7 holiday films that are guaranteed to be on TV
Christmas Eve is over. My full belly needs to recover from the previous evening's feast. Time to sit back and relax. Luckily, there's always the same thing on TV during the festive season. Here are 7 festive films that are guaranteed to be shown somewhere.
If you're reading this and today is 25 December, then you're doing something wrong. Honestly. Why aren't you sitting in front of the telly by now? The Christmas stress is over, you've got time. Or do you? It's the time of year when the usual blockbusters and evergreens that are never seen all year round are playing up and down on the telly.
Let's make a game out of it. Holiday film bingo. It goes like this: I'll list seven films that are guaranteed to be playing somewhere. Because it's terribly predictable. And no, I haven't looked in the programme. I promise. I'll try not to pick out the most obvious ones. I leave out the Moses or Jesus Bible stories. And if you can think of any better examples: Put them in the comments column.
Ben-Hur (1959): The greatest sandal film of all time
"Ben Hur" by director William Wyler is based on the novel of the same name by Lew Wallace. The chariot race alone is more than enough to justify the place in film history that the film has. It would later become George Lucas' Pod Race scene in "Star Wars: Episode 1". In addition, there are incredibly elaborate sets, mass scenes that would all be created on a computer today and actors who give a performance for the ages. "Ben-Hur" has rightly won eleven Oscars - holding the record together with "Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King".
Die Hard (1988): Yippee-ki-yay mother, motherf...!
Director John McTiernan not only launched Bruce Willis' career in 1988 with "Die Hard", but also completely reinvented the action hero. Because in the 1980s, supermen like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger dominated action cinema. John McClane is the anti-thesis. He is an everyman, the right guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. A hero who swears and bleeds and only appears human through his vulnerability. Then the filmmakers came up with the idea of setting the film at Christmas. The result is a Christmas action thriller that simply runs every year at Christmas time.
Home Alone (1992): A family comedy without a family
I'll eat a broom if it doesn't run. "Home Alone", also known as "Kevin Alone at Home", is hilarious and warms the hearts of those who think they are alone. In the sequel - which is sure to be shown somewhere - Kevin ends up alone in New York. The paths of director Chris Columbus and film music composer John Williams would cross again years later in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980): Almost so cheesy it hurts
Okay. The film, in German "The Little Lord", is brutal. Brutally cheesy. And little Cedric is so exaggeratedly big-hearted, kind and friendly to everything with legs that I only watch it when I'm in the mood. So at Christmas. In films, it's often the hero who undergoes a transformation during their adventure after learning an important lesson - the classic hero's journey. This is about how the little lord's good-heartedness brings about a change in his environment, the status quo. A similar film formula to what you see today in the two "Paddington" films.
Scrooged (1988): That, or any other version of "A Christmas Carol"
Director Richard Donner's film, in German "The Ghosts I Called", is one of what must be a hundred book adaptations of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". And it's pretty much the craziest version of it I've ever seen. This miser who is converted at Christmas is wrapped up in a modern guise. And funny. And Bill Murray is always a winner anyway. Full stop.
Frozen (2013): It's snowing, there's singing, and it's guaranteed to be on somewhere
No one really expected "The Frozen", as the German title suggests, to become such a big hit. The film is okay, even quite cute, but nothing that knocked my socks off. But this isn't about what I really like, it's about what's guaranteed to be on during the holidays. And "Frozen" will definitely be one of them. I'll bet a snowman on it.
James Bond - Octopussy (1983): If not that one, then any other with Roger Moore
No one has characterised James Bond as much as Roger Moore. He portrayed the British secret agent more often than anyone else. The longer the more his Bond films resembled an action comedy. Picking out a terrible Bond film from him was therefore not that easy.
"Octopussy" is special in that it was one of two Bond films that were shown in cinemas in 1983. The second: "Never Say Never Again" with Sean Connery. "Never Say Never Again" is a remake of "Thunderball" (1965), then already starring Sean Connery. However, "Never Say Never Again" was not produced by the original Bond maker Albert R. Broccoli. That's why "Never Say Never Again" is not part of the official Bond film canon, doesn't have the famous Bond soundtrack and its opening doesn't have the typical Bond opening with the view from the gun barrel. Shoot: wouldn't it have been better if I had guessed "Never Say Never Again"?
I write about technology as if it were cinema, and about films as if they were real life. Between bits and blockbusters, I’m after stories that move people, not just generate clicks. And yes – sometimes I listen to film scores louder than I probably should.
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