UNM’s Department of Cinematic Arts will present Happiness Is a Warm Projector, the department’s 2009 student showcase, this Friday, Dec. 11. The showcase will take place from 3 to 5:30 p.m. at Guild Cinema (3405 Central NE). This is a free show and is open to students, former students, filmmakers and any other interested viewers. The showcase will feature a random assortment of the best films produced at UNM this year. University soundscapers Mannie Rettinger & The Chuppers will open and close the show. Several film scholars will also be there to discuss their experiences in film school abroad. For more information on this event or the Cinematic Arts program in general, please visit cinematicarts.unm.edu.

A few years ago, Walt Disney Pictures tried to declare an end to “traditional” hand-drawn, 2-D animation. Then they bought out cutting-edge 3-D animation studio Pixar, which promptly took over all cartoon-related duties at Disney. Pixar seized the opportunity to announce that the death of traditional animation was greatly overstated. (God love those Pixar people.) So here we are, several years later, ready to ogle the first honest-to-goodness Disney toon in the classic mold in many a moon: the fairy tale-informed The Princess and the Frog. Ignoring ill-advised computer-animated experiments like Meet the Robinsons and Bolt and direct-to-video junk like Bambi II and The Emperor’s New Groove 2: Kronk’s New Groove, this is the first time Disney’s looked like Disney since ... 2002’s Lilo & Stitch at least.

After hours of precise calculations and empirical research, I have arrived at the 10 best gifts you can buy for the film lovers in your life. If you happen to get them something from this list and they don’t appreciate it? Well, then they aren’t really film lovers, are they?

On the list of all-time crimefighting debacles, I’d say hiring Steven Seagal to headline his own cop reality show ranks somewhere between giving guns and badges to Erik Estrada, La Toya Jackson and Wee Man on CBS’ aborted “Armed & Famous” and the four Police Academy movies that didn’t star Steve Guttenberg.

“Egypt’s Animal Mummies” (Animal Planet 7 p.m.) I sense a SyFy Channel movie in the making.

“2009 Hollywood Christmas Parade” (KASY-50 7 p.m.) Only in Hollywood could you hear the words “Grand Marshal Susan Lucci.”

“Yes, Virginia” (KRQE-13 7 p.m.) CBS presents a new animated special inspired by the true story of Virginia O’Hanlon, who in 1897 wrote a perennially famous letter to the editor questioning the veracity of Santa Claus. She got the greatest response in the history of newspaper editorial. And now, a cartoon. Way to go, Virginia.