Here in L.A. we had a wet Thanksgiving and we probably won’t have a white Christmas, but we can still take part in that old tradition—big-budget holiday movies. December looks like a pretty mixed bag in terms of movies based on books—there are a few possible sugarplums and some likely lumps of coal.

There’s not much going on this month in terms of new movies based on books. There’s Joker and The Addams Family, but those are based on comic book/cartoon characters, not book-length works of fiction.

Matt Porterfield has written and directed four feature films, all set in his hometown of Baltimore. His latest, Sollers Point, tells the story of a young man just released from prison and living under house arrest with his father.

If you've heard it once, you've heard it a million times—the book was better! There's nothing like debating the differences between a favorite book and its translation to the screen. But, every once in a while, we have a month that’s a little light on book to film adaptations.