The Christmas TV Strategy Guide 2023 #13

Well, here’s your Mid to Lower Tier Tom Hanks Fest for the day. I would probably say out of these The Money Pit is my highlight, the film getting most of its energy from Young Tom Hanks get into scrapes, hijinks and even shenanigans

Wallace and Gromit just about manages to get stretched out to feature length levels but it is touch and go in places. Luckily, the sheer power of the Aardman animation studios drag it over the finish line.

I don’t think any of us really wanted a sequel to Finding Nemo but I guess it was also somewhat inevitable that we’d end up getting one. I don’t think we’d expect we’d be getting one quite this good though. Another one for the list of Really Good Film Sequels

All of the Ocean’s films, back to back! Its probably no surprise that the first one is the best as it could do its twists and turns and keep you guessing. By the sequels, when you know this squad of guys are super awesome then you’re expecting the twists and know that whatever happens they’ll have a clever way out of it. Its almost impressive being able to make two whole films that have a total absence of threat or tension.

The best Old Dad film of the 90s? Its not even an argument is it, its this with a bullet. Which is fine, as this is a cracking thriller with Harrison Ford running around all over Chicago looking for that naughty one armed man with a grumpy Tommy Lee Jones just one step behind.

This right here is probably still the pinnacle of Wallace and Gromit, and maybe Aardman? Its such a huge jump in quality from Grand Day Out to this, both in its cinematic flair and the quality of the story telling. Seriously, its brilliant with one of the greatest reveals in, well, any media and one of the greatest chase sequences in, again, pretty much anything

Yesterday we had a few of the truly great sequels, and here we have one of the alright ones. As noted, Raiders is a perfect film but this one is just a bit off. Maybe its the way that the intensity of the film is ratcheted up, the way that the villains really haven’t aged well and its just a bit flat in parts. But when it does get going it really gets going with some amazing sequences, and it has Short Round so thats worth an extra star by himself

Here we have the film that arguably ended the Golden Age of Arnie, with a mad parody film that spends most of the time making fun of the tropes that Arnie himself established. It doesn’t quite stick the landing but the fact that this even got made and was positioned as a big tentpole studio film is bonkers when you think about it

Time for a Stallone double bill, can’t remember if we'd had Rocky IV before but regardless its a great film where Rocky punches communism right in the face. And then Cliffhanger which is one of his best films of the 90s. And, whats also interesting is that the 2 films bookend Stallone’s terrible period of the late 80s; Rocky is the top of the ramp on the way down in to it, and Cliffhanger is his comeback after the nadir of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! which we try not to talk about anymore

Catch me in the right mood and I will sit you down and tell you that this is one of the best musicals ever made. No really, it is; the songs are straight up brilliant and perfectly capture not just the character of the show but also the musical genre as well. Its really something to behold, honest