Since it’s Thanksgiving weekend, that must mean it’s time for yet another holiday film review. Today’s release of the week (or, technically, next week) is the much-ballyhooed Arthur Christmas from Sony Pictures. While it isn’t exactly the most memorable holiday film you’ll see this year, it suffices as a sufficient way to pass the time between jaunts at the mall, or, at the very least, you won’t be ashamed of having chucked that much money to see another mediocre 3D animated flick about Christmas. Believe me when I say it’s much better than the mediocre trailer that has been playing in theaters for the last eight months.

What’s it about? Believe it or not (methinks you’ll believe it), Christmas is in need of being saved. No, there’s no evil villain out to destroy Father Christmas or steal all the toys from the world’s children. Instead, Santa’s two sons (Arthur and Steve, voiced by James McAvoy and Hugh Laurie), have sort of fudged Christmas by taking the reins from their old man and trying to do it themselves. Turns out, they’ve forgotten to deliver a single toy . . . and lest the toy should end up in the hands of any other than the child it was intended for, Christmas will be ruined. Dun Dun Dun!

Rest assured, the movie turns out exactly as you hope it will. It is thoroughly enjoyable in the feel-good holiday classic way, though you probably won’t want to watch it any other time than at Christmas (or Winter Solstice . . . ha ha!). It’s full of enough adventure and slapstick to keep the little ones engaged while also chock full of sly references that the adults in the audience will enjoy. So until next year when Christmas will inevitably need to be saved again, Arthur will do just fine.

Martin Scorsese’s 3-D epic adventure story Hugo will probably be this year’s most treasured holiday film that will also be instantly canonized as a Christmas classic. Endearing, bursting with imagination and yet still somehow deeply grounded in sorrow, the film is based on Brian Selznick’s New York Times bestseller, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the story of a young boy whose wards are the clocks in a 1930s Parisian train station.

Hugo lives alone inside the station, in utter isolation and sans any family, having lost his father (Jude Law) who was his last link to anything resembling community. His father once happened upon an automaton that now lies in disrepair. Hugo, longing for his lost father, dreams of fixing the automaton. He is almost there. Almost . . .

Having stolen nearly all the parts needed to repair the automaton from a toy store located within the train station, Hugo yearns for the final piece: the key to a heart-shaped lock. He finds the key, and in the process, also finds Georges Méliès (played by an exquisite and heartbreaking Ben Kingsley).

To make a long story short, Méliès was one of the real-life early pioneers of filmmaking. Scorsese pays homage to all inventors and the magic of their dreams with this character . . . something many viewers will not realize until long after they’ve left the cinema hall. Still, the character is skillfully used, if only within the context of Hugo’s endeavor. Aside: Mr. Kingsley deserves all the awards he can get for this performance, it’s that great. Scorsese makes sure of it.

While the story may read to most as just another fairy tale about a wistful, plucky orphan who longs to revive the ghosts of his loving past, it is really about Scorsese’s abiding love of cinema, cinematic pioneers, and the future of cinema. Everyone familiar with Hollywood’s most celebrated auteur knows he is an unabashed cinephile – indeed, he is often referred to as a walking, talking encyclopedia on world cinema and film history. If Hugo is any indication, he just may be the world’s foremost devotee of the religion known as Cinema.