MOVIES: All I want for Christmas is a Nazi film

  Nothing says "Joy to the World" like a World War II thriller about a Nazi plot to kill Hitler.
But that's exactly what's on the holiday movie menu now that "Valkyrie" — once set for release on Oct. 3 and then moved to President’s Day weekend 2009 — has moved yet again, this time to Dec. 26. (That's Kwanzaa on this side of the Atlantic, Boxing Day in Britain.)
  The troubled Tom Cruise project, about a group of Nazi officers attempting to assassinate Der Fuhrer at the height of World War II, made the switch to Oscar season following several recent test screenings — including one, we hear, at Green Valley Ranch's multiplex. (Rumor also has it that Cruise, an executive producer as well as star of the project, stopped by the local screening, but theater personnel, not surprisingly, had no comment.)
  "Valkyrie," an MGM release, is produced by, among others, United Artists. MGM recruited Cruise and his longtime production partner, Paula Wagner, to revive the venerable UA name (first launched by silent-screen stars Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and director D.W. Griffith), but Wagner just resigned as UA's chief executive officer, claiming she wanted to get back to producing movies.
  All this isn't quite as complicated as "Valkyrie's" plotline, but it's close. ...
  And in other holiday movie news, the latest chapter in the lucrative "Harry Potter" franchise, "Harry Potter and he Half-Blood Prince," has been pushed back from Nov. 21 to mid-July 2009, leaving the pre-Thanksgiving movie magic to MGM's "Quantum of Solace," featuring a certain Bond, James Bond. It lands in theaters Nov. 7.
  Unless, of course, the schedule changes ...