While The Blind Side, which is fairly close to the usual kind of feel good entertainment people expect around the holidays, is cleaning up at the box office, Brothers and Everybody's Fine are competing hard for the title of most depressing holiday movie.

Last year's winner was probably Will Smith with Seven Pounds, one of the few Will Smith efforts that failed at the box office and depressed people immeasurably at the same time. Before that there was the movie that finished off what was left of Ben Affleck's career, Surviving Christmas. Brothers, with its stark black and white poster, and a cast featuring Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire, the odds were pretty good that it was going to be miserable.

On the other hand Robert DeNiro's Everybody's Fine with its cheery colorful holiday poster and a cast smiling in what suggests good cheer is more of a shocker as a miserable morose movie with pain and death abounding on all sides. Sure DeNiro's presence could tip you off, but the poster suckers you in. And then lets you down.