The Christmas TV Strategy Guide 2024 #03

A good run of family films to kick off the day here; Scrooge is one of the best versions of the Christmas Carol story that hasn’t got muppets in it. Then an animated mouse voiced by Michael J Fox, okay, whatever works for you, it’s a decent kids film. And then Hook, a film with a great cast that somehow doesn’t quite work. It’s hard to say quite what it is, it just feels like going through motions in large parts of it. Great cast though and it looks great so still worth a watch

It seems mad that even with all the money in the world that Disney/BBC didn’t hoover up the random Doctor Who films into their own bucket when they hooked up for the recent Who refresh. I mean, there’s one missing that stands out for crazy reasons but for the films guessing it’s just weird licensing reasons? They’re still fun though, a weird alternate take at what the series might have been

The start time for this run of films is somewhat fluid and is dependent on whether or not you can accept that there is a third Home Alone film. I mean, it barely is and works better once you separate it from that and let it be its own thing. The Grinch is a much more successful film, leveraging the skills of Jim Carrey with an art design that really captures the book. And from Ron Howard as well, who’d have thunk it? Then a couple of musicals, one a cracker one that, arguably, is a cash in after the success of the first film

A great comedy of its time, which has a plot that seems borderline unacceptable; it’s telling that the 2018 remake gender swapped the main characters so it was the man being gaslit into thinking they were in a relationship with someone else. That to one side, the chemistry of Russel and Hawn is spot on and helps to make what should be a bit creepy into a hoot.

It should be pretty obvious which film here is the high point; it’s Speed, Speed is the real properly classic film here. Force 10 gets a bit of a bad wrap with its 2 stars, Robert Shaw gives it plenty in a fun WWII romp, and the Death Wish sequel pretty much dispenses with the satire of the first film and leans into the violence which can be fun if you’re after that sort of thing. But, man, Speed is so good. “I’m taller”, what a film!

For years I’ve been saying they should bring this back! Years! Our house was usually a BBC house when it came to Saturday night TV, but round my Nan’s they watched ITV so Blind Date and Cannon and Ball and You Bet. Really simple; someone pops up with a daft challenge, like being able to identify characters from The Bill, and celebrities bet on if they can do it or not. Brilliant! The only concern here is that we have Stephen Mullen hosting, the man is many things but not sure if he can replace Matthew Kelly. But still, fingers crossed!

I’m a sucker for this show, the comforting structure of the Murder of The Week is like a warm blanket. And we’re getting a new detective on the show, which is like Christmas only it’s actually at Christmas! What a treat!

See when it says ‘convoluted’ up there they ain’t kidding, this films twists round itself like a pretzel. It doesn’t quite succeed with what it wants to do but it does it with enough charm to mostly get away with it. A good film in the Hartnett canon!

My very good friend Ryan, if you ask him, will tell you the Sniper films are brilliant. I would say brilliant might be a bit of a stretch but here you get a good comparison; the film that started it off and then one of the later straight to DVD sequels so you can decide for yourself

Inside No 9 was a great series that ended this year, the high point for me being the live Halloween special they did but any episode is top notch. Here we have a doc about the final series then a repeat of the first episode, a great excuse to start watching the rest of them on the iPlayer

”Hows the family Ryan”, right? Great film this, one of the great Dad Action Films of the 90s. But there’s that niggly thought that’s in the back of your mind watching it which is “…yeah but Hunt For Red October was better” which it is, and Adam Baldwin was a better Jack Ryan. But this is still a good film, including a top tier Sean Bean Bad Guy role as well

Behold! The film what was going to save cinema post COVID, only problem was it wasn’t an all encompassing Inception style success but like, a great but slightly impenetrable action film. I think what it lacked was that clear emotional hook that Inception had; DiCaprio wanted his kids back and this is what he needed to do. The film was good at laying out the stakes and bringing the audience along with it. Tenet doesn’t quite pull off that same trick. The fact that the main character just goes by The Protagonist and is more of a blank slate keeps the audience at a distance that stops them really connecting with it the way they did with Inception. But hey, listen, I enjoy this film, it’s a great vibes film and well worth revisiting.