Eric’s Bad Movies at Film.com has your Thanksgiving turkey: “Kull the Conqueror,” a goofy sword-and-sandals caper starring Kevin Sorbo in what was supposed to be the Arnold Schwarzenegger role, back when it was going to be a third Conan movie. Apparently Kull and Conan are interchangeable; I suspect all they really had to do was change the title and execute a “search and replace” in the script.

Next week’s film was based on a TV show and stars someone who had previously starred in a much-beloved teen comedy. This star has subsequently found his or her greatest success not in film but in a different medium altogether. Guesses?

@randytayler Remember the time Little Caesars was selling large pizzas for $3 and you said it was the happiest day of your life?

With today’s batch of Thanksgiving releases, the Holiday Movie Season is officially underway! Get ready for Oscar bait, family-friendly shenanigans, and three-hour movies starring Kate Winslet.

First up this week: “Four Christmases,” a lowest-common-denominator comedy about a couple who have to visit all four of their divorced parents for the holidays. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon star; strangely enough, the interaction between these two total opposites is one of the movie’s stronger points (which isn’t saying much). My review is at Film.com. (You might have thought you saw it here in its entirety earlier, but your mind was playing tricks on you. I swear.)

Then you got your “Transporter 3,” an action film with almost no action, and a total disappointment compared to the dumbly entertaining first “Transporter” film.

“The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” in limited release, is a valiant effort to tell an almost untellable story, in which a young German boy befriends a concentration camp prisoner without realizing what’s actually going on in the camp (which he thinks is a “farm”). Hilarity, um, ensues.

Finally, in limited release before it expands next week, is “Milk,” Gus Van Sant’s biopic of the San Francisco politician who crusaded for gay rights in the 1970s and was assassinated for his trouble. It’s a great return to form for Van Sant: accessible, entertaining, and engaging without sacrificing intelligence or style. And Sean Penn is amazing in the lead — he actually smiles and laughs and is likable.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! I’ll be back Friday, bloated and groggy, more so than usual.

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Over at the Mormon-themed blog By Common Consent, a few of the merry jesters occasionally do a feature where they read items from the Police Beat column in the BYU newspaper and make fun of them. Which is what everyone who reads Police Beat does, of course; these guys just do it online, for everyone to read.

I was their special guest this week, and you can read the transcript of our observations here. Be forewarned: Some of the talk is fairly PG. I also made a joke about rape, which apparently some people don’t think is funny. Which is news to me! But they went back and bleeped that part after some of the readers complained, replacing it with “do something highly objectionable.” Is that all rape is? “Highly objectionable”? The people on “Law & Order: SVU” always make it out to be a lot worse than that. Huh.

Anyway: Enjoy the Police Beat Roundtable! And be sure to scold me for making jokes about taboo things!

Successfully drove from Portland to Utah. It’s a 12-hour drive, but when you get here it’s 1998.

This week’s “Snide Remarks” is my rejected “Twilight” screenplay. I was very sad when the studio making the film turned it down. I mean, I tried to stay faithful to the book as much as I could. Tell me what you think. (There’s no audio version this week, but you can subscribe to it [i.e., the podcast] with this URL.)

Also in Monday news: This week’s edition of Eric’s Time Capsule at Film.com features the movie “Planes, Trains & Automobiles,” released 21 years ago this week. Buy a new set of shower-curtain rings to celebrate!

In the meantime, I am on the road! Today I’m driving to Utah for a week of giving thanks with family and friends. And really, there’s nothing like spending five days in Utah to remind you of your blessings, such as not living in Utah anymore. But I kid the Beehive State!

My rejected ‘Twilight’ screenplay: http://tinyurl.com/5uyw4j

@petullant “Hello, I’m Dr. Mime. Does anyone need assistance in getting out of an invisible box?”

@eugenenovikov You passed the bar exam? Or your kidney stone? Either way, congratulations!

Today was originally going to be when the new Harry Potter film came out, so of course no other movies wanted to open this weekend. Then Harry got pushed back to next July, and two movies dashed in to take his place: “Twilight” and “Bolt.” Apart from that, it’s a light weekend.

Of course, it’s hard to call it a “light weekend” when at 9:00 tonight there was already a line of girls outside the movie theater waiting for their midnight screenings of “Twilight.” Hundreds of those screenings have sold out all over the country. By the time you read this, the film will have already made several million dollars. Who needs Harry Potter?

The “Twilight” movie (my review is at Cinematical) captures the feel of the book pretty well, at least as far as I recall. (It’s been 2 1/2 years since I read it.) An informal discussion with two other critics after the screening suggested that the less detailed our memory of the book was, the better we liked the movie. Then again, maybe someone could remember every detail of the novel but still accept the fact that the movie is bound to be different in some ways.

All I know is, Stephenie Meyer says on her website that my movie reviews are her favorite. I am very proud of this. I brag about it regularly. I hope I will continue to hold that position even after reviewing a movie based on her book. It didn’t affect my opinion of the movie, of course, nor did it influence what I wrote. I only mention it because I wanted to brag some more.

Then there’s “Bolt,” a Disney cartoon about a dog who plays a superdog on TV and is startled to discover he doesn’t actually have super powers. I think we’ve all been there. The movie is fairly funny and reasonably entertaining. My review is at Film.com.

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