Of all the great movie months in past years, Jennifer Lopez had to walk into this December. Why I referenced Casablanca in the same breath with J. Lo is beyond me, but then again, so is Ralph Fiennes’ decision to do Maid in Manhattan.

And what is going through Ben Affleck’s head? This chick is only like 30 years old, and she’s already been married twice, once to someone named Puff.

Anyway, next month is going to be a good one at the popcorn stand, and in case you don’t know how to avoid the aforementioned sure-to-be bomb, I’ve made a list and I checked it twice.

Here are some movies (not starring former Fly-girls) where you may see Movie Guy Will Albritton in a theater near you this December:

About Schmidt (Dec. 13) — Jack Nicholson is back and betting on his fourth Oscar in four decades. Here he plays a crotchety father who thinks his daughter (Hope Davis) is marrying a loser (Dermot Mulroney) and tries to stop her while driving an RV across the country. Comedy and drama ensue as Schmidt’s wife dies and Kathy Bates gets naked in a hot tub — not necessarily in that order.

Adaptation (Dec. 6) — Anyone seen those crazy trailers with Nicolas Cage as an overweight guy with curly red hair? Did anyone see that crazy flick Being John Malkovich? Same director and writer team up again for this oddity co-starring Cage as writer Charlie Kaufman, as well as his fictional twin brother, and Meryl Streep as writer Susan Orlean, whose book was the original premise for this, um, adaptation. See it if you’re open-minded. Or if you just want your mind opened.

Lord of the Rings Part Deux (Dec. 20) — All these films were made at the same time, right? The first one was fantastic. It’s not like the plot of the second is gonna stink; it’s based off the same series of books. I never read them, but I’ll be there.

Gangs of New York (Dec. 20) — Martin Scorsese has made many a film in New York. Most of them starred Robert DeNiro, but we’ve already established that he’s into comedy now, so the Brow goes back a hundred years and gets some facial hair on Leonardo DiCaprio’s face for this period piece chock-full of sex and violence. According to the rumor mill, Scorsese got into it with Miramax head honcho Harvey Weinstein about the budget and the Brow didn’t budge. He said he’s going to make his movie the way he wants it. Anybody with Scorses’s credentials can say that, and anybody who wants to see movies as pure art will be there opening day.

Catch Me If You Can (Dec. 27) — DiCaprio. Tom Hanks. Steven Spielberg. So there was this kid in the 1970s who ran around and impersonated all these people and cashed $6 million in fraudulent checks. I guess the FBI finally caught up with him, and now they’ve made a movie about it. I’ll say it again: DiCaprio. Tom Hanks. Steven Spielberg.

Chicago (Dec. 27) — I was watching the preview for this, and I can already tell they’ve made some egregious changes from the musical upon which this flick is based. I still would have preferred the original crew tapped (Charlize Theron, Madonna, John Travolta and Rosie O’Donnell) ahead of the stand-in cast (Renee Zellwegger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere and Queen Latifah), but I’ll be even more disappointed if there’s no singing, either. All I know is, I saw dancing in the trailer, but I missed the musical numbers.

I know: I look like a serial killer, and I like musicals. At least I’m not in line to be the next Mr. ex-J.Lo the 37th.

But hey, that’s just, like, my opinion, man.

Contact Will Albritton at oraclewill @ yahoo.com