The Christmas TV Strategy Guide 2021

As its the big day you don’t want to be watching anything too early, so a couple of mid-morning Hollywood classics should help the post present opening funk

5 Star decides, despite the date, to largely dispense with anything Christmasy and just goes straight for the middle of the road market; none of the above films are true classics (although Clueless and Legally Blonde aren’t far off) but they’re all pretty easy to watch without being to much like hard work

More Ray Harryhausen, this time towards the end of his career; this is still a fun romp with troglodytes, robot minotaurs and all sorts. Perfect Christmas fare

Its no Mary Poppins but this is still a great musical with a star turn by Dick Van Dyke. Seriously, theres a dance sequence in there thats insane to watch when you realise that Van Dyke had no proper training. The man is a movie God and, whilst the rest of the film can’t quite match him step for step, this is one of the main pieces of evidence that you’d use to prove this

Santa Clause: Origins is a weird starting place for a film but thats what you get right here, coupled with a morality tale about the commercialisation of Christmas with a proper scene munching turn by John Lithgow. You kind of have to watch it at Christmas, but it’s still weird how it even got made in the first place

Very possibly the best of the Aardman non-Wallace and Gromit canon. It’s not an especially aggressive field but this is still a great film and is probably only beaten by Pirates

More excellent Christmas TV from Channel 4; yes, the snowman bits are a repeat from yesterday but its there if you missed it, then you get the secret best Home Alone film and then Christmas themed Bake Off. Its certainly what you’d want on in the background whilst people digest their Christmas lunch and work their way through the booze in the house

Its amazing that a show from 1971, which is now 50 years old lets not forget, it still pretty much timeless. Especially when it comes to comedy, as a lot of what was found funny in the 1970s is now very much not funny. But Morecambe and Wise were never mean (except to Ern, and maybe Des O’Connor) in their comedy, they were always trying to make everyone laugh. Because remember; if your joke is at someone’s expense then that someone is probably not laughing so whats the point of the joke? Unless you’re doing satire because thats kind of the point. The point is, Morecambe and Wise are really funny and Christmas isn’t Christmas without them

The John Wick films are, at this point, an excuse to watch Keanu Reeves being really good at complicated action sequences. Seriously, the opening sequence that ends in the antiques warehouse is going to be a tough bar for the fourth film to beat. Hell, this film doesn’t quite manage to beat it. It’s still a great film though, anchored by Reeves’ performance which manages to be emotional without really showing any emotions if that makes any kind of sense

Not quite sure why Paramount has such an Eastwood obsession but never mind; here we have Eastwood somehow managing to craft another iconic film character 7 years after creating his first one with The Man With No Name. Here he pretty much defines the anti-hero-cop-playing-the-rules-fast-and-loose-to-get-the-job-done, something that would pretty much cover all the shelves in the video libraries of the 80s. None of them could quite capture the swagger of Dirty Harry though, probably due to that sports jacket and sweater vest combo he went for