Critics have united in a chorus of "Bah, humbug" to greet Fred Claus, starring Vince Vaughn. Most compare the film -- unfavorably -- to Elf. Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News remarks that the differences between the two are striking. "Instead of adapting his schtick to the family genre, Vaughn shoehorns his machine-gun-talking, wise-guy persona into an overlong holiday film that leaves an aftertaste like past-expiration-date eggnog," he writes. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times calls it "Elf without the goofy jokes ... a lackadaisical mess." Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle begins his review by describing the movie as "a complete bust, derivative and uninspired, boring and dull, not funny, not moving and about a half hour too long. It makes a beeline for mawkishness at every turn, but all its emotions are unearned and false." And if that's not strong enough, consider Kyle Smith's review in the New York Post. The movie, he writes, is "not like a lump of coal in your stocking. Coal is useful; you can burn it. This movie is more like a lump of something Blitzen left behind after eating a lot of Mexican food."

Supporters of the war in Iraq have surprisingly found most of the nation's major film critics on their side. The critics have come down heavily on the anti-war film Lions for Lambs, with many of them warning that it is fatally boring. Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times comments that it "looks like a stage play and plays like a policy debate." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times writes that "there is a long stretch toward the beginning of the film when we're interested, under the delusion that it's going somewhere. When we begin to suspect it's going in circles, our interest flags." Says Kyle Smith in the New York Post: "I went to a wartime thriller, but then a Poli Sci 101 seminar broke out." Similarly Ann Hornaday remarks in the Washington Post: "For all its passion and topical currency, Lions for Lambs plays too often like a college colloquium, with one extended scene of a classroom debate suffering from all the sleep-inducing effects of the real thing." Looking at the movie from a Canadian perspective, Geoff Pevere in the Toronto Star writes: "A lumpy, ill-dramatized and ultimately enervating liberal Op-Ed piece flailing for dramatic purchase, this steroid-inflated Sundance workshop may prove most effective as a demonstration (as opposed to an antidote) of the political desperation that hamstrings the American middle-left."

Christmas will arrive early at the box office this weekend with the new Vince Vaughn comedy Fred Claus. Box office forecasters estimate that it will take in $22-26 million and wind up as the top attraction. Coming in a close second, they predict, will be last weekend's winner, American Gangster, with about $18-22 million -- or possibly Bee Movie, which ranked No. 2 last weekend. Analysts have expressed little hope for the war-related Lions for Lambs, despite the fact that it costars Tom Cruise, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. Films about the Middle East conflict have all performed poorly at the box office, and Lions, the first United Artists film produced under the aegis of Cruise, has been bombed by critics. This will be the first weekend in which films will premiere without their stars having had access to the late-night talk shows, since most of them are in rerun mode in the wake of the writers' strike. On Thursday, however, Vaughn, an avowed conservative and Republican, appeared on Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News to promote Fred Claus.

Critics are puttin' on the razz for Mel Brooks' attempt to recreate his 1974 comedy Young Frankenstein as a Broadway musical. "The show takes many of the elements that made The Producers such a delight and then saps them of their joy by overselling them," Ben Brantley wrote in the New York Times.Out of town critics who converged on Broadway for the opening were even harsher. In the Chicago Tribune, Chris Jones called it "a colossal -- and, boy, is this show a monster -- disappointment." Peter Marks in the Washington Post described the show as "a teeter-tottering patchwork of slipshod gags, recycled dance routines and tinny tunes." Several critics note that the show opened with terrific buzz and such high expectations that few doubted it would sell out -- even with orchestra seats going for $450 at the box office and for thousands of dollars through scalpers. But as Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times observed: "We enter wanting to bust a gut, so no wonder we're a little let down when we leave with only a nostalgic grin." And Louise Kennedy concluded in the Boston Globe that the show "has millions of dollars' worth of pyrotechnics and other special effects with which to light up the stage, and it deploys them with abandon. Unfortunately, though, that doesn't mean that lightning strikes twice."

Warner Bros., Paramount and DreamWorks have a new tactic to fight piracy in China: sell high-quality DVDs at about the same price bootlegs are going for on the black market and make them available quickly after their U.S. release, according to Daily Variety.The trade publication, citing unnamed industry sources, said that other studios could join the trio within the next year or 18 months. The tactic is being tested first with Transformers, which is being sold for just $2.95 in stores in China and was released there on Nov. 1. It will be followed by Shrek the Third on Nov. 28.

In the first hint that he may be reconsidering whether to continue the battle with Toshiba over high-definition video, Sony chief Howard Stringer said Wednesday that the format battle between the two companies has become "mostly a matter of prestige." In a speech in New York Thursday night, Stringer also suggested that the battle over Sony's Blu-ray system and Toshiba's HD DVD "doesn't mean as much as all that." At one time, he suggested, it might have been possible to unify the two formats, and if time travel were possible he would try to do that now. He decried the decision of Paramount/DreamWorks to sign an exclusive deal (worth a reported $150 million) to release films exclusively in the HD DVD format. "We were trying to win on the merits, which we were doing for a while, until Paramount changed sides," Stringer said.

As several stars of network TV shows indicated that they may refuse to cross picket lines set up by the Writers Guild of America, the president of the Screen Actors Guild sent out a notice to members today (Friday) warning that refusing to show up on the set is a breach of the guild's contract with producers. "If you are contracted to work on a television series or motion picture that continues to produce while the WGA is on strike, you are obligated by your personal service agreement and the 'No Strike' clause in our collective bargaining agreements to go to work," SAG President Alan Rosenberg said in the membership notice, adding, "It is not reasonable to expect SAG cast members to risk the potentially enormous personal liability that may flow from refusing to work in the absence of a SAG strike." In fact, news reports observed, a premature shut-down of production because of several stars' and "hyphenate" producers' decisions not to cross WGA picket lines could put hundreds of other actors and crew members out of work. The strike continues to draw little sympathy from most of the press, which has suggested that it will result in more financial harm to writers and other members of the industry than can possibly be gained -- even if the writers' demands are met. In today's Washington Post, TV columnist Lisa De Moraes quoted an email sent out by Shonda Rhimes, producer and co-writer of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, in which she explained her decision not to cross the picket lines by saying, "How am I supposed to look at myself in the mirror or look at my child years from now and know that I did not have the courage of my convictions to stand up and put myself more at risk than anyone else?" Commented de Moraes: "No word as yet from the Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice cameramen, costumers, lighting crew, etc. -- some of whom will be laid off if the shows go dark -- in reax to multi-millionaire Rhimes's 'more at risk than anyone else' gag."

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has confirmed reports that first appeared on the Internet site Politico.com that he has been acting behind the scenes to bring striking writers and producers representatives back to the negotiating table with a federal mediator. At a news conference in Sacramento Thursday, Schwarzenegger said, "I'm talking to the parties that are involved because I think it's very important that we settle that as quickly as possible, because it has a tremendous economic impact on our state." In its report, Politico.com said, "In addition to his own words of advice, the governor has had staff members reach out to both sides, as well as to the federal mediator trying to get them to hammer out a deal."

A day after News Corp. President and COO Peter Chernin said that the writers' strike could actually benefit his company since it has a number of non-scripted and animated shows in the works -- including American Idol and The Simpsons -- Disney CEO Robert Iger said just the opposite -- that ABC could start feeling "indelible damage" from the strike beginning next month. "We're fine through the November sweeps," Iger added. "We are definitely going to have to implement contingency plans if the strike persists." Meanwhile Disney reported a strong fourth quarter in which profits rose by 12 percent. Much of it was attributed to the strong performance of ESPN, which now strongly rivals the broadcast networks on Monday night with its telecasts of Monday Night Football, and the Disney Channel, which set record ratings in the quarter with High School Musical 2 and Hannah Montana. On the other hand, Disney's film business dropped 21 percent versus last year when a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel was dominating the box office.

In a verbal volley fired at his competitors unlike any since Ted Turner's broadsides at Rupert Murdoch in the '90s, NBC Entertainment chief Ben Silverman has taken aim at ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson and Fox Entertainment President Kevin Reilly. In an interview with Esquire, Silverman said of McPherson, "He's a moron," noting that in his earlier role as an agent, he "delivered [to] him a huge hit that he didn't want: Ugly Betty. He hated the show, he didn't want America Ferrera, he didn't understand why I pitched it to him seventeen times and wouldn't stop. Then it delivered despite that." Of Reilly, his predecessor, Silverman said that several of his key programming decisions were "transparently flawed."