The Christmas TV Strategy Guide 2023 #04

Love me a proper Golden Age Hollywood musical and we’ve got a banger here. I mean, come one, this is the film where Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas came from, surely it doesn’t get any more Christmassy than that? However, no clue about the second film, it was the cast that caught my eye; Shirley MacLaine and Sammy Davis Jr? Good Lord. 1968 puts it outside of that Golden Age musical period, but a quick check shows that its directed by Bob Fosse so defo worth a watch

Oh my Gosh, can you believe it?! Someone finally has the cojones to put Biggles The Movie on TV. Oh my Lord! There’s no denying that this is a proper mess of a film, trying to turn Biggles into Indiana Jones by way of Back To The Future but it has an energy and a charm that you just can’t deny. Well, you probably will deny it but then the theme music hits and you don’t care anymore because its such a banger. Yes, I did have this on VHS as a kid, yes I watched it probably too much, no I won’t forget that music until the day I die. What a treat!

Now here’s an artefact of history for you; a film that somehow manages to be incredibly dated and yet extraordinarily prescient. I mean, someone ordering pizza and doing everything online in 1995? Madness. But skip forward a decade or two and, yep, there we are with everything now on line and the film’s story of identity theft is very much normalised into society. But still, that pizza website? Jeezo

1984! Just when I would have been starting to pay attention so its possible that I watched this episode of Top of The Pops when it broadcast, or was at least in the room when it was on playing with He-Man toys. Couple more old school 70s Christmas Specials, not sure about Sykes, I feel like he was better as a writer than a performer but we’ll see, and you can’t argue with a bit of The Good Life

Well, we’ve watched the other 2 so we may well watch the third one right? I mean, maybe? Problem here is that this is the film that leans heavily into Joe Pesci’s character and his “okay-okay-okay” gets very old very quickly. Like really old.

Now, regular followers of the Christmas TV Strategy Guide will know that we can normally rely on ITV4 to bust out some interesting double and triple bills. This year? Not so much. Spoilers, but this might be the only one. It’s pretty decent though, a big daft wannabe franchise blockbuster and Al Pacino at his shouty best. Not sure what the connection is between the two, maybe like the first film has vampires and then in the second film like cocaine is the vampire because it sucks all of the life out of you. Yeah, that works

Another show aboutg Air Fryers! What the Hell? Since we had the first one couldn’t resist sticking this one in as well

The film is part Will Smith’s great streak of the 90s that made him a megastar; Bad Boys, Independence Day, this, Enemy of The State and then Wild Wild no wait, that ended the streak. Its tough to say, but I think this might be the best as his chemistry with Tommy Lee Jones is brilliant, and he does punch aliens in this film. Doesn’t say “Welcome to ‘erf” though so you can’t have everything

Speaking of double bills, check this out! Two of the best films of the 80s, from either end of it. Both have top notch directors at the top of their game with a great cast giving it their all, what a treat

Cracking film this, with Lee Marvin in the title role and Don Siegel directing one of the best crime films of the decade.

Aw yeah! Can’t ignore this when it pops up in the schedules, the film that started to let Arnie talk and emote and everything. And yes, kill the entire army of a small South American nation, but it was all for his daughter! He made her a sandwich and made a joke about Boy George! Should have at least got an Oscar nomination for that.