Movie theater offers perfect break from holiday frenzy

<p>Later in the day on Christmas, when there's torn wrapping paper all over the living room floor and dirty dishes fill the sink, the question is what to do next.</p><p>Good time to go to the movies. Christmas is a day for magic, so why not spend a couple of hours in the enchanted land of big-screen make-believe?</p><p>For some, Christmas at the movies is a tradition.</p><p>"I go every Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. It is one of the few things you can do on a national holiday,” said Shad Willingham of Santa Rosa. “Usually, greatly anticipated films open on major holidays and nobody judges you for eating a big bucket of food — that's not fried chicken.”</p><p>Christmas lands on Friday this year, always a big day for new films anyway. And there are some big ones lined up, most notably “Sherlock Holmes,” with Robert Downey Jr. as the eccentric great detective and Jude Law as the dense but loyal companion, Dr. Watson.</p><p>On the romantic comedy front, the best bet is “It's Complicated,” starring Meryl Streep as a divorced woman who's dating an architect (Steve Martin) but finds herself falling all over again for her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin.) There's already talk about an Oscar nomination for Baldwin.</p><p>On the art house front, Rialto Cinemas Lakeside in Santa Rosa opens “Young Victoria,” on Christmas. Emily Blunt stars as the monarch who became a lasting symbol of the British Empire.</p><p>Two very recently released, high-profile films stand out as good choices for a Christmas Day visit to the local cinema:</p><p>“Avatar,” the $250-million special effects spectacle from “Titanic” director James Cameron. It's hard to top a blue, 10-foot-tall Sigourney Weaver.</p><p>The new, hand-drawn, animated feature from Disney, “The Princess and the Frog.” It's under the sure hand and eye of John Lasseter of Sonoma, founder of Pixar and current Walt Disney Company chief.</p>