How is it possible that spending a day sitting in the movies can be so exhausting? And yet it is, when you're at the movies not to relax and escape but to keep your brain open and alert and you're calculating best-of lists and doing other critcal duties. Not that I'm complaining, mind -- I'd rather spend a day at the movies seeing bad flicks than doing almost anything else. And the flicks ain't bad at this time of year, not usually. And today's look pretty good from where I'm sitting, advance buzz somewhat to the contrary aside. And so my December screening madness continues. Here's what I'm off to screenings of on Thursday, and what I hope -- and fear -- for them:

The Painted Veil: Apparently it's about the power of disease to inspire romance, or something. Sounds like kind of a downer -- and look, it's based on W. Somerset Maugham, so: yeah, a downer. Still, gotta love that cast: Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber, Diana Rigg, and Toby Jones, who was so fascinating in Infamous earlier this fall.

Dreamgirls: Broadway to film isn't always a guarantee of a masterpiece -- *cough* Phantom of the Opera *cough* -- but this one has the pedigree. Writer/director Bill Condon wrote the recent film adaptation of Chicago, and he gave us the wonderful (not-from-Broadway) Gods and Monsters. The cast looks fantastic -- Jamie Foxx has been such a revelation in his last few films (Collateral, Ray) that I cannot wait to see him here. But one single review of the film is knocking some of the steam out of this Oscar-bound engine: It's not so much what Jack Mathews has to say in his review in the New York Daily News -- though his review is not uniformly positive -- but that the fact that he broke the embargo on reviews is itself news. It suggests that the early buzz for the film is overblown, and the studio and industry insiders know it, and were hoping to keep a lid on it for a while. Such machinations that drive this biz ....

(The UPS guy dropped off a DVD screener of Notes on a Scandal this morning. I dunno when I'll get a chance to actually watch it, but wowee! Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett!)

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