Los Angeles - Has Hollywood misread the mood of the country?

The Tinseltown's elite may have backed the winning candidate in the general election.

But as the crucial holiday movie season opens, the film line-up at US cineplexes looks dangerously light on the kind of escapist extravaganzas that are the usual recipe for box-office success during times of economic gloom.

Audiences will not even have a Harry Potter spectacular to fall back on - Warner Bros decided several months ago to hold off the next release from wizarding school until next summer.

The preponderance of movies are weighty, sobering, reflective and morose works, would-be Oscar contenders hoping to curry favour with Academy Award voters in the months before they cast their ballots.

Moviegoers in need of less cerebral diversions have few choices. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa opened this week in the US to healthy box office numbers, while next week the eagerly awaited Bond thriller Quantum of Solace will see Daniel Craig return as the agent fighting to save civilization as we know it while proving that he is the best 007 since Sean Connery.

A more contemporary British action hero is portrayed by Jason Statham in Transporter 3, about a crack driver whose job it is to move dodgy goods around the underworld.

Another edge-of-the-seat yarn is The Day The Earth Stood Still, a remake of the 1950s sci-fi classic about an alien who comes to earth to warn humanity about its capacity for destruction. This allegory hardly qualifies as feel-good escapism.

Another sure-fire hit with a twist is Seven Pounds, which features the one-man blockbuster machine Will Smith as a tax collector who decides to help seven strangers to ease his conscience. That might sound like a great set up for a feel-good comedy. But publicity has been almost non-existent, and the stars have referred to the film as "dark" and "excruciating."

Adolescents of all ages could be suckers for the adaptation of a hit teen novel, Twilight, in which the beautiful heroine falls hard for a handsome young guy who happens to be a vampire - albeit a reluctant one.

Families who prefer their excitement without sexual innuendo might prefer the dynamic partnership between John Travolta and Miley Cyrus in Bolt, an animated Disney movie about a dog who plays a superhero on TV but discovers his canine shortcomings when he gets lost in the real world.

Another dog movie is Marley and Me, starring Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson in an adaptation of the bestselling book about a neurotic dog who teaches a family about what is important in life.

Laughs will also be plentiful in Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey as a guy who tries to spice up his life by saying yes to everything.

Adam Sandler will draw in crowds with Bedtime Stories, in which he plays a hotel handyman whose imaginative bedtime stories for his niece and nephew begin to come true.

But comedies are outnumbered by the Oscar hopefuls. Perennial favourite Clint Eastwood has two stabs at the prize. He directs The Changeling, a period drama about a missing child, and directs and stars in Gran Torino as a Korean War veteran forced to confront his past and his prejudices.

Other darker movies crowding in to the holiday season are Tom Cruise's Hitler assassination drama, Valkyrie, and director Baz Luhrmann's epic romance Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

The political biopic Milk, starring Sean Penn as San Francisco's trailblazing gay politician Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978, is also expected to garner attention, as is Frost/Nixon, about a pivotal set of television interviews after President Richard Nixon's resignation.

Then there's Doubt, about suspected child abuse in the Catholic Church, and Revolutionary Road by American Beauty director Sam Mendes, which reunites Titanic stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in a failing marriage drama.

Another weighty offering is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which stars Brad Pitt as man who is born old and grows younger.

One outside Oscar contender with a light touch is British director Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, an uplifting romance about a bright youth from Mumbai's teeming ghettos, who becomes the unlikely winner of an Indian game show.

Together with Pixar's Wall-E, the animated masterpiece about a lowly robot left behind on Earth, they are reckoned to be the only light-hearted movies in the running for cinema's greatest prize. (dpa)