STARRING Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Richard Kelly

Let's say it up front: Cameron Diaz presses the button. In Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly's new film, she plays a schoolteacher who discovers a seemingly simple solution to her financial woes — and those of her NASA-employed husband (James Marsden) — when a disfigured man (Frank Langella) shows up on her doorstep and offers her $1 million if she presses a button on an innocuous-looking wooden box. The only downside: If she agrees, a stranger dies. Kelly hesitates to say more about what he calls an old-fashioned suspense film but teases, ''Every decision they make has ramifications for themselves and the entire world. The supernatural comes into play, and the story kicks into fifth gear.'' Intriguing, even without a giant bunny.

STARRING Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Robin Wright Penn
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Robert Zemeckis

If you really want to irritate director Robert Zemeckis, mention ''dead eyes.'' Ever since 2004's The Polar Express, critics have sniped that his performance-capture characters have lacked a human-seeming ocular spark. ''We have technology now to actually read the movement of the retina,'' Zemeckis assured fans at Comic-Con in July. ''We've gotten very close to perfecting this.'' With A Christmas Carol, he uses the next generation of 3-D performance-capture tools — and a large dose of Jim Carrey — to resurrect Charles Dickens' classic tale. Carrey, who plays grinchy Ebenezer Scrooge at four stages of his life, plus all three Christmas ghosts, might be the ideal performer for Zemeckis' magic. ''He's such a physical animal,'' says Robin Wright Penn, who also plays multiple characters. ''It's so exciting to be with him, because you never know what you're going to get.'' Producer Steve Starkey believes the latest technology will allow audiences to truly appreciate Carrey's work: ''I think the time is over that a full performance like Jim's is dismissed as simply an actor lending a voice to a film. It's quite a workout.'' God bless them all — every one of the seven characters he plays.

STARRING George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey
WRITTEN BY Peter Straughan
DIRECTED BY Grant Heslov

No false advertising here: ''There are actual goats in the film, and actual men look at them. And there's a hamster, too, as a bonus,'' says director Grant Heslov, George Clooney's longtime writing and producing partner (the two men collaborated on 2005's Oscar-nominated drama Good Night, and Good Luck). ''The humor is completely up our alley,'' says Heslov of the dark comedy, based on Jon Ronson's 2005 nonfiction best-seller about a U.S. military unit that investigates telepathy and other psychic phenomena for use in combat. Clooney plays an alleged U.S. operative who teams up with a reporter (Ewan McGregor) to track down the program's missing founder (Jeff Bridges), while also dealing with an outlaw psychic (Kevin Spacey). ''You're walking that fine line of stuff that is way out there, but having to play it deadly real,'' says Heslov. Sounds like a total zoo.

STARRING Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey
WRITTEN BY Geoffrey Fletcher
DIRECTED BY Lee Daniels

Only the third film ever to win both the Grand Jury and Audience prizes at Sundance, Precious follows an obese Harlem teenager (newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) who struggles with illiteracy, a second unwanted pregnancy, and a dangerous home life. Since January, comedian Mo'Nique has been attracting Oscar talk for her vicious turn as the girl's volatile mother, a performance she says she based on her own childhood in Baltimore. ''[Director] Lee Daniels said, 'I need Mary Jones to be a monster,''' recalls Mo'Nique. ''My oldest brother was a monster to me. So when he said 'Action,' it was like, 'I need to remember who that monster was.'''

Another monster turn comes from Mariah Carey, who's virtually unrecognizable as a dowdy social worker. How dowdy? ''I said, 'I don't want you to wear any makeup, and we're going to dye your hair and put a fake nose on you,''' says Daniels, adding that the pop star's wardrobe was also less than glam. ''Her hands were shaking in the freakin' rayon — it was funny.''