam Raimi is busy working on next year's probable summer blockbuster "Spiderman," his holiday present to audiences this year is the creepy, Billy Bob Thornton-penned "The Gift" (Paramount Classics, limited release Dec. 20). Cate Blanchett ("The Talented Mr. Ripley") plays a small-town psychic who uses her given ability to help solve a Scooby-Dooish mystery, which involves redneck bully Keanu Reeves (that's worth the price of admission there) and the dimwitted Giovanni Ribisi.

Ironically, the biggest buzz out of Hollywood is the word that superbabe Katie "Dawson's Creek" Holmes doffs her top, and therefore makes every male viewer her bitch, for a short bathtub scene in the film.

3 The Coen brothers turn out consistently outstanding work - "Fargo," "Raising Arizona," "The Big Lebowski." While we're not sure even they can turn out a great musical comedy that gives a writing credit to the Greek poet Homer, we trust them enough to put the film at number three.

That's right - "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (Buena Vista, Dec. 29) stars George Clooney as Ulysses McGill, a prison escapee making an odyssey across Depression-era Mississippi to return to his home. As Ulysses and the two men that share his shackles evade the authorities and various ne'er-do-wells, they find their calling as a musical trio.

2 (To the tune of "O, Christmas Tree") O, Ang Lee, O, Ang Lee, I give a hearty thank you. For bringing me, for bringing me, an honest-to-goodness martial-arts film. Well, maybe the song doesn't work that well, but "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (Sony Picture Classics, limited release Dec. 8) will work, damn it. Thanks to the brilliant mastering of director Lee ("The Ice Storm"), "Tiger" (Growl!) is already thinking about Oscar.

Just think. Even before wide release, it's already caused a plethora of film enthusiasts to proclaim it the best martial arts film ever. Goodness gracious alive! It also has action sequences choreographed by the same guy who taught Keanu for the "The Matrix," the iconic Chow-Yun Fat and ex-Bond girl Michelle Yeoh in its dazzling clutches. It will rule. Oh yes, it will rule.

1 And - drum roll please - the most anticipated Hollywood gift under our theater-going tree this 2000 holiday season is . the 53rd showing of "A Christmas Story" on TNT. Just kidding.

True auteur Steven Soderbergh, who directed the year's wonderful "Erin Brockovich" and ultracool films such as "Out of Sight" and "The Limey," takes on D.A.R.E. in "Traffic" (USA, limited release Dec. 27), a slick flick adapted from a British miniseries on the longstanding war against drugs. Drugs are bad, but Soderbergh's cast is very good, possibly the best of the year. Newlyweds Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro and Dennis Quaid are the main players in a virtual wet dream for film lovers.

Soderbergh has the right stuff, and his next film, a cool remake of the Rat Pack's "Ocean's 11" with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, etc., shows that his grip on Hollywood might last for some time.