Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

[colinr0380]

As a blast from the past, I was reading an old issue of Sight and Sound and learned Hiroshima mon amour caused quite a scandal by being aired (albeit dubbed) on British TV when it was also playing theatrically in theatres. The producer of the film sold the rights to the BBC, causing the theatrical distributor to institute a policy of not carrying any films from producers who sold their films to TV

In the same article I learned that (subtitled) airings of Ashes and Diamonds and Bicycle Thieves in the early 60s were enormous hits, and as a result three times as many people living in Britain at the time having seen De Sica’s film than had seen South Pacific

That Hiroshima screening was by the looks of it on 1 February 1961, when it seems to have been in cinemas for a year, so that would figure. According to BBC Genome, Ashes and Diamonds was 25 January 1963 and again on 26 August 1964 and Bicycle Thieves was 8 February 1963 and 2 October 1964, all showings subtitled. Bicycle Thieves had had a previous showing on 5 March 1957, but it doesn't say whether subtitled or dubbed.

The reach may have been even wider considering that there would only have been two channels at the time (i.e. BBC1 and ITV). BBC2 only started on 20th April 1964. Channel 4 began in 1982 and Channel 5 post-the satellite multi-channel revolution (at least for those who wished to fund Rupert Murdoch) in 1997, causing lots of articles even back then in a pre-internet age wondering if a fifth linear television channel was necessary. Film4 began in 1998 (warning for Johnny Vaughan and Kevin Spacey's dog: who knows what harrowing sights that pooch had witnessed!) with a simulcast night of films with Channel 4 (and did the same on its first anniversary in 1999 when they showed From Dusk Till Dawn, the Kermode cut of Caligula and Nadja!), then became a paid satellite subscription channel for a few years after that, until becoming a free-to-view one.

Since then in the 2000s there has been a digital channel explosion (BBC3 and 4; ITV2, 3 and 4; 5USA and 5Star; E4, Film4 and More4, to name just the Freeview channels before we get into the digital satellite ones), so that point is rather moot!

So anyone wanting to watch television would have to have put up with Alain Resnais, watch ITV or turn their set off! (The lack of alternative options is also why you get extremely high audience figures in the tens of millions or so for things like the Morecambe & Wise show during their heyday or notoriously the episodes of Doctor Who that occurred during the ITV strike of 1979)

I once started a Facebook thread asking for examples of films shown on television before their cinema releases, or showing on the box while still in cinemas

The most recent example of this on UK television that comes to mind was in 2013 with Ben Wheatley's A Field In England being shown on Film4 simultaneously with its cinema and DVD release.

[jlnight]

Bungala Boys (CFF), Sat 25th Nov, Talking Pictures.
Evil Brain from Outer Space (1965), Sat 25th Nov, Talking Pictures.
Battle Taxi, Sat 25th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 28th Nov.
Avalanche (1969), Sat 25th Nov, Talking Pictures. Or...
The Scalphunters (1968), Sat 25th Nov, Great Action.
Hard Target, Sat 25th Nov, Legend. Or...
The Innocent (1993), Sat 25th Nov, Talking Pictures. Or...
Three Faces (2018), Sat 25th Nov, BBC4.

Radio Days, Sun 26th Nov, Talking Pictures.
Aani Maani, late Sun 26th Nov, Channel 4.

Fargo, Mon 27th Nov, Great Movies. Or...
Hannibal Brooks, Mon 27th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 7th Dec.

Champions (1984), Tue 28th Nov, London Live.

Mimi (1935), Thu 30th Nov, Talking Pictures. (Melvyn's Talking Pictures)
Escape From Mogadishu, Thu 30th Nov, Film4.



Red Dawn (1984) was a no-show, replaced with Legion (2010).
The earliest screening of Hiroshima Mon Amour on the BBC is 1st Feb 1963. Is that right?

[domino harvey]

The article I read was from the Spring 1963 issue, so the early 63 dates are likely accurate. Also revealed in the article: the BBC accidentally switched two of the reels when airing Kanal

[GaryC]

The earliest screening of Hiroshima Mon Amour on the BBC is 1st Feb 1963. Is that right?

Yes, I typoed the date above. So it had been in UK cinemas for three years by that point. (Monthly Film Bulletin review was in February 1960 and Films & Filming covered it in January that year.)

[jlnight]

If that is the case then surely the theatrical distributor cannot complain about the rights ending up on television, since it would have been way after the original release, unless there was some agreement that the film wouldn't be on TV for the 1963 period. In any event, 3 years would make it repertory rather than first-run.

Do you remember back in the 1980s? It would go something like: cinema release > rental video > sell-through video > cable/satellite > terrestrial TV. You would have some big films not turning up on terrestrial TV until years after the event (Robocop, UK cinemas: Feb '88 to ITV screening in 1994)!

[colinr0380]

Lots of stuff next week. The big film of the week is the premiere of Jafar Panahi's 2018 film 3 Faces showing at 10:40 p.m. on BBC4 on Saturday 25th, which appears to have not had any form of release in the UK, either theatrically or on home video before this due to its lack of BBFC certification.

Channel 4's Indian film season continues with Aani Maani at 2:15 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 27th, which similarly appears to have had no UK release in any form before this television screening.

BBC4 is beginning the German documentary series Berlin 1933 at 9 p.m. on Tuesday 28th. Strangely split into three one hour parts, whilst the original German broadcast appears to be in two 90 minute parts. That clashes against the premiere of the fifth(!) in the Purge series, The Forever Purge on Film4 also at 9 p.m.

For more bludgeoning social commentary, though 'true story' based, BBC1 is showing Just Mercy at 10:40 p.m. on Wednesday 29th and the South Korean film Escape From Mogadishu is on Film4 at 11:10 p.m. on Thursday 30th.

And lots of Christmas themed TV movies, including the eye-rollingly titled double bill of Six Degrees of Santa and Planes, Trains & Christmas Trees on Channel 5 on the afternoon of Wednesday 29th. Are those titles even puns?
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Repeat-wise, after showing The 50 Years War: Israel and the Arabs over the last couple of Mondays, BBC4 moves on to Norma Percy's follow up series, 2005's Israel and the Arabs: An Elusive Peace with a fifteen minute new introduction by Percy at 10 p.m. on Monday 27th.

The fourth series of the Harley Quinn animated show starts on E4 at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday 28th (after the latest new episode of Rick & Morty - the My Adventures With Superman series is continuing as the second half of its own double bill with the late night repeat of Rick & Morty in the early hours of Friday mornings)

The big film repeat of the week is another showing of Terrence Malick's A Hidden Life on Film4 at 11:25 p.m. on Wednesday 29th (it still ends at 3:05 a.m. though!), which still has had no form of home video release in the UK as yet. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is on Film4 at 4:30 p.m. also on Wednesday 29th.

BBC4 has a big night on Thursday 30th with Double Indemnity showing at 8:15 p.m. followed by the first (of three) parts of the 1992 Volker Schlondorff interview with Billy Wilder, How Did You Do It?, immediately following at 10 p.m. (which fingers crossed suggests another two weeks of Billy Wilder films upcoming). That is followed by The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp at 11 p.m.

Channel 5 has a film of note as well, with Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of John Grisham, The Rainmaker, showing at 11 p.m. on Thursday 30th - so on that evening you get the choice between that, Life and Death of Colonel Blimp on BBC4, Escape From Mogadishu on Film4... or Benedetta on Channel 4 or Death Wish 3 on ITV4!

[colinr0380]

Just a couple of small capsule-style random notes about a couple of recent films caught on television: I quite liked Meander especially as it quite neatly slots into a niche between Saw and Shinya Tsukamoto’s Haze, as speculated upon earlier, although to say why will involve a major spoiler for both Meander and Haze:

SpoilerShow

You know that mid-section of Haze where the main character catches sight of other people trapped in the tunnels with him that lightly suggests that they may have all been abducted by aliens and are being experimented on? Before it turns into a metaphor for a couple committing suicide? Well Meander actually is about alien abduction, with a woman at the moment of being murdered after hitching a ride with a stranger finding both herself and the killer having been abducted and forced to compete for survival through various trap rooms. With the weird cyberpunk-y skull fused with metal overseer (with a tongue able to administer a care-giving lethal injection at will) seemingly coming more to favour her over her antagonist, continually giving her further chances to ‘run the maze’ over and over until finally one of her iterations survives and is given a reunion with her lost daughter on an alien planet.

It therefore is a bit more bizarre in premise than the Saw or Escape Room films, but with its 'actual aliens' premise it is not entirely as abstractly metaphorical as Haze is, despite it also eventually having a lot to do with human interpersonal relationships both between the woman and her killer and the woman and her young daughter. I would be shocked if the filmmakers were not aware of Haze, and similarly I think they are also alluding to one particular sequence in Beyond The Black Rainbow in the section of the heroine being pursued by the burned and disfigured (and seemingly undead, or painfully re-animated through alien technology in a kind of version of purgatory for his sins) body of her attacker. And the aspect I really liked was seeing those allusions being bolted on to a relatively more ‘normal’ film than either of those! (Although that is my way of saying that Beyond The Black Rainbow and Haze are still better!)

___
And I caught Riders of Justice yesterday evening, which was good enough, although I loved those brief Estonian-set bookends to the main story much more than the central drama. Major spoilers follow for this film:

The aspect that I most responded to was not the revenge for terrorism aspect, the father-daughter relationship or the whole band of ‘quirky’ vigilantes (which feels the aspect most carried over from the director’s previous film with Mads Mikkelsen, Men & Chicken) but the kind of structural conceit for the entire film, which feels to be about trying to understand and come to terms with random twists of fate.

The film begins in Estonia with one such twist of fate, as a young girl and her grandfather talk about her getting a bike for Christmas, only the one that the (very sketchy) seller is offering from his stall is red, and she wants a blue one. They go on their way, leaving the stall owner to shiftily make a phone call, and the action moves to Denmark as we see a van come up to a bike rack outside a station, two men get out and cut the chain on a blue bicycle, throw it in the back of the van and speed off!

This is the act that causes the girl whose bike it is to have to take the train with her mother on a fateful occasion when a terrorist bombing occurs where the mother dies. And most of the film is about how she and her gruff stand-offish, unemotional, always off on a tour of duty father come to terms with the loss, with the father getting a group of vigilantes together that also includes a guy who was only on the train because he had just been fired from his job after ‘wasting’ months of after-hours research time on a project about statistical analysis, that only came to an obvious conclusion that anyone could have immediately reached, that rich people buy more expensive cars! And who would have otherwise been sat in the spot that the mother was in until he gave up his seat for her to sit on, so is rather wracked with guilt over that decision.

Much of the film involves tracking down the culprits for the bombing and the ex-military father gathering his weird band of vigilantes together and trying to mould them into an efficient team. Plus there are the inevitable father-daughter clashes, most obviously in the ‘dad being suspicious of daughter’s boyfriend’ subplot, which involves both the teenage guy being punched in the face at first, and then most amusingly in the final Mexican standoff scene in which the daughter and the boyfriend are being held hostage I think the dad capitalises on the opportunity in the chaos to ‘accidentally’ machine gun the lime-green haired boy down! Presumably to punish him for his YouTube channel having been the thing that led the bad guys directly to their location? Although since this is a ‘quirky’ comic film, everyone except the bad guys survive for the final heart-warming exchange of Christmas presents scene!

All that is interesting enough but I mostly just loved that after all the action is over and everyone has swapped presents in the main film, that we cut back to Estonia for a wonderful final coda in which the grandfather from the opening takes his granddaughter out and presents her with the main girl’s stolen blue bike, which we then see her happily riding in circles in the snowy street outside her home as the credits roll and a version of The Little Drummer Boy plays!

Those bookends really elevate the film to a whole other level, making it all about that weird random nature of fate where a single tiny action can spin off into having enormous, devastating, life-changing consequences for people you will never have met. There is one scene in the middle of the film that also tackles this idea of random acts of chance, where the statistics guy who gave up his seat sees the daughter has created a kind of timeline of events through Post-It notes on her wall to try and discern what single act led to herself and her mother being in that carriage at that particular time, and having traced its ‘cause’ back to her bicycle being stolen, but the statistics guy rather rains on her parade by saying both that she could not calculate all of the different probabilities with even the most powerful computer and also that for him to have been there to have offered to swap his seat with the mother then there was a whole different chain of events that led up to him being fired and being on that particular train that could have played out differently. So by choosing the loss of her bike as the initial action that killed her mother, the girl is really just blaming herself, or at least trying to bear some responsibility for her mother’s death, when its just the randomness of the universe and all of its different variables that unfortunately ended up with them all converging into being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if it was not them, it would just have been someone else.

Anyway, that’s by far the most interesting aspect of the film to me, and I think that final scene of the Estonian girl happily cycling in the street completely oblivious to all of the havoc that getting that bike has caused is the perfect way to end the film, both ironic within the context of the rest of the film and weirdly celebratory of the cycle of life at the same time! (This is also how you can tell that this Danish, Zentropa-produced, film was not directed by Lars von Trier by the way, as I was bracing myself for that final idyllic Christmas scene to be brutally-comically cut short by the girl getting mown down by a reckless driver! I doubt Mr Von Trier would have been able to have resisted that obvious opportunity for a bit of a blackly comic kicking of the audience at the very last moment of the film!)

But, that’s also a very marginal sub-theme of a film that is mostly concerning itself with the group dynamics of a bunch of idiosyncratic guys acting quirky at each other whilst they plan a “Big Job”, and a dad and his daughter learning to overcome their grief and connect again. So I don’t know if I can really recommend a film where I loved only about ten minutes of the two hour running time, and more generally just liked-tolerated the rest! Although I did also like that in the Mexican standoff scene that even the bad guy is angry about this group of vigilantes having randomly targeted them out of nowhere! So maybe with further re-viewing that theme of fate and chance will end up expanding out and flowing into the wider film more and become even more key to explaining the film? That aspect (along with treating revenge for a terrorist atrocity as a setting for a quirky comedy) are probably the most unique aspects of this film.

[colinr0380]

Apparently the screening of Hang 'em High on Channel 5 yesterday evening contained "scenes of hanging, and violence". Thanks for the warning!

[reaky]

I look forward to their screening Driller Killer. “Viewers are advised that the following film features DIY equipment, and killing.”

[jlnight]

Caught in the Net (CFF), Sat 2nd Dec, Talking Pictures.
Slave Girls (1967), Sat 2nd Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Fri 8th Dec.
Beachhead, Sat 2nd Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 5th Dec.
East of Elephant Rock, Sat 2nd Dec, London Live. Or...
The Father (2020), Sat 2nd Dec, Channel 4. Or...
The File of the Golden Goose, Sat 2nd Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 13th Dec.

Delta 8-3, Sun 3rd Dec, Talking Pictures. (Baim Archive short)
Over the Top (1987), Sun 3rd Dec, Sky Mix. (on Freeview before)
Bagdad Cafe, Sun 3rd Dec, Talking Pictures.

The Green Hornet (2011), Tue 5th Dec, Great Movies.
The Wicker Man, Tue 5th Dec, BBC4.

Pig (2021), Wed 6th Dec, Film4.

Eternally Yours (1939), Thu 7th Dec, Talking Pictures. (Melvyn's Talking Pictures)


Revenge (1971) was actually Revenge (2017).

3 Faces was apparently passed as a 15 for cinema and video in 2019 (you have to type in that exact title to find it). Honestly, I can't remember the film being reviewed at the time.

EDIT: Great Action did get around to showing Red Dawn (Tuesday). It should be on again this Friday.

[colinr0380]

Interestingly horror-themed week for some reason for the first week of December. The big film of the week is the one I will be unfortunately trying my best to avoid due to being far too close for comfort (and some subject matter is just too scary!), Anthony Hopkins in his Oscar-winning role in The Father on Channel 4 at 9:25 p.m. on Saturday 2nd. Amusingly it seems that Film4 is doing a matching title premiere the same evening with another horror film You Are Not My Mother at 11:40 p.m.! Which whilst it seems to be in the Ari Aster modern horror trend (It's even got the A24 trailer vibe with all the spooky strings!), I would love to imagine is a remake of Invaders From Mars! Just with an Irish lilt and a bit of stompy Riverdancing.

On Wednesday 6th the premiere of Nicolas Cage pursuing porcine pal drama Pig is on Film4 at 9 p.m., clashing with the first episode of Anne Rice adaptation Mayfair Witches on BBC2 at 9 p.m., taking over the same timeslot that the Interview With The Vampire series just vacated. Later that same evening BBC2 is also showing Kindling at 11:15 p.m.

Lots of TV movies of course. Channel 4 premiered Wedding March 3: Here Comes The Bride last Saturday (which worryingly I found quite compelling in an easygoing way. Although I keep thinking that the main guy needed to be played by Robert Redford!) and this upcoming Saturday is showing Wedding March 4: Something Old, Something New at 10 a.m. Will this series reach as many installments as Friday the 13th or the Saw series? (The gory murders replaced by graphically premeditated and inescapably inevitable walks down the aisle to certain marriage of course!)

Channel 5 meanwhile focuses on Christmas TV movies, and again I think after over a decade of every conceivable Christmas pun that the titles of these films are desperately searching for new angles and stealing anything that seems vaguely like a pun on other recognisable film titles and just putting a "Christmas" twist on them. Such as in "Three Wise Men and a Baby At Christmas" or "Cloudy With A Chance of Christmas". It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that "Christmas At The Holly Day Inn" was a play on words! And sadly "Love At The Christmas Chalet" is probably not going to end up being a long lost Russ Meyer film.
___
Repeat-wise, both parts of Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan: No Direction Home documentary are showing in one block on BBC2 from 10:50 p.m. on Saturday 2nd (though after the snooker, so it will most likely be pushed back or postponed)

Its a Tom Cruise-heavy week with Cocktail on Channel 5 at 11:20 p.m. on Saturday 2nd, the first Mission: Impossible on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Sunday 3rd, the 2017 film of The Mummy on ITV1 at 11 p.m. om Monday 4th and Knight and Day on ITV1 at 11:15 p.m. on Tuesday 5th. Although it is just as much a Jon Voight week as (the repeat of the week for me!) after years of showing on the minor 5Star digital channel Anaconda has its first screening on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Tuesday 5th (making the first un-DOG-tagged screening since it was premiered back on Channel 4 in the late 90s! And hopefully the first in its correct aspect ratio as well!). Voight is also in unofficial sequel to The Conversation, Enemy of the State, showing on Channel 5 at 11 p.m. on Friday 8th.

As jlnight has noted the original version of The Wicker Man is showing on BBC4 at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 5th, which excitingly is followed by half hour documentary on the film titled "Ex-S: The Wicker Man" at 11:30 p.m. which is apparently a repeat of a programme last shown in 1998. Even better, although slightly head scratching is that this is followed at midnight by a very rare showing of a 1976 Arena documentary on playwright Peter Schaffer (writer of Equus and Amadeus, both made into films after this Arena film, Equus only the year after so presumably this profile was made in anticipation of the upcoming film?) who was the twin of Anthony Schaffer (i.e. the writer of The Wicker Man). It would perhaps have been more appropriate to schedule it following a repeat of Amadeus or Equus, but I'll take it!

On Thursday 7th, BBC4 is continuing the Billy Wilder mini-season with Witness For The Prosecution at 8 p.m. followed by the second part of the Volker Schlondorff 1992 documentary at 10 p.m. (so there should be one more Billy Wilder film the following Thursday to pair with the third and final episode). Even more exciting than that however is another rare showing of an Arena episode, a 1986 profile of Louise Brooks at 10:50 p.m.! Of course inevitably no actual associated film starring Brooks is being screened with it (when was the last time a Louise Brooks film appeared on UK television? Has one ever appeared?)

[GaryC]

Even more exciting than that however is another rare showing of an Arena episode, a 1986 profile of Louise Brooks at 10:50 p.m.! Of course inevitably no actual associated film starring Brooks is being screened with it (when was the last time a Louise Brooks film appeared on UK television? Has one ever appeared?)

I remember a documentary on Brooks a few years ago, and none of her films showed with it then either. However, I did see Pandora's Box when BBC2 broadcast it in 1986. It followed a showing of Diary of a Lost Girl, and earlier the same day was her final film role, opposite John Wayne in Overland Stage Raiders. (That was an afternoon double bill with Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima.)

Presumably the BBC doesn't have the rights to these films any more, or maybe they won't show silents even on BBC4?

[colinr0380]

Thanks GaryC! Presumably those films all aired in 1986 along with this Arena documentary, to commemorate Louise Brooks' passing the previous year.

(I sometimes wonder if Looking For Mr Goodbar was a stealth remake of Pandora's Box)

[colinr0380]

Just trailed on Film4: two nights of Makoto Shinkai films with the premieres of Your Name and Weathering With You airing on Thursday 14th and Friday 15th.

[colinr0380]

Well, for all my protestations I steeled myself and watched The Father last night. Which is really good, though of course quite harrowing. I particularly liked how nuanced the portrait of caring for someone and its impacts on the carer can be - a couple of moments which really resonated for me were that one of Anne watching her father struggling with putting a jumper on (my own father had Parkinsons primarily, which made physically getting dressed the most frustrating part of his day. That is perhaps why in this film the bit at the end about wanting to stay in pyjamas all the time because what does it matter and there will only be the struggle to get back into them at the end of the day all over again hit quite hard. But then staying in pyjamas the whole day, whilst practically understandable, is perhaps the worst thing that someone whose concept of time and structure of the day is slipping away can do to themselves), which is both demeaning to the person struggling with what should be a simple task and upsetting to the person witnessing their loved one that they once relied on for support themselves becoming infantilised by their relentlessly progressing condition.

The other was that the film captured two really small and brief moments where the father apologises to his daughter, or complements her on her hair, and she lights up for a moment and you can see the relationship they once had that is almost crushed under the weight of the frustration they both have in that situation. That those moments are microsecond brief and quickly subsumed or forgotten compared to how lingering in the psyche the horrible comments or actions dwelt upon are taken as revealing of deeper 'actual' feelings (when they really should not be, and seen more as expressions of frustration, on both sides) also feels quite true to the situation.

I already was aware of the multiple actors shifting around to suggest the unmoored disorientation of dementia in the main character, but I really liked that the film also uses the same location to stand in for Anthony's own flat at the very beginning of the film; then the daughter Anne's flat that she moves him into; then the doctor's office when they go to visit; all leading eventually to the nursing home where (much like Desdaemona in her bedchamber at the end of Othello) Anthony finds himself confined to a single room (of what was once his bedroom and now the entire nursing home room) instead of free reign over the rest of the location, waiting with trepidation for any visitor to do what they will with him. And those shifts have the basic physical structure of the set remain the same but the walls painted differently and the furniture shifted around (the key early moment is when the father's study where he sits listening to music suddenly has transformed into Anne's office space... and then into the room where they meet with the doctor for the dementia assessment. Then those waiting room chairs start infiltrating Anne's flat once back there, as if now the father has noticed them, they are playing on his mind and encroaching on his world). I can see how this may have been a practical thing for the initial stage play, but it really translates to film as well. This may be a strange association to make, but this locational transformation aspect made me think a lot about Darren Aronofsky's Mother!, which is also about a supposedly comforting private space being invaded and transformed, with the person who notices, or reacts against, that change being treated as the wrongful party in the situation rather than having their concerns acknowledged.

(Although one thing that I think they missed was that you need an ever expontentially expanding amount of handrails appearing throughout the set - maybe upsetting the daughter and son-in-law even more as they begin ruining the elegant paintwork or mouldings on doorways as they appear with their brutalist practical purpose overwhelming the aesthetic one - until you get to the functionally sterile, fully railed-up, nursing home corridor at the end)

Of course the actors shifting around was also really good. I like that the Mark Gattis and Olivia Williams figures initially are the expression of the familiar becoming strange, as they replace the actual daughter and son-in-law and in some ways with that (literal) defamiliarisation they can become dispassionate and say the things back that those related cannot really say (or slap the father around physically instead of just make a verbally cutting remark, which masochistically the father may be longing for in order to have something concrete to react against rather than just words in the ether), before they become actual dispassionate staff of the nursing home at the end.

And I really like the 'journey' of two objects spread across the film: the chicken bought by the daughter for a meal and the watch. The film is doing really interesting things with time throughout (as interesting as Memento) and whilst the story is progressing in one general direction we begin with the daughter coming home with the chicken and the son-in-law taking it to the kitchen in an early scene; then to the meal that feels like it takes place weeks later; then to Anne buying the chicken in the shop much later on. It is like a demented Jeanne Dielman in that sense, where we are kind of seeing the 'process' of the chicken being bought, brought home, cooked and then eaten but scattered about over three or four scenes that feel like they take place out of order across a week or two.

And the watch is the other key object, where the initial situation appears to have been caused by the father accusing a carer of stealing it, so the daughter has to bring him to live with her until they can get a new carer. There is the suspicion that the father has pre-emptively hidden it only to have forgotten where he put it (and then has his paranoia heightened by the daughter knowing about his 'hiding place', so even that is unsafe from prying eyes). Then he is suspicious of the son-in-law having stolen it (which is perhaps the most amusing scene in the film as the father tries to push the issue about where that watch came from! Showing his fixation on certain things, whilst other people are disorientingly moving on in their conversation to other topics whilst he is focused). And eventually we get to the devastating moment in the nursing home where he talks about always having the time on his wrist to confirm where he is, but when the nurse takes his arm it is bare. (I did have to laugh out loud at the "Special Thanks" credit to Omega in the end credits! )

Anthony Hopkins certainly deserved his Oscar for this performance, with all the shifts in mood back and forth (they put that BBC production of Othello that I was rather unenamoured of his performance in to shame in how subtle they can be!) and especially that really harrowing and daring meta-moment in the final scene of what could be the ultimate actor's nightmare, of not understanding what role they have to play in the situation that they find themselves in, as the father moves from asking other people who they really are to: "And who.... who am I?", with the response from the nurse that "You're Anthony". Which means everything and nothing simultaneously.

I really like the way that the film tackles the subject of dementia, as everything moves from the specific to the meaningless. Or perhaps the significant to the generic. The view out of the window means something to the person who sees it every day and expects the passing world to be much the same whenever they look out... until the nursing home replaces it with just 'happy little trees'. The fixtures and fittings go from the father's den and bookshelves full of selected and chosen books and CDs to Anne's flat with the painting of the dead sister as a child with a parasol, to at one point the painting having disappeared (which I wonder if it could be a stealthy nod towards the album Everywhere At The End Of Time) leaving just the shadow of where it was once hung on the wall behind (whilst Anne says from the other room that she never had a painting there, the parasol was in his old flat), to eventually all of the generic unthreatening (but also unmemorably interchangeable and somewhat blandly empty) artwork on the walls of the nursing home. The cups of tea being made for the father to be cajoled into taking his pills with (that was also a highly resonant moment), turning into just being given a cup of water by the nurse to wash the pills down.

And the people themselves go from specific faces to generic too. Perhaps that is why the father keeps trying to see the face of the long dead other sister in the carer - because he wants to hang on to someone familiar even if they are just someone who only exists in memory. Especially when he is seeing other people sometimes as themselves and sometimes as strangers to him depending on how threatened he is feeling at the time. Eventually the familiar face disappears and all that are left are the generic faces of the paid staff members to usher you on that generic walk in the park, before the next walk in the park, before the next walk in the park, in an endless, meaningless existence until the end of time.

[jlnight]

Daylight Robbery (CFF), Sat 9th Dec, Talking Pictures.
Atomic Rulers (1965), Sat 9th Dec, Talking Pictures.
Village of the Giants, Sat 9th Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 11th Dec.
On Tender Hooks (2013), Sat 9th Dec, London Live. Or...
Full Moon in Blue Water, Sat 9th Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 11th Dec.

Boy Who Caught a Crook, Sun 10th Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 18th Dec.
Lifeline, Sun 10th Dec, Talking Pictures. (Baim Archive short)
Oldboy (2003), Sun 10th Dec, Sky Mix. Or...
The Diamond Wizard (1954), Sun 10th Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Sat 16th Dec.

The Stalls of Barchester (1971 BBC TVM), Mon 11th Dec, Talking Pictures.

A Warning to the Curious (1972 BBC TVM), Wed 13th Dec, Talking Pictures.

Lost Hearts (1973 BBC TVM), Fri 15th Dec, Talking Pictures.



Diary of a Lost Girl had a screening on BBC2 on 03/02/95. Pandora's Box was shown on the old Film4 channel (subscription-era) around about 2003 or 2004. A friend did a copy for me and you really had to concentrate as it was a genuine silent. If you want a real rarity then the Clara Bow film, It (1927), was on BBC2 on 28/05/82 as part of a silent season.

[colinr0380]

Next week really belongs to Makoto Shinkai with the first screenings of any of his films on UK television with the premieres of 2016's Your Name on Film4 at 11:10 p.m. on Thursday 14th; and 2019's Weathering With You on Film4 at 11:10 p.m. on Friday 15th.

Other than that it is rather quiet. Loads of Christmas TV movies of course (plus Channel 4 showing Wedding March 5: My Boyfriend's Back at 9:45 a.m. on Saturday 9th. I'm terrified to look up on imdb just how many films there are in this series!). Lots of things showing on the evening of Tuesday 12th: Berlin 1933 airs its third and final part at 9 p.m. on BBC4; BBC2 is showing Timothy Spall drama The Last Bus at 11:15 p.m.; ITV1 surprisingly has an item of note with Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition showing at 11:15 p.m.; and in the early hours of Wednesday 13th (2:20 a.m. in fact) Channel 4 is hiding away a first showing one of the rare mainstream Hollywood studio attempts at capturing the "God's Not Dead" religious audience, with Breakthrough.

And BBC1 gets in on the Christmas TV movie bandwagon with The Christmas Break at 12:15 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 15th. Which doesn't have a trailer on YouTube and most definitely isn't the other rather bawdy-looking Justin Long Christmas movie from 2022, but apparently a 2023 film about accidentally going for Christmas in Ireland by mistake?

Perhaps the most intriguing television thing of the week is the new (presumably ultra-violent and drug heavy) Nicholas Winding Refn take on The Famous Five on the CBBC channel at 5:25 p.m. on Saturday 9th, showing as a 90 minute film.
____
Repeat-wise, not too much. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is on BBC2 at 10 p.m. on Sunday 10th. The original 1947 Miracle on 34th Street is on Channel 5 at 1:40 p.m. on Sunday 10th (rather incongruously sandwiched in between two modern Christmas TV movies, and counter-programmed against It's A Wonderful Life on Film4 at the same time). Howard's End is on Film4 at 3:55 p.m. on Sunday 10th, and Maurice is also showing on Film4 at 1:15 a.m. on Tuesday 12th.

Channel 4 uses the early hours to repeat a couple of subtitled films shown on Film4 over the previous year: Happening is showing at 2:25 a.m. on Monday 11th, Drive My Car is on at 1 a.m. on Tuesday 12th and Playground is showing at 1:45 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 15th.

The Billy Wilder season comes to an inevitable end on BBC4 with Some Like It Hot at 8 p.m. followed by the third part of the Billy, How Did You Do It? Arena documentary at 9:55 p.m. on Thursday 14th.

And the best Jean-Claude Van Damme film, Sudden Death, is showing on ITV4 at 9 p.m. on Tuesday 12th.

Not too much notable television programme-wise, though BBC4 is showing the entire run of the 1979 series "Tony Bennett Sings..." in one continuous block from 9 p.m. on Friday 15th (which if you are so inclined, you can see here. That may prove to be the perfect background programme to accompany Christmas present wrapping!), which is followed by a 2011 London Palladium concert at 12:10 a.m., and then a 1996 Arena documentary "Tony Bennett's New York" at 1:10 a.m.

The same evening on Radio 4 at 7:15 p.m., Mark Kermode is doing also doing a tribute, to the late Terence Davies, in his Screenshot series.

[colinr0380]

The RadioTimes has also mentioned the 'family' films that are going to be aired at some point over the Christmas period:

BBC1 will be showing: The Addams Family 2 (2021); the 'live action' version of The Lion King from 2019; The Croods: The New Age; the 2020 version of The Witches; and Toy Story 4. And Channel 4 will be showing Paw Patrol: The Movie

[jlnight]

The Dog and the Diamonds (CFF), Sat 16th Dec, Talking Pictures.
Antony & Cleopatra (1972), Sat 16th Dec, London Live. Or...
The Devil's Disciple, Sat 16th Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 20th Dec. (been on London Live)
Boycie in Belgrade (2020), Sat 16th Dec, London Live.
My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To, Sat 16th Dec, Film4.

Lost Lagoon, Sun 17th Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 19th Dec. (been on London Live)
Girls Girls Girls!, Sun 17th Dec, Talking Pictures. (Baim Archive short)
Pianoforte, Sun 17th Dec, BBC4. Or...
Battle Royale, Sun 17th Dec, Sky Mix. Or...
The Facts of Life, Sun 17th Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 27th Dec.

War and Peace (1956), Mon 18th Dec, London Live.

Our Ladies, Tue 19th Dec, Film4. Or...
Cyrano (2021), Tue 19th Dec, BBC2.

Belfast (2021), Wed 20th Dec, BBC2.
The Ash Tree (1975 BBC TVM), Wed 20th Dec, Talking Pictures.

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974 BBC TVM), Thu 21st Dec, Talking Pictures.

House of Gucci + Alien, Fri 22nd Dec, BBC2.

[colinr0380]

Not too bad next week with lots of films I had never heard of before, and with quite an Irish tinge to it. My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To is on Film4 at 11:45 p.m. on Saturday 16th. With the inevitable A24-style trailer scored to nervy strings!

Pianoforte is in BBC4's Storyville documentary strand at 9:20 p.m. on Sunday 17th.

Unfortunately everything clashes together on the evening of Tuesday 19th with Rick & Morty and Harley Quinn series continuing from 10 p.m. on E4, whilst at 10 p.m. on BBC2 is Cyrano, and at 9 p.m. Film4 are showing Our Ladies (which looks like a feature film attempt to jump on the Inbetweeners/Derry Girls Channel 4 sex-comedy series trend)

Kenneth Branagh turns a complex situation black-and-white in Belfast on BBC2 at 9 p.m. on Wednesday 20th. And at 9 p.m. on Friday 22nd BBC2 is showing Ridley Scott's prequel to Hannibal, House of Gucci (dark 'n' moody version of a classic song, ahoy!), followed in a double bill as jlnight notes by Alien at 11:30 p.m. With this, Alien: Covenant and Napoleon, I think Ridley Scott must be going through a 'satirically sarcastic' late period!
___

Repeat-wise it seems that the theme of BBC4's Christmas is going to be repeating all of their 'archive television' pieces from the past year. Lots more over the Christmas fortnight but this week has repeats of the Victoria Wood night on Saturday 16th (repeating Pat and Margaret); a Horace Ové night on Sunday 17th after that Pianoforte film (repeating A Hole In Babylon) and from Wednesday 20th to Friday 22nd repeats the Glenda Jackson Elizabeth R series.

Film-wise, Highlander is on BBC1 at 11:45 p.m. on Saturday 16th. Fight Club has made the transition onto Channel 4 and is showing at 12:15 a.m in the early hours of Sunday 17th; Scorsese is represented with screenings of both the 1991 remake of Cape Fear (timely for the just announced TV series remake of the remake!) on BBC1 at 12:30 a.m. on Monday 18th and Raging Bull on BBC2 at 10:15 p.m. on Thursday 21st. The African Queen is on BBC2 at 1 p.m. on Tuesday 19th. Pillow Talk and Move Over, Darling show in a double bill from 1 p.m. on BBC2 on Wednesday 20th. That Songbird film that was premiered a couple of months ago tucked away at 2:15 a.m. on Channel 4 (the slot that they like to shyly tuck the 'shameful' films into) gets a slightly earlier repeat (at 2:10 a.m.!) on Film4, so that will be its first un-DOG-tagged screening.

Starman is on Film4 at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday 20th (first time un-DOG-tagged in its correct aspect ratio with its move to that channel). Meet Me In St Louis and Sweet Charity are showing in a double bill from 1 p.m. on BBC2 on Thursday 21st. Edward Scissorhands is on BBC2 at 5:50 p.m. on Thursday 21st. Do The Right Thing is showing at 12:15 a.m. on BBC2 on Friday 22nd (straight after Raging Bull). And Mike Mills fights it out against Tod Haynes as C'mon C'mon shows at 2 a.m. on Channel 4 on Friday 22nd, coming up against Carol on Film4 at 1:35 a.m.!

[colinr0380]

Since I picked it up at the same time, here's whats on over the Christmas fortnight. Which is rather underwhelming unless you are into family films, but there are a couple of weird oddities as well, mostly based on a trend of wanting to turn everything into interpretative dance, for some reason.

Sadly nothing of note airs on Film4 during the entire festive period, only strengthening the sense that the entire channel goes into hibernation (or maybe more accurately, a coma) for the duration. The only new film showing on Film4 at all after Our Ladies on Tuesday 19th is Ti West's first entry into what has become an ongoing period horror series, X (dark 'n' moody version of a famous song ahoy! And A24-style nervy strings!). Which is showing at 11 p.m. on Friday 5th January, which is probably technically more the weekend after Christmas than showing during the festive season itself. Sadly it is also by far the most notable film showing over the fortnight.

EDIT: Stop the presses! There is another film being premiered on Film4 with Irish horror-comedy Let The Wrong One In showing at 1:55 a.m. in the early hours of Thursday 4th! With Anthony Head, a long way from Buffy! Although that is also arguably in the post-Christmas period than during the holidays themselves! (It is also interesting to note that both this and Film4's premiere of this upcoming Saturday, My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To, appear to both be distributed by Dark Sky Films. So Film4 must be in the midst of some sort of collaboration with them. If so, fingers crossed for Lola turning up at some point in the future)

Family film-wise, this is the run down:
Christmas Day: The Addams Family 2 at 1 p.m. and Toy Story 4 at 3:10 p.m. (they made a fourth?!?!) are on BBC1 and Sing 2 is on ITV1 at 4:30 p.m.
Boxing Day: Peter Rabbit 2 (they made a second one?!?!) at 3:15 p.m. and the 2019 Lion King (they made a third one?!?!) at 5 p.m. on BBC1
Wednesday 27th: Spirit Untamed (is this a two decades late prequel to Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron?!) at 11:40 a.m. and The Croods 2: A New Age (I'll take the Gogs instead) at 2:25 p.m. on BBC1. And Brian Cox doing a 'Bob Hoskins in Twentyfourseven' with Believe at 10:20 a.m. on BBC2. Which despite avoiding football films like the plague, does have quite a cast, so that might be worth a look. Ominously it has taken a decade to achieve its first screening on UK television though, which may be entirely due to the Brian Cox related post-Succession bump up in its profile.
New Year's Day brings the terrifying duo on BBC1 of The Boss Baby 2: Family Business at 11:15 a.m. and Robert Zemeckis' Roald Dahl's The Witches (2020) at 5:55 p.m. And Channel 4 counters with its single premiere of the entire fortnight, with the IP that shamelessly shilled toys on such an industrial scale to rival Pokemon and Transformers with PAW Patrol: The Movie at 1 p.m.

The more adult-oriented films (though I use that term loosely) is probably most represented by the two films clashing at primetime on New Year's Eve with Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson teaming up in film for the first time since Anaconda, in Marry Me showing at 8:30 p.m. on BBC1, and Pirates on BBC3 at 9 p.m.

There is a Noël Coward theme to Boxing Day with Brief Encounter showing at 12:45 p.m. on BBC2, the premiere of documentary Mad About The Boy at 9 p.m. on BBC2, and then straight afterwards on BBC4 there are two rare showings of Coward productions with 1982's A Song At Twilight at 10:30 p.m. (with Deborah Kerr!) and the 1969 "Wednesday Play" The Vortex (there's no version of this 1969 adaptation on YouTube, but there is a 1964 ITV Granada version with introduction by Coward!)

Unfortunately those two Coward plays on BBC4 clash with the premiere of Benedict Cumberbatch spy drama The Courier that follows Mad About The Boy at 10:30 p.m. on BBC2, and is showing in a spy double followed by the Judi Dench film Red Joan at 12:20 a.m.

There's an Aretha Franklin night on BBC2 on Thursday 28th with the centrepiece being the premiere of Respect at 9 p.m., and a 1968 Amsterdam concert at 11:50 p.m.

Other than a few Christmas TV movies, the only premiere of note on Channel 5 is Invitation To A Murder showing at 8:10 p.m. on Saturday 23rd. Which despite being a English-set murder mystery is a French financed(!) Wisconsin filmed (!!) production from the director of Dudes & Dragons(!!!) This may end up being an essential watch!

There are two surprisingly notable TV series showing nightly on ITV each week, with Helena Bonham Carter starring as Noele Gordon, real-life star of the notoriously shonky soap opera that ran from the 1960s to the 1980s, Crossroads, in Nolly. That's showing on ITV1 at 9 p.m. for three nights from Wednesday 27th to Friday 29th, with the last episode on Friday followed by "The Real Nolly" documentary at 10:20 p.m. That same format continues the week after with Toby Jones starring in Mr Bates vs The Post Office showing in four episodes at 9 p.m. from New Year's Day up to Thursday 4th, along with again a ""Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The Real Story" documentary at 10:45 p.m. on Thursday after the final episode.

The BBC's Ghost Story For Christmas directed by Mark Gattis is going to be an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Lot No. 249, showing on BBC2 at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve and starring Kit Harington.

And the most bizarre things showing over Christmas are modern interpretative dance related with Danny Boyle's Free Your Mind: The Matrix Now showing on BBC2 at 6:55 p.m. on New Year's Eve (Forget the Wachowskis, with all these live event spectacles is Danny Boyle the new Zhang Yimou?), along with Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby showing on BBC4 at 9:25 p.m. on New Year's Day.
___

Repeat-wise not too much of note although among the surprisingly rare screenings turning up for the first time in years are Scent of a Woman on Channel 4 at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday 23rd and Nine To Five on BBC2 at 10:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve (following Lot No. 249)

Relating to BBC2: there is a Humphrey Bogart double bill from 1 p.m. on Saturday 23rd with The Big Sleep (last shown in 2002!) and Casablanca. Suspicion is showing at 8:40 a.m. on Wednesday 27th. There is a 60s crime double of Bonnie and Clyde (last shown in January 2013) followed by In The Heat of the Night from 10 p.m. on New Year's Day. And The Big Country is showing at 1 p.m. on Wednesday 3rd.

Channel 5 has a lot of notable screenings: The Wizard of Oz is showing at 3:10 p.m. on Christmas Day. The Dirty Dozen is at 10:25 a.m. on Boxing Day, followed by The Glenn Miller Story at 1:25 p.m. (and a very rare showing of The Commitments at 11:25 p.m. that same evening). Gone With The Wind (last shown in 2018) is showing at 9:45 a.m. on Wednesday 27th, followed by The Dam Busters at 1 p.m. Out of Africa is showing at 9:15 a.m. on Friday 29th. There's a Tom Hanks day of films on Saturday 30th, notably showing The Money Pit at 10:25 a.m.. Seven Brides For Seven Brothers is at 11:55 a.m. on New Year's Eve, followed by Hook at 2 p.m. (which used to be the most disappointing adaptation of Peter Pan, until this year's Disney version, which really makes me want to revisit and reacquaint myself more with what the Spielberg film was doing). An American In Paris is showing at 9:10 a.m. on New Year's Day, with Singin' in the Rain showing later that day at 2:10 p.m. and My Fair Lady at 4:15 p.m.

Beyond that, Possessor is showing on Film4 at 1:40 a.m. in the early hours of Christmas Eve. And Now For Something Completely Different turns up on BBC2 at 12:20 a.m. on Boxing Day, as well as at the exact same time on New Year's Eve, to make entering 2024 extra-absurd. To Live and Die In L.A. is on Film4 at 1:35 a.m. on Wednesday 27th. One of the only two subtitled films showing over the fortnight is a repeat of Petite Maman at 2:25 a.m. on Channel 4 in the early hours of Saturday 30th. Film4 marks the liminal space transition period of New Year by scheduling Mulholland Drive at 11:15 p.m. followed by Climax (the other subtitled film) as the first film of the new year at 2 a.m. The great Kevin Costner western Open Range transitions from edited afternoon showings on Channel 5 to the un-DOG-tagged Film4 for a 9 p.m. screening on Tuesday 2nd January (which makes for a nice tribute to the late Michael Gambon too). And after showing the Julia Ormond-starring First Knight for the first time in over a decade a few months back, Film4 pick up the earlier Ormond film (and surprisingly rarely shown) drama Legends of the Fall at 9 p.m. on Thursday 4th - I'm looking forward to seeing that one again the most.

In terms of television programmes, after those two Noël Coward plays on Boxing Day evening, and to tie in with this year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures being about A.I., there are a couple of intriguing looking programmes from the BBC's archive being shown on BBC4 in the form of a 1967 programme Towards Tomorrow: Robot at 1 a.m. and the 1978 Horizon programme Now The Chips Are Down at 1:55 a.m.

The repeats of the archive television programmes from the previous year continue on BBC4 with Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective series being repeated over Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th, leading into the first of the strand for the new year with the 1995 Colin Firth starring version of Pride & Prejudice showing with the first half of the series showing in a large chunk of three episodes on Wednesday 3rd preceded by an interview with screenwriter Andrew Davies at 10 p.m.

[Mr. Deltoid]

Since I picked it up at the same time, here's whats on over the Christmas fortnight. Which is rather underwhelming unless you are into family films, but there are a couple of weird oddities as well, mostly based on a trend of wanting to turn everything into interpretative dance, for some reason.

Sadly nothing of note airs on Film4 during the entire festive period, only strengthening the sense that the entire channel goes into hibernation (or maybe more accurately, a coma) for the duration. The only new film showing on Film4 at all after Our Ladies on Tuesday 19th is Ti West's first entry into what has become an ongoing period horror series, X (dark 'n' moody version of a famous song ahoy! And A24-style nervy strings!). Which is showing at 11 p.m. on Friday 5th January, which is probably technically more the weekend after Christmas than showing during the festive season itself. Sadly it is also by far the most notable film showing over the fortnight.

EDIT: Stop the presses! There is another film being premiered on Film4 with Irish horror-comedy Let The Wrong One In showing at 1:55 a.m. in the early hours of Thursday 4th! With Anthony Head, a long way from Buffy! Although that is also arguably in the post-Christmas period than during the holidays themselves! (It is also interesting to note that both this and Film4's premiere of this upcoming Saturday, My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To, appear to both be distributed by Dark Sky Films. So Film4 must be in the midst of some sort of collaboration with them. If so, fingers crossed for Lola turning up at some point in the future)

Family film-wise, this is the run down:
Christmas Day: The Addams Family 2 at 1 p.m. and Toy Story 4 at 3:10 p.m. (they made a fourth?!?!) are on BBC1 and Sing 2 is on ITV1 at 4:30 p.m.
Boxing Day: Peter Rabbit 2 (they made a second one?!?!) at 3:15 p.m. and the 2019 Lion King (they made a third one?!?!) at 5 p.m. on BBC1
Wednesday 27th: Spirit Untamed (is this a two decades late prequel to Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron?!) at 11:40 a.m. and The Croods 2: A New Age (I'll take the Gogs instead) at 2:25 p.m. on BBC1. And Brian Cox doing a 'Bob Hoskins in Twentyfourseven' with Believe at 10:20 a.m. on BBC2. Which despite avoiding football films like the plague, does have quite a cast, so that might be worth a look. Ominously it has taken a decade to achieve its first screening on UK television though, which may be entirely due to the Brian Cox related post-Succession bump up in its profile.
New Year's Day brings the terrifying duo on BBC1 of The Boss Baby 2: Family Business at 11:15 a.m. and Robert Zemeckis' Roald Dahl's The Witches (2020) at 5:55 p.m. And Channel 4 counters with its single premiere of the entire fortnight, with the IP that shamelessly shilled toys on such an industrial scale to rival Pokemon and Transformers with PAW Patrol: The Movie at 1 p.m.

The more adult-oriented films (though I use that term loosely) is probably most represented by the two films clashing at primetime on New Year's Eve with Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson teaming up in film for the first time since Anaconda, in Marry Me showing at 8:30 p.m. on BBC1, and Pirates on BBC3 at 9 p.m.

There is a Noël Coward theme to Boxing Day with Brief Encounter showing at 12:45 p.m. on BBC2, the premiere of documentary Mad About The Boy at 9 p.m. on BBC2, and then straight afterwards on BBC4 there are two rare showings of Coward productions with 1982's A Song At Twilight at 10:30 p.m. (with Deborah Kerr!) and the 1969 "Wednesday Play" The Vortex (there's no version of this 1969 adaptation on YouTube, but there is a 1964 ITV Granada version with introduction by Coward!)

Unfortunately those two Coward plays on BBC4 clash with the premiere of Benedict Cumberbatch spy drama The Courier that follows Mad About The Boy at 10:30 p.m. on BBC2, and is showing in a spy double followed by the Judi Dench film Red Joan at 12:20 a.m.

There's an Aretha Franklin night on BBC2 on Thursday 28th with the centrepiece being the premiere of Respect at 9 p.m., and a 1968 Amsterdam concert at 11:50 p.m.

Other than a few Christmas TV movies, the only premiere of note on Channel 5 is Invitation To A Murder showing at 8:10 p.m. on Saturday 23rd. Which despite being a English-set murder mystery is a French financed(!) Wisconsin filmed (!!) production from the director of Dudes & Dragons(!!!) This may end up being an essential watch!

There are two surprisingly notable TV series showing nightly on ITV each week, with Helena Bonham Carter starring as Noele Gordon, real-life star of the notoriously shonky soap opera that ran from the 1960s to the 1980s, Crossroads, in Nolly. That's showing on ITV1 at 9 p.m. for three nights from Wednesday 27th to Friday 29th, with the last episode on Friday followed by "The Real Nolly" documentary at 10:20 p.m. That same format continues the week after with Toby Jones starring in Mr Bates vs The Post Office showing in four episodes at 9 p.m. from New Year's Day up to Thursday 4th, along with again a ""Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The Real Story" documentary at 10:45 p.m. on Thursday after the final episode.

The BBC's Ghost Story For Christmas directed by Mark Gattis is going to be an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Lot No. 249, showing on BBC2 at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve and starring Kit Harington.

And the most bizarre things showing over Christmas are modern interpretative dance related with Danny Boyle's Free Your Mind: The Matrix Now showing on BBC2 at 6:55 p.m. on New Year's Eve (Forget the Wachowskis, with all these live event spectacles is Danny Boyle the new Zhang Yimou?), along with Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby showing on BBC4 at 9:25 p.m. on New Year's Day.
___

Repeat-wise not too much of note although among the surprisingly rare screenings turning up for the first time in years are Scent of a Woman on Channel 4 at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday 23rd and Nine To Five on BBC2 at 10:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve (following Lot No. 249)

Relating to BBC2: there is a Humphrey Bogart double bill from 1 p.m. on Saturday 23rd with The Big Sleep and Casablanca. Suspicion is showing at 8:40 a.m. on Wednesday 27th. There is a 60s crime double of Bonnie and Clyde followed by In The Heat of the Night from 10 p.m. on New Year's Day. And The Big Country is showing at 1 p.m. on Wednesday 3rd.

Channel 5 has a lot of notable screenings: The Wizard of Oz is showing at 3:10 p.m. on Christmas Day. The Dirty Dozen is at 10:25 a.m. on Boxing Day, followed by The Glenn Miller Story at 1:25 p.m. (and a very rare showing of The Commitments at 11:25 p.m. that same evening). Gone With The Wind is showing at 9:45 a.m. on Wednesday 27th, followed by The Dam Busters at 1 p.m. Out of Africa is showing at 9:15 a.m. on Friday 29th. There's a Tom Hanks day of films on Saturday 30th, notably showing The Money Pit at 10:25 a.m.. Seven Brides For Seven Brothers is at 11:55 a.m. on New Year's Eve, followed by Hook at 2 p.m. (which used to be the most disappointing adaptation of Peter Pan, until this year's Disney version, which really makes me want to revisit and reacquaint myself more with what the Spielberg film was doing). An American In Paris is showing at 9:10 a.m. on New Year's Day, with Singin' in the Rain showing later that day at 2:10 p.m. and My Fair Lady at 4:15 p.m.

Beyond that, Possessor is showing on Film4 at 1:40 a.m. in the early hours of Christmas Eve. And Now For Something Completely Different turns up on BBC2 at 12:20 a.m. on Boxing Day, as well as at the exact same time on New Year's Eve, to make entering 2024 extra-absurd. To Live and Die In L.A. is on Film4 at 1:35 a.m. on Wednesday 27th. The only subtitled film showing over the fortnight is a repeat of Petite Maman at 2:25 a.m. on Channel 4 in the early hours of Saturday 30th. Film4 marks the liminal space transition period of New Year by scheduling Mulholland Drive at 11:15 p.m. followed by Climax as the first film of the new year at 2 a.m. The great Kevin Costner western Open Range transitions from edited afternoon showings on Channel 5 to the un-DOG-tagged Film4 for a 9 p.m. screening on Tuesday 2nd January (which makes for a nice tribute to the late Michael Gambon too). And after showing the Julia Ormond-starring First Knight for the first time in over a decade a few months back, Film4 pick up the earlier Ormond film (and surprisingly rarely shown) drama Legends of the Fall at 9 p.m. on Thursday 4th - I'm looking forward to seeing that one again the most.

In terms of television programmes, after those two Noël Coward plays on Boxing Day evening, and to tie in with this year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures being about A.I., there are a couple of intriguing looking programmes from the BBC's archive being shown on BBC4 in the form of a 1967 programme Towards Tomorrow: Robot at 1 a.m. and the 1978 Horizon programme Now The Chips Are Down at 1:55 a.m.

The repeats of the archive television programmes from the previous year continue on BBC4 with Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective series being repeated over Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th, leading into the first of the strand for the new year with the 1995 Colin Firth starring version of Pride & Prejudice showing with the first half of the series showing in a large chunk of three episodes on Wednesday 3rd preceded by an interview with screenwriter Andrew Davies at 10 p.m.

Another rum old Xmas schedule again this year by the sound of it, though it still probably won't stop me from buying the double-issue Radio Times, although it's now more out of habit than anything else. Such blatantly lazy scheduling from the BBC in their film choices. A Bogart double-bill you say? Oh wait, it's Casablanca for the millionth time. The Big Sleep is always welcome, of course, but when was the last time they broadcast Across the Pacific? Or High Sierra?
A Musical? Just chuck on Singing in the Rain, it's got Princess Leia's mum in it right?

Anyway, here's my own personal Xmas schedule for this year.

Xmas Eve: Stick on a silent comedy, possibly a Chaplin, for late afternoon. Always a tradition for me.
Early evening, vintage TV Xmas special, possibly a Steptoe & Son or Nightingales or somesuch.
This year's film will be the festive family favourite The Night Train Murders, followed by a YouTube upload of 1981's eerie Christmas Spirits and - if I haven't passed out from too much whisky - I'll probably stick on my old dvd of Blast of Silence and let Lionel Stander's gravelly-naration lead me into a Noir-induced slumber.

Xmas Day. Probably be too busy to watch anything until the evening, at which point I'll probably stick on my Vinegar syndrome disc of Don't Open 'til Xmas, possibly followed by this year's AGFA Xmas download thing.

Boxing Day. Musical for the afternoon. Possibly a Berkeley, Gold Diggers '33 or The Gang's All Here. Can't think of a more perfect pairing than BB's slightly weird, overstuffed sensibility with that of the zonked-out feeling of Boxing Day. Some Tex Avery for the afternoon, followed by a suitable ghost story (not watching Mark Gattis' crap modern attempt this year - it feels like masochism at this point!). Possibly go for the Woman in Black this year (R.I.P Network Releasing) and then top it off with some festive Twilight Zone or some Dead of Night. Ho ho ho . .

[colinr0380]

Yes, sadly it is pretty uninspired with the only really big things the animated films from Disney and company. I even left out the Dustin Hoffman double bill on BBC4 on Thursday 4th, which inevitably is just Rain Man and The Graduate again.

Just to recap some of the stats of the film year on UK television, there were quite a few big names who had their films shown for the first time during the year but the four directors who share the honours for most premieres during the year (they only needed two to qualify) are:
Ari Aster, with Hereditary and Midsommar
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, with Drive My Car and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
Makoto Shinkai, with Your Name and Weathering With You
Adam Robitel, with Escape Room and Escape Room: Tournament of Champions

And the honourary Ron Howard "So Close, Yet So Far" award goes to Ti West, where if X was premiering this year instead of on 5th January would also have had two premieres together with In The Valley of Violence.

[jlnight]

Strange Invaders, Sat 23rd Dec, Talking Pictures. (also on Legend) Or...
The Vengeance of She, Sat 23rd Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 2nd Jan.
For Queen and Country, Sat 23rd Dec, London Live. (on before) Or...
Stigma (1977 BBC TVM), Sat 23rd Dec, Talking Pictures.

Mia and the White Lion (2018), Sun 24th Dec, London Live.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Sun 24th Dec, London Live.
The Call of the Wild (1972), Sun 24th Dec, London Live. Or...
An American in Paris (1951), Sun 24th Dec, Sky Arts.
Big City (1963), Sun 24th Dec, Talking Pictures. (Baim Archive short)
Sweeney!, Sun 24th Dec, London Live. (also on Legend)
The Ice House (1978 BBC TVM), Sun 24th Dec, Talking Pictures.

The Phoenix and The Magic Carpet (1995), Mon 25th Dec, London Live.
Dogpound Shuffle, Mon 25th Dec, London Live.
The Trouble with Angels, Mon 25th Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 1st Jan.
Murder by Decree, Mon 25th Dec, London Live. (also on Legend) Or...
Whistle and I'll Come to You (2010 BBC TVM), Mon 25th Dec, Talking Pictures.

The Great Rupert (1950), Tue 26th Dec, Talking Pictures.
Champions (1984), Tue 26th Dec, Talking Pictures. Also Sat 6th Jan. (also on London Live)

Number 13 (2006 BBC TVM), Wed 27th Dec, Talking Pictures.
The Spoilers, Wed 27th Dec, Legend.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Whistle and I’ll Come to You seems a bit macabre for a Christmas day viewing. I imagine though it is because it aired on Christmas Day in it’s original broadcast.