SLATE film critic Dana Stevens, the same critic who Film Fresh quoted last week as saying she will “never see a Lars Von Trier film again”, doesn’t seem to like PRECIOUS either. In her recent article on the site, she describes the movie as “uncomfortably close to poverty porn” (more), a term coined by Alice Miles of THE TIMES when she reviewed SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE earlier this year. Although I haven’t seen PRECIOUS yet, Stevens’ criticism seems well-informed: “In its eagerness to drag us through the lower depths of human experience, PRECIOUS leaves no space for the audience to breathe or to draw our own conclusions. For a film about empowerment and self-actualization, it wields an awfully large cudgel.”

A.O. Scott wrote an insightful piece last week about a new trend in children’s movies: reverse dress-up. Instead of churning out children’s movies with predictable, perfect endings, the filmmakers behind WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE and FANTASTIC MR. FOX disguise “adult anxieties in the costumes of innocent make-believe.” In other words, they’re really “emo” (more).

A CHRISTMAS CAROL is number 1 at the box office, taking in $31 million and pushing THIS IS IT into second place (more). So far, a a number of critics have spoken favorably of Carrey’s performance, while others have bashed it, which seems to be yet another example of the hit-or-miss dynamic that defines his career as an actor. Which of Carrey’s performances in these films do you think were awesome, and which ones were definitely not?