The Christmas TV Strategy Guide 2024 #06

Here’s how you start a Christmas Day, with the very best of the Wallace & Gromit shorts; there may be better individual moments in some of the others but nothing comes together as one piece quite like The Wrong Trousers does. One of the best chases ever, one of the best bad guy reveals and a brilliant plot. Faultless! Putting A Grand Day Out on after is a bit mean given its very much a prototype of what follows but its still really good. And then a great musical! What a way to open your presents!

Got to be honest, I was a bit wary when I first heard of Toy Story 3; the second film was one of, if not the best sequel ever and wrapped everything up brilliantly. Where else was there to go? Well, cut to me sobbing my eyes out watching it in the cinema as turns out there was loads of places to go! A film that truly honours what came before and caps off a truly great trilogy. Yes, there is the fourth one, I know.

Minions are, well, they’re very minions you know? The films are decent at best, and this prequel to the Despicable Me series wisely chooses to chunk in a load of other characters around the minions. Lets be honest, a whole film of just them would be tiring at best.

Good Lord is this a run of bangers or what?! Easily two of the very best films ever, and I do mean ever, both released in the same year? Thats just nuts. And then a big old run of Morecambe and Wise, who go with Christmas like peanuts go with chocolate. Their comedy has hardly aged, with maybe the topical references being the only things that stand out these days. But in the moments when they’re being funny, they really are funny

Here we go, here’s the big guns for Christmas Day: a Doctor Who special and the new Wallace & Gromit. I mean, honestly. Despite it being off TV for so long, and never really being a Christmas tradition in its original run, having a new adventure with the Doctor at Christmas just feels right, those years when it was on New Year’s Day were rubbish. I’ve enjoyed the new Who, despite it not quite nailing the landing last year, but a stand alone Christmas episode will be a hoot at the very least. And then Vengeance Most Fowl, with the return of Feathers McGraw. Really hope its good, the Chicken Run sequel was bit meh in places but this is Wallace and Gromit, right? They won’t let us down

Time for some WAR for your Christmas Day! And an interesting double bill with 2 different takes on the conflict; Kwai is anchored by Alec Guinness’ portrayal of a British army dude who really wants to build a bridge, and then Spielberg’s game changer with Ryan. Both show the horrors of war but in different ways, the emotional intensity of Kwai compared to the visceral action of Ryan. What a double bill!

If Christmas is about anything its about watching big blockbuster films, and they don’t get much bigger than this. Still the best of the Indiana Jones films (the number of which I’ll let you decide on), its pretty much a faultless film.

Not quite as faultless is this very much from the shouty end of the Micheal Bay canon; a big group of lads versus a giant asteroid, lots and lots of shouting and incoherent action but it somehow manages to keep itself together. Anyone else tear up at “I’d like to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man I ever met”? Or just me?

Yes mate! A further banger with this, one of the definitive crime thrillers of the 90s. The cast is amazing, Michael Mann was never better than with this film and the set pieces are brilliant. Honestly, the big shoots outs in this film are game changers, I’d argue that the only other 90s movie that had a bigger impact on action films would be The Matrix four years later

Another good double bill, 2 Arnie films at either end of a spectrum; Recall is Arnie in his pomp, the last of the analogue blockbusters, full of immense sets and over the top violence that made hundreds and millions of dollars. And then End of Days, at the other end of the decade, with a much older Arnie going through the motions in a decent action film. They’re pretty much the same film really, Arnie versus a bad man, but in execution they’re miles apart

The obvious choice for a Die Hard film on Christmas Day, right? Obviously not, but this is still a banger. Easily the best of the three (ahem) Die Hard films that isn’t the first one, its a great New York action film with a great pairing in Bruce and Jackson as they go tearing across the city fighting terrorists. And that chase through Central Park! Chef’s kiss!

Here we have the definitive Buddy Cop Action film. I mean, we’d had plenty of those kinds of films previously (48 Hours being a prime example) but this really defined the genre forever more after it was released. And then you get Alien 3, a film that struggled to follow the two diamonds that proceeded it even before David Fincher was brought on board. The fact that he managed, through all the interference and everything else, to make a film this good is to his credit. Would recommend checking out the other version thats out there, suspect this will be the original theatrical version. It doesn’t fix all the problems but its still a good time

Well, if its on why not, right?

Brilliant film this, a really funny jet black comedy with a superb turn from Farrell and Gleeson. Pretty sure this is the same team behind The Banshees of Inisherin from a few years ago that got all that Oscar buzz. All the Martin McDonagh films are good, and this one is right up there at the top

What a double bill to end your day on; a film about a deadly motor sport from Roger Corman, with all the budget and craziness that implies. And then one of the classics of 60s British folk horror films, with Vincent Price cutting about the place in a great hat slaughtering folk. What a treat!