Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

[jlnight]

Wheels of Terror (Misfit Brigade), Sat 19th Nov, Legend. Or...
Private Road, Sat 19th Nov, London Live. (last seen on C4 in 1987)

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, Sun 20th Nov, Sky Arts.
Surge (2020) + Precious Hair and Beauty (short), Sun 20th Nov, BBC2.
Empire State, late Sun 20th Nov, Film4. (shown in 2011)

London (1994), Tue 22nd Nov, London Live. (last on in 2015)
Two of Us (2020), late Tue 22nd Nov, Film4.

Down Among the Big Boys (TVM) + The Elephant's Graveyard (Play For Today), Wed 23rd Nov, BBC4.
Les Miserables (2019), Wed 23rd Nov, Film4.

Nomads (1986), Fri 25th Nov, Legend. (been on TPTV) Or...
M*A*S*H (1970), Fri 25th Nov, Great Movies Action. Or...
Mr Pip, Fri 25th Nov, London Live. Or...
Haunted (1995) + Island of Doomed Men + Creature with the Atom Brain, Fri 25th Nov, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club)
Who Killed the KLF?, Fri 25th Nov, Sky Arts.
Ghost in the Shell (1995), late Fri 25th Nov, Film4.

[colinr0380]

Wow, that will be the premiere of the 1995 Ghost In The Shell on freeview UK television channels if that is the case (I wonder if it will be the subbed or dubbed version. The original one or the "2.0" CGI-augmented revision? So many questions!)

Plus fingers crossed that hopefully Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence will be on the schedule if they are doing the first! (And if I were in charge of the scheduling, I'd be looking into Avalon too)

[jlnight]

The Hill is a no-show on 5Action.

Looking at my notes I have apparently seen Ghost in the Shell as far back as the year 2000. I didn't see it on VHS or DVD so it must have been on television, I suspect the old Sci-Fi channel on Sky Digital. Probably dubbed but I can't remember much about it. The new listings suggest dubbed, the TV Times suggests subbed, so I guess we'll find out.

[colinr0380]

Yes, I think that it has definitely been on satellite channels (Sci-Fi and/or general Sky satellite channels) a few times but definitely not on any of the major free to air channels. So the remake made it to those years before the original film did (although I do remember that there was a now long defunct freeview digital channel, the name of which escapes me now, that I discovered around 2007 and which closed down the Autumn of that same year, that was actually showing the Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex seasons along with Cowboy Bebop (both in their English dubbed versions) and introduced me to Guru Larry (aka Larry Bundy Jr.) and Wez who actually talked about video games on the TV! And also showed Francis Ford Coppola's Dementia 13! But that was getting into the niche, here today-gone tomorrow, tucked away in the far reaches of the Electronic Programme Guide channels)

Very little anime has shown on general television beyond the Studio Ghibli films in the last couple of decades (apart from the CBBC channel which has been regularly showing a lot of the Pokemon films in dubbed form). Unfortunately the discovery of those for more mainstream audiences never really translated into wider examples of anime getting shown, especially compared to when it was everywhere in the 1990s. Even ITV showed that In The Aftermath film a few times before the turn of the millennium!

It was mostly Channel 4, who did a lot of screenings of the multi-part Manga Video series throughout the 1990s (Doomed Megalopolis, Tokyo Babylon, Cyber City OEDO808, The Legend of the 4 Kings, Heroic Legend of Arslan, 3x3 Eyes, the two Devil Man OVAs, Battle Angel Alita, and the one-off OVA Judge. Plus the first dozen or so episodes of the Fist of the North Star dub in 2000) but in terms of feature films we have to go to BBC2, which premiered Akira in January 1994 (in a double bill with Mad Max, which was quite a way to get introduced to those films for the first time! The Jonathan Ross hosted 'introduction to anime' programme "Manga!" dates from that screening, shown the night before. Which is also why it doesn't know about Ghost In The Shell at that time, but luckily it does know about Helen McCarthy who would come out with her seminal Anime Movie Guide encyclopedia in the Summer of 1996), then in 1997 repeated Akira (and that Jonathan Ross piece) in a short anime season with the premieres of Roujin Z and Mamoru Oshii's early classic Patlabor: The Mobile Police first feature film. Following that in March 1998 BBC2 showed The Wings of Honneamise (in the BBFC cut version sans-the arguably crucial attempted rape scene which only got reinstated in the UK with the Blu-ray edition a few years back).

Otherwise that was it aside from Film4 showing Tekkonkinkreet and Satoshi Kon's Paprika in 2012, and lots and lots of Ghibli (BBC2 having access to Spirited Away, and Film4/Channel 4 to all the rest). Film4 did show the first Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend film (presumably the heavily edited by the BBFC version!) and the wonderful early Gainax pre-Neon Genesis Evangelion series Gunbuster in their early years of existence, but that was back when it was initially a monthly pay subscription satellite channel rather than a Freeview digital one, so I'm not counting those.

[colinr0380]

Excellent and eclectic next week. jlnight has noted the main things but there's one more big piece of news:

BBC1 is showing the first two (of eight total) episodes of Tokyo Vice on Tuesday 22nd with the first Michael Mann directed episode showing at 9:10 p.m. and the second showing after the news at 10:50 p.m., so if things follow that pattern, the rest of the episodes should air in the weeks on the run up to Christmas.

BBC4 is starting its latest world television drama too with the first two (of eight total) episodes of Mexican series Señorita 89 showing from 9 p.m. on Saturday 19th

ITV1 is showing Shazam! at 6:40 p.m. on Saturday 19th, which clashes against Film4 premiering very belatedly the 2007(!) Scarlett Johansson-starring The Nanny Diaries at 6:55 p.m. Though The Nanny Diaries does get repeated at 7 p.m. on Friday 25th.

Sunday 20th BBC2's BFI British film season has Ben Wishaw starring in Surge at 10 p.m. followed by short film Precious Hair and Beauty at 11:35 p.m. Though there is the proviso that the snooker final is just beforehand, which is likely to overrun considerably!

Les Misérables (which jointly won the Jury Prize at Cannes with Bacurau) is showing on Film4 at 11:55 p.m. on Wednesday 23rd. And ignore what the RadioTimes or anyone else says, the screening of the 1995 Ghost In The Shell on Film4 at 12:40 a.m. in the early hours of Saturday 26th is its first freeview screening on UK television.

Plus Channel 5's Christmas TV movie premieres throughout the week reach eleven, including another film directed by David DeCoteau and starring Vivca A. Fox (they're just trolling us at this point!) with A Christmas For Mary at 3:15 p.m. on Monday 21st. BBC2 is not to be outdone with its own double-bill of Christmas TV movies from 2:15 p.m. on Friday 25th as well (which amusingly means that the director Bill Corcoran gets two premieres in a single week, with The Christmas Temp at 1:30 p.m. on Monday 21st on Channel 5 (just before A Christmas For Mary), and Christmas In Toyland at 2:15 p.m. on Friday 25th on BBC2! Sadly no sign of either channel scheduling his Kirk Cameron starring Christian rapture sequel-film Left Behind 2: Tribulation Force any time soon! Maybe they are saving it for when the Russian-Trump-WEF alliance gets more into gear?)
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Repeat-wise Film4 is showing the 18-rated version of Saturday Night Fever at 11:20 p.m. on Saturday 19th and as jlnight notes Film4 is showing the fascinating-looking Empire State at 12:45 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 21st. Wolfgang Petersen's hijack thriller Air Force One has transitioned from the 5Star digital channel to air for the first time on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Monday 21st.

BBC4's classic television strand continues with a night devoted to Billy Connolly on Wednesday 23rd (the day before his 80th birthday) with a couple of his travel documentaries from 8:15 p.m. (expect brief buttock nudity!) leading up to a screening of the 1993 drama Down Among The Big Boys (also starring Douglas Henshall) at 10 p.m., followed at 11:30 p.m. by the 1976 Play For Today that he starred in, The Elephant's Graveyard which was directed by John Mackenzie (before The Long Good Friday) and which is one of the films that was included in the second volume of the BFI's Play For Today series of DVDs. (And the following evening there is a double bill of Connolly's roles in the films Mrs Brown and the 2012 Dustin Hoffman directed Quartet. I presume they could not stretch to premiering The Boondock Saints?)

[colinr0380]

I have also just noticed that the Legend channel (formerly the Horror channel but which appears to have changed its name in the last couple of months to branch out a bit beyond horror films) are showing a couple of premieres. Ghosts of War is showing at 11:10 p.m. tomorrow Friday 18th, but particularly interesting is a 2018 version of The Golem at 10:50 p.m. on Friday 25th which looks very The Witch influenced from its trailer!

[colinr0380]

Incidentally, I was thinking that the name "Rusty Cundieff" - who has directed Christmas In Harmony showing this afternoon at 4 p.m. - sounded familiar whilst looking through Channel 5's deluge of TV movies for this week, and it turns out that he is the director of the Tales From The Hood films and many of the episodes of the Chappelle's Show TV series! And the fantastic Spinal Tap of rap music film Fear of a Black Hat!

[domino harvey]

Fear of a Black Hat is probably on Criterion's radar-- better it than CB4!

[jlnight]

It Happened Tomorrow (1944), Sat 26th Nov, Talking Pictures.
Syncopation, late Sat 26th Nov, Talking Pictures.

The Glass Key, Sun 27th Nov, Sky Arts.
Mogul Mowgli + Expensive Sh*t (short), Sun 27th Nov, BBC2.

Fanny Lye Deliver'd, Mon 28th Nov, Film4.

Finisterre (2003), Tue 29th Nov, London Live.

In Cold Blood (1967), Wed 30th Nov, Talking Pictures.

Next of Kin (1982) + The Haunted Strangler (Grip of the Strangler) + The Awful Dr Orloff, Fri 2nd Dec, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club)
Planet Terror, Fri 2nd Dec, Film4. (EDIT)

[colinr0380]

Fanny Lye Deliver'd, Mon 28th Nov, Film4.

The first film by Thomas Clay (aka previously alleged to be the forum poster known as Nothing) to air on UK television!

[colinr0380]

Not too overwhelming compared to this week but a few very interesting oddities next week.

The big premiere in the BBC/BFI British film season is the other film Riz Ahmed-starring film of 2020 along with Sound of Metal, Mogul Mowgli at 10:15 p.m. on Sunday 27th, followed by the short film Expensive Shit at 11:40 p.m.

Fanny Lye Deliver'd is showing on Film4 at 11:20 p.m. on Monday 28th. And interestingly Channel 5 has an evening film premiere of the first Rise of the Footsoldier film at 11 p.m. on Friday 2nd December, which is part of that post-Guy Ritchie/Matthew Vaughan run of celebratorily flashy British gangster films that were epitomised by Nick Love and appear to have had a long straight-to-DVD life, which mostly seem to be centred around Essex and a real life crime, which was something I went into a little more detail in this earlier post from when Channel 5 showed the fourth film in the Rise of the Footsoldier series. I did not note it before this - because why would I - but Channel 5 is repeating the 2005 Nick Love directed film The Football Factory in the same 11 p.m. timeslot this Friday 25th, and I can only assume these hooligan-adjacent films are turning up as Channel 5's cheeky tie-in to the current World Cup going on.

Anyway that very belated premiere on Channel 5 (which RadioTimes gives a disdainful one star 'poor' rating to!) clashes with (as jlnight has just noted) Film4 showing the Robert Rodriguez half of the Grindhouse film, Planet Terror at 11 p.m. the same evening. Now, I'm less 100% certain about this than with Ghost In The Shell this Friday (because it may have turned up on the Horror digital channel a few years back? :-k ), but this is certainly the first showing of Planet Terror on any of the main UK television channels, so I am going to disagree with the RadioTimes again about this being a repeat.

(I feel more confident that Death Proof has not appeared at all on UK television as yet, which I am putting down to television schedulers baulking at all the dangerous driving, lady-threatening and people doing stupidly life-threatening stunts for the thrill of it all!)

The Channel 5 Christmas TV movie premiere count reaches 17 films in single week! Four films on Saturday alone, running from noon to 7:15 p.m.! The directors Stacey N Harding and Jeff Beesley both get two films premiered within days.... and, yes, there is another David DeCoteau/Vivica A.Fox premiere with Christmas Together at 1:30 p.m. on Friday 2nd! (Sounds like someone's double-booked the right (not wrong!) impossibly luxurious Christmas chalet!)

That's fourteen films that DeCoteau has helmed shown in a single year. Can his rampage through the schedules ever be stopped?
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Television programme-wise, Señorita 89, The English and Tokyo Vice are continuing apace on BBC4, BBC2 and BBC1 respectively (albeit just a single episode of Tokyo Vice on BBC1 at 11:10 p.m. on Tuesday 29th). After a short hiatus the second series of How To With John Wilson is showing on BBC2 with a double bill of the first two episodes at 11 p.m. on Friday 2nd (which means that, yes, Friday 2nd is the most packed night of the week with How To clashing with Rise of the Footsoldier and Planet Terror)

And BBC4's classic television strand reaches a biggie with Alison Steadman introducing a rare repeat of Dennis Potter's 1986 series The Singing Detective from 10 p.m. on Wednesday 30th - three episodes that evening and presumably the last three episodes the next Wednesday.
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Repeat-wise there are a couple of interesting, though relatively minor, shifting rights going on in refreshing Film4's schedule. After regularly appearing on ITV4 during the afternoons, Film4 seem to have picked up Force 10 From Navarone and are showing it in an evening slot at 11:20 p.m. on Saturday 26th just after a repeat of Air Force One, to make a Harrison Ford double bill. Not that it particularly matters with the Indicator edition of that film available, but this might potentially let the film play unedited in a late night timeslot, and it will of course show un-DOG-tagged on Film4. And after years of being in Channel 5's schedule (and mostly on the 5Star digital sub-channel), Film4 have nicked Under Siege and are showing it at 9 p.m. on Friday 2nd, just before Planet Terror.

Film4 are also repeating Venus at 11:55 p.m. on Tuesday 29th (presumably as a tribute to the late Leslie Phillips) and are showing the last Ealing fim, the thriller The Long Arm at 5 p.m. on Friday 2nd.

[colinr0380]

Anyway that very belated premiere on Channel 5 (which RadioTimes gives a disdainful one star 'poor' rating to!) clashes with (as jlnight has just noted) Film4 showing the Robert Rodriguez half of the Grindhouse film, Planet Terror at 11 p.m. the same evening. Now, I'm less 100% certain about this than with Ghost In The Shell this Friday (because it may have turned up on the Horror digital channel a few years back? :-k ), but this is certainly the first showing of Planet Terror on any of the main UK television channels, so I am going to disagree with the RadioTimes again about this being a repeat.

(I feel more confident that Death Proof has not appeared at all on UK television as yet, which I am putting down to television schedulers baulking at all the dangerous driving, lady-threatening and people doing stupidly life-threatening stunts for the thrill of it all!)

And breaking news: Film4 have just trailed that Death Proof is screening the next evening, on Saturday 3rd. Which is a strange inversion of the way that the Tarantino film normally gets presented as coming first in the double-bill!

[dekadetia]

Which is a strange inversion of the way that the Tarantino film normally gets presented as coming first in the double-bill!

The Rodriguez film was first in the original theatrical run of Grindhouse, in the U.S. at least.

[colinr0380]

It may also just be the way I have them lined up alphabetically on my shelf! (EDIT: Actually on re-watching them over the weekend, it may just be because Marley Shelton makes a brief appearance as her Planet Terror character in a pre-zombie apocalypse hospital in Death Proof. So that usually makes me think of Death Proof as coming first in a double bill!)

The screening of Ghost In The Shell yesterday evening was the original 1995 version in Japanese with subtitles, which was nice to see.

[jlnight]

Tiara Tahiti, Sat 3rd Dec, London Live.
Experiment in Terror, Sat 3rd Dec, Talking Pictures.
Death Proof, Sat 3rd Dec, Film4. (like Planet Terror, been on Horror)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Sun 4th Dec, Film4.
This Gun for Hire, Sun 4th Dec, Sky Arts. (been on Great Movies)
The Cheap Detective, Sun 4th Dec, Talking Pictures. Or...
Cow (2021) + 2003 (short), Sun 4th Dec, BBC2.

Sea Fury (1958), Tue 6th Dec, London Live.
The Long Wait, Tue 6th Dec, Talking Pictures.
Speak Like a Child, Tue 6th Dec, London Live. (been on BBC in 2004 and 2000)

Time Without Pity, Wed 7th Dec, Legend. (been on TPTV)
Anatomy of a Murder, Wed 7th Dec, Talking Pictures.
Mulholland Drive, Wed 7th Dec, Film4. (Blue Velvet on tomorrow)

The Wings of Eagles, Fri 9th Dec, 5Action.
The Internecine Project, Fri 9th Dec, Legend. (been on London Live) Or...
The Mephisto Waltz + Long Weekend (1977) + The Howling III, Fri 9th Dec, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club)
Dune (1984), Fri 9th Dec, Film4.

[colinr0380]

Wow, Mulholland Drive (like Death Proof and Planet Terror) I can confirm has been on what used to be called the Horror channel a few times, but never on any of the main freeview channels. So Film4 seem to be on a spree at the moment of finally 'premiering' these films for those with just the basic range of freeview channels.

Surprisingly for what might I might argue is the most 'accessible' Lynch film outside of The Elephant Man (it is probably worth noting now that BBC2 is repeating that film again this Wednesday evening at 11:50 p.m.) or The Straight Story, it has been the last to air on what used to be called the terrestrial channels (I mean even Inland Empire got one extremely surprising screening on ITV1 - the most mainstream of mainstream commercial TV channels - in 2012. Albeit at about 1 or 2 a.m., but still!). Only Twin Peaks: The Return remains restricted to just its satellite airing now!

Just off the top of my head in terms of Lynch films The Elephant Man and Blue Velvet are the most shown Lynch films on UK television - they certainly are the most heavily repeated currently, by the BBC and Channel 4/Film4 respectively. The Straight Story is beginning to catch up due to Film4 starting to show it quite regularly in an 11 a.m. weekend slot every few months or so. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me has not been shown since its premiere on BBC2 in late 1995. Similarly Lost Highway has not appeared on television for over twenty years since its premiere on Channel 4 in 2001. The Twin Peaks series has not been repeated since BBC2 started screened the two seasons from October 1990 for the first and so far only time. The Grandmother has not been shown since BBC2's "Weird Night" in 1994! Wild At Heart I don't think has appeared since it was shown in a Nicolas Cage season by Channel 4 in early 1996, probably because of its brutally violent opening murder (I always amuse myself by imagining a completely fantastical situation of a viewer having been charmed by Cage in the previous week's premiere of Honeymoon In Vegas and happily tuning in to this week's film to see what that nice Mr. Cage is up to this time around, only to get that opening!). So any of those turning up again for a welcome return soon would be nice to see. Plus Inland Empire, of course!

[colinr0380]

Relatively quiet next week but with some enormous highlights. jlnight has noted all of the main films and there is little else tucked away, but it is worth going through them again.

The only big new premiere of the week is Andrea Arnold's mooving drama Cow in BBC2's BBC/BFI season at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday 4th, followed by the short film 2003 at 12:05 a.m.

But the big news is Film4 finally showing big films which have previously been tucked away in the furthest reaches of the digital channels with Death Proof finally getting shown on on a major channel of Film4 at 10:55 p.m. on Saturday 3rd. (And it appears that they are showing the Grindhouse films in the right order, with Planet Terror coming first, if this trailer is anything to go by! I don't know, Planet Terror always felt like more of a "B" feature to Death Proof, in a good way)

So that means that more people can play the game with Planet Terror of wondering if it is just a giant unofficial remake of Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City, get to enjoy the physical comedy of Marley Shelton's paralysed hands, the intentional Jeff Fahey/Michael Biehn pairing as brothers that seems to be intentionally playing on their interchangability as actors, and wonder if Fergie was in on the 'brainless' joke; along with Bruce Willis doing an obvious cameo appearance in a 'big name role' that was filmed separately from any of the other action as an amusing bit part long before it unfortunately actually came true in real life! And equally as unfortunately endure another Tarantino 'acting' role!

And with Death Proof there is the pleasure there of the Convoy/Telefon references and that wonderful first 'hang out' half of the film with the four (actually five) charismatic women on a night out which leads to an astonishingly nasty climax (only made all the more brutal by doing it over an over again from each separate but equally doomed perspective), before we get to that somewhat more underwhelming 'revenge' second half with much less likable victims-turned-aggressors that turns stuntman against stuntwoman. Maybe that's the point, that only people in the same profession can get both the same thrills, and fight each other on their own 'filmic' level? And whilst I like the first half of the film more, there is probably some sort of statement going on about the way that after the relatively sensible actions of the women in the first half that helps them none; that the second half is full of characters doing head-slappingly dumb and deadly things before they get targeted for terrorisation, and feels there purely as bluntly contrived filmic set up for the (admittedly impressive) car chase scene that exists purely for the spectacle!

Its as if Tarantino gives us half a film about the 'great' things about exploitation films and half the 'bad' things simultaneously in both sections of his film, then swaps them around - in the first half we get all the wonderful detailed character stuff but a downbeat horrific ending that gives the viewers looking just for action loads of talk (albeit the best kinds of talk, as befits a Tarantino film) and then quick uncathartic violence, but done in such a way that it will stick with a viewer for some time to come; and in the second half he does the other kind of exploitation film where you just grit your teeth through the 'character' stuff (or fast forward through it) just to get to the great car chase section that is the entire reason for that film's existence, before a 'simple' triumphant ending that is perhaps the most disturbing thing in the entire film!

That climax is perhaps the first example of the provocateur getting things pushed beyond what he has planned for (ending in awkwardly bluntly literalised wish fulfilment, for both parties) which became such a central theme in Tarantino, as that happy moment of complicity the Kurt Russell character expresses after that big chase sequence, where it feels like he is so happy to have finally found kindred psychopathic souls (and who are repeatedly bangable, rather than one and done) is something that finally shows his essential human weakness and chink in his armour plating, and he gets his supreme climax of finding a group of girls just as twisted as he is immediately taken out of his hands now that he has caused his putative victims to finally get the chance to go on an all out violent attack (in real life rather than just movie stunts) that they have been dreaming of for so long.

The Kurt Russell character here feels like he prototypes the Landa character in Inglorious Basterds or the Manson gang in Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood. Bill in Kill Bill just before this is more superior and knowing, but also fatalistic and accepting compared to these later figures who get their long delayed comeuppance in a manner that is more brutally personalised and ‘in your face’ than the more clinical and emotionally distanced industrial scaled, agenda-driven form of violence that they deal out.
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And then as jlnight notes the really big news of the week is Mulholland Drive making its way onto the main freeview channels for the first time (fortuitously coming just after the results from the latest Sight & Sound poll) with Film4 showing it at 11 p.m. on Wednesday 7th. That seems to be starting a Lynch season with, as jlnight has also noted, Blue Velvet at 11:10 p.m. on Thursday 8th and a similarly rare on the main channels in recent years (but often showing on the Horror channel) showing of the 1984 version of Dune at 10:55 p.m. on Friday 9th. I think I said a while back that I always associate Lynch films (and Dune particularly) with being perfect for snuggling up with on these kind of pre-Christmas dark Winter nights.

(And since I am going through a commercial phase at the moment, I've always associated Lynch's Dune with that Fry's Turkish Delight ad!)
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Other than that the only other film news is that Channel 5 is continuing its Christmas TV movie pile-up with another fourteen premieres over the next week. That actually matches this week as while they had advertised 17(!) films, three of the four premieres scheduled for last Saturday were suddenly pulled and replaced with repeat screenings of other Christmas TV-movies instead, so there have 'only' been fourteen this week as well. Maybe that was a case of Channel 5's eyes being too big for its belly? That line up includes two films by director Brian Herzinger with A Welcome Home Christmas and The Christmas Fix Up. Sadly no sign of his helmed Psycho Yoga Instructor from 2020 or its 2022 follow up Deadly Yoga Retreat (which looks like a semi-remake of the second half of Death Proof) as yet. Maybe next year?

And why yes, there is another David DeCoteau/Vivica A. Fox film being premiered next week! Christmas Matchmakers is showing at 1:30 p.m. on Friday 9th. That's fifteen individual films premiered this year!

By the way the dominant trends in Christmas TV movies this year appear to include dead mothers, itinerant members of undefined European (but let's face it, British) royalty finding love before returning home to take on their responsibilities of running a country, and big city types trying to run gift shops. Lots and lots of gift shops. We've also had a Hispanic christmas feature in the roster for the first time (the gays were sooo last year!).
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Repeat-wise the 5 Star digital channel is doing a tactical move against Death Proof by showing both Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2 in a double bill from 10 p.m. on Saturday 3rd. BBC2 is showing The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp at 2 p.m. on Sunday 4th.
___
TV-wise the fourth episode of Tokyo Vice is on BBC1 on Tuesday 6th, though whether it airs at 10:40 or 10:55 p.m. will depend on the football. BBC4's repeats of The Singing Detective continue from 10 p.m. on Wednesday 7th with episodes 4, 5 and 6. For some reason E4 have moved the new episodes of the sixth season of Rick & Morty to 9 p.m. on Tuesday 6th. And series 2 of How To With John Wilson shows episodes 3 and 4 from 11 p.m. on Friday 9th.

[colinr0380]

Before I mix it up with the other dozen Christmas TV movies showing this week, I wanted to highlight A Welcome Home Christmas, shown this morning, as having being particularly amusing with a mind-bending turn into magical realism at the end. It is not really unique in anything that occurs in it, but I think it shows that after years of these films that we are reaching an interesting point where now that all of the standard Christmas movie genre plots have been run through, we are now starting to get those really interesting weird experiments in combining plot beats and mixing up standard expectations. Albeit within a certain standard template, but A Welcome Home Christmas really feels like a mega-mix mash-up of every possible idea in the genre (except for the fantasies about Royal Princes one), which I guess makes it kind of the One Missed Call summation of its genre of Christmas TV movies? Though that might be too great a burden to place onto it!

This film was made in 2020 and in a way it shows itself to be a transitional film since its main structuring element is the one that involves members of the armed forces overseas who may or may not (but of course they will be, as a third act 'surprise') be home for Christmas. That felt like a major trope of Christmas TV movies in the mid-2010s to 2019 or so, but has almost disappeared now, with this film the only one of the 25 or so new films shown so far this season that has used this premise, and that may be because it is slightly on the older side for these films which are often made and aired within the same year.

Anyway, the plot of this one involves a lady working as an army counsellor at a centre that welcomes returning veterans home from overseas, and tries to help them reintegrate into life back in the US. Finding them jobs and a purpose to life now that their service is over, as well as helping with any residual traumas from their previous life. The latest returnee of course is going to be the man that she will inevitably fall in love with, and they initially bond over working on an Army Christmas charity drive together when they need to drum up funds themselves rather than getting a budget from their sympathetic General O'Toole (first name later revealed to be Peter, to humourous effect ). But they end up being so successful that General O'Toole manages to drum up funding in the end anyway, which suggests that he was either apathetic towards the whole enterprise until his heart was re-warmed by a cup of hot chocolate (about which there will be more to say!) or it was all some sort of elaborate test? Because he wanted to create the circumstances in which the couple would have to use their soldierly skills to bond and work together as a team to organise the Christmas charity drive? (which may be reading too much into that character, but then the second half of the film contains so many characters acting ambiguously about what they know and how involved they are in the situation - including a certain famous character who may have been behind it all! - that I could easily believe on looking back that perhaps the General was in on everything too!)

Anyway, this charity drive involves both a cute-but-sad kid with parents both deployed overseas being used as a blunt tool to coerce various shopkeepers through a combination of guilt and cuteness to contribute to the charity drive (though she really needed to have been subtler about it than dancing around waving the cheque above her head in happiness right outside the store they have just left! If I were that shopkeeper, I would have immediately cancelled that cheque just on general principle for them doing that!) and then dives into the bulk of a Christmas TV movie of all the logistical work that goes into dressing every square inch of every single surface with Christmas lights and tinsel. This is where A Welcome Home Christmas ties in with all those other 'I'm an itinerant big city Christmas planner who has to come home to my small town and do all of their Christmas preparations for them'-style films, as the charity event is being done on an industrial sized town scale rather than a single home or business one to the extent that it goes from improbable that just two people are doing everything to actually having to get them able to mobilise a literal army of helpers and town council members to get everything done (which reaches quite amusing proportions when the inevitable giant Nutcracker props are being lorried into the giant hanger where Santa's grotto is being set up for the big climactic scene of the film!)

But there are still moments of intimacy for all that (which ties the film in with those smaller scale 'saving the family home/business together'-type plots) where our main couple have a burgeoning, though of course always circled around until the last possible moment, romance by doing Christmassy things together. At first just the practical things for the charity drive, but we soon get to find out that the returned veteran has rented a rather luxurious but rather cold, house where he is still living out of boxes (and worst of all has put up no Christmas decorations at all, which may seem like nothing in the grand scheme of things but when you have seen enough of these films where the set decorators have usually been working overtime to Christmas-up everything beyond the realms of anything one single person could realistically do (or afford the electric bill to keep running!) to then be presented with an image of an un-decorated room makes Michael's living room seem as austere as a room in a Bergman film! And it feels like an intentional meta-joke to have committed, albeit briefly and soon rectified by a woman's intervention, the ultimate sin in this genre!), which means we soon get to the key scene in these films: the couple bonding over dressing a Christmas tree together! Which in my family I remember only ever led to arguments and my mother letting me have the illusion of putting baubles on the tree at first, only to surreptitiously later in the evening come back and 'fix' it so it looked actually presentable! (There you go TV movie producers, there's your free plot set-up for a Christmas film - the drama that comes from a child's traumatic realisation that they only thought they were good at Christmas decorations when in fact their mother was behind the scenes pulling strings for them all along! Change it to a mid-30s career woman realising that her mother was actually organising all of her high profile Christmas planning contracts for her as an overly elaborate way of getting her to come back to the hometown for Christmas, and I think you'd have a neat twist on a couple of tropes right there!)

Back to the actual film: there is a transparent, but kind of nice in how flimsily anti-dramatically obvious it is from the moment it gets introduced, padding of the romance by Michael casually stating when fixing Chloe's car's heating for her (that's another one of those minor but surprisingly ubiquitous tropes by the way: couples bonding over car engines, usually with a twist to show that the woman is as much if not more of a gear-head than the man is, to prevent it being about him having to do anything so crude as to 'save' her from a breakdown situation. Sometimes its the guy who has broken down and the girl has to stop and help!) that he had to leave someone behind who meant the world to him when he decided to leave the Army, but rather conveniently for the plot/annoyingly for actual human behaviour not saying anything more than that. Which Chloe takes as meaning that Michael was, and still is, in love with another woman, but of course it is screamingly obvious that its not that at all. I was actually wanting to shout at the screen "it's a truck. He had a special humvee or something that saved him in Afghanistan and likes to refer to it as "Her", but he had to leave it behind!", but it turns out to be something different but within the same ballpark, as:

Spoiler

the "she" he left behind was his service dog of over a decades companionship. Which I should have cottoned on to sooner than I did, given all the lingering shots of him hugging a dog in the black and white framed photograph that is lingered on a number of times. It does allow for Chloe and the General to turn that late-dawning knowledge into the inevitable last minute one-two combo of touching reunion and perfect Christmas gift rolled into one!

So that is a bit of Shakespeare misunderstanding-style drama that is so low key as to be as untroublingly anti-dramatic as possible, with the primary drama of the centre of the film more revolving around a best hot chocolate judging contest (which apparently all US towns have? This is where this film bridges into more modern Christmas TV movie tropes, as there have been entire films based around that 'hot chocolate' trope! Though surprisingly none of which have featured Hot Chocolate's "I Believe In Miracles" on the soundtrack to this point as far as I am aware) in which Chloe's mother has to compete, although her being unable to control her mirth at General Peter O'Toole's name might count against her when he turns up as one of the Judges for the contest! Luckily he sees the funny side and apparently delivers the deciding vote that wins it for Chloe's mother, and they both gleefully arrange a date together whilst the rest of the runners up all look on grumpily in the background!

That turns out to be a double date with Michael and Chloe (though they are both still pretending to be 'just good friends' of course), who inevitably have to get up in front of the entire restaurant and do a surprisingly professional singer-quality impromptu Christmas song duet together, to rapturous applause!

We get another brief complication of the Colonel at Chloe's Army office wanting her to spend a bit less time on Michael's single case (and charity work for the entire town in general) to actually mentor some of the other returning veterans on her docket (which is this film's equivalent of the third-act crisis "the boss is forcing me to return to the big city to work over Christmas, and the romance is probably not real so I might as well go" that many of these films feature), though that gets quickly defused with the help of Michael doing some behind the scenes deus ex machina fixing with Chloe's latest client.

And then we get to the really mind-bending scene as after the film has been resolutely down to earth for the majority, we get to the big Christmas Eve Santa's grotto scene where, after a brief panic over the hired Santa being unable to come because of an ill reindeer and the apologetic person on the other end of the phone says that they can put them on a waiting list to be first to get a Santa after Christmas (which rather misses the point!), the Santa surprisingly turns up. But he rather suspiciously seems to know all of the kids names beyond just those that Chloe had primed the agency about ahead of time, and even has a suddenly appearing present to give to the obviously on the breadline mother along with her child (we know she is on the breadline because Chloe gives her and her daughter a hot chocolate 'free of charge' earlier in the film, which they both gratefully accept, as if they had never seen a cup of hot chocolate in their lives before!). Then things get even more suspicious when the precocious young girl from earlier, whose only wish from Santa was to have her parents back for Christmas, gets her wish.

Spoiler

And then the film goes all in by "Santa" pretty much revealing he is the actual Santa Claus in his discussion with Chloe, before she gets a call from the agency saying that they actually have a Santa if she wants one now, before she and Michael get to look on incredulously and see the shadow of the actual Santa disappear in a puff of CGI and tinkling bells!

And then after that shocker, which kind of makes me wonder why a major figure like that was taking a minor supporting role in a very low key story in which his presence was not particularly needed or necessary plot-wise, things go disconcertingly back to down to earth again, with a Christmas day family scene back in Michael's now fully furnished to within an inch of its life living room, the reunion of Michael and his dog, and the long delayed kiss between the couple: by which I mean both between Michael and the dog, and then between Michael and Chloe!

Very cute, and I think I was so overwhelmed by the sheer barrage of different story strands by the end of it that I was kind of bludgeoned into finding it impressive. So I may just be addled as to the quality, but I think this may have to be my pick so far to represent the TV movies of the season.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Speaking of Shakespeare, Channel 5 had a Much Ado About Christmas movie on today, which had a Claude (Claudio), Hayley (Hero), Ben (Benedick), Beatrice, Leona (Leonato) and Don (Don Pedro). Obviously, Whedon did a Much Ado film, but I'm surprised it was never made during the late 90s/early 00s teen adaptation of Shakespeare phase that clearly peaked with She's the Man.

[colinr0380]

(For me that cycle peaked with Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Love's Labour's Lost as a 1930s-style musical. It may be the only Branagh Shakespeare film that fully works because an overly manic musical is at least still somewhat entertaining, and it may be controversial to say but I think replacing half of the Shakespeare text with musical numbers expressing the broad sweeps of the emotional point of the scene both gets away from having to see Branagh tackling Shakespeare more than absolutely necessary, and seems to result in perhaps the loosest and most giddily entertaining of his Shakespeare adaptations when freed from labouriously grappling with the text)

Yes, "Much Ado About Christmas" was actually due to play tomorrow afternoon but was shown with the other Brian Herzlinger film of the week that was due to have shown on Thursday afternoon, The Christmas Fix Up, today instead. The other two films that were meant to have been premiered being unceremoniously dropped (much as "Mistletoe Time Machine" - yes, they're apparently doing time travelling Christmas TV movies now, which is another sign of having done almost every possible variation on the subject - was dropped from the schedule yesterday). The films airing tomorrow were according to the RadioTimes due to have been aired on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, so something is throwing the schedules into disarray and randomising everything, for some bizarre reason.

Actually the reason is probably down to the Chief Executive of Channel 5 who in an interview in the RadioTimes a few months ago was actively (almost aggressively) proud of being able to 'react instantly' by changing the schedules (even in normal times, let alone in response to an unexpected national event such as the recent monarchy situation), which amusingly revealed that this constant meddling after the listings magazines had gone to print was what caused the RadioTimes to relegate the Channel 5 listing off the main two pages of daily listings (replacing its 'premium spot' with the much more reliable BBC4 instead) and into the secondary listing pages as a kind of 'punishment'. It is one thing to react to a 'big' event, or even just swap around Christmas TV movies with each other that nobody but maniacs like myself will probably note, but the Chief Executive was apparently even doing it with prime time programmes too, and was even leaving series half-finished mid-way through their runs because they were not getting the expected ratings to replace them with something else without warning mid-way through. I think that was what caused the 'punishment' from the RadioTimes more than anything, because they might have highlighted a series through previews in their pages and then would consequently be the ones who would get the brunt of complaints from frustrated viewers when only two episodes out of a six part series got shown!

[jlnight]

Abandon Ship!, Sat 10th Dec, Talking Pictures.
711 Ocean Drive, Sat 10th Dec, Talking Pictures.
Confessions of a Window Cleaner, late Sat 10th Dec, Talking Pictures. (yes, they're showing the rest!)
Sputnik (2020), late Sat 10th Dec, Film4.

Ocean's Eleven (1960), Sun 11th Dec, 5Action.
Touch of Evil, Sun 11th Dec, Sky Arts.

Murder by Contract (1958), Mon 12th Dec, Talking Pictures.

A Bunch of Amateurs (2022), Tue 13th Dec, BBC4.
La Civil, late Tue 13th Dec, Film4.

Terry on the Fence (CFF), Wed 14th Dec, London Live.
Star Trek: Nemesis, Wed 14th Dec, Film4. (first nine Star Trek films also on Film4)
Perfect Friday (1970), Wed 14th Dec, Talking Pictures.
Deed of Death, late Wed 14th Dec, Film4.

Nineteen Nineteen, Fri 16th Dec, London Live. (last on C4 in 1992) Or...
The Other (1972) + Bloodbath at the House of Death + Hysteria (1997), Fri 16th Dec, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club)
The Oak Room, Fri 16th Dec, Film4.


Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire have both appeared on London Live. Wild at Heart has definitely been shown in recent times on Freeview, I'm guessing ITV4 maybe. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was on BBC2 in 2000 I think. Eraserhead was on Channel 4 four times between 1985 and 2000.

[therewillbeblus]

I enjoyed 711 Ocean Drive when I went through the Indicator noir box earlier this month. Its pleasures are familiar but the core characters are anchored by better-than-deserved performances and interesting actor choices. There are also some surprisingly amoral arcs occurring from these people who otherwise hold auras of some cognizance to morality, yet filmed without gravitas, making the nonchalant attitude of the filmmakers one with the disillusioned genre. It's not trying to reinvent the wheel though, and is basically the perfect movie to watch mid-day on a wintry lazy Saturday afternoon

[colinr0380]

No particularly big film but lots of interesting bits and bobs next week. The big night of the week is Tuesday 13th where everything annoyingly clashes together. There is the fifth episode of Tokyo Vice on BBC1 at 10:40 p.m., whilst BBC4's Storyville season continues with A Bunch of Amateurs at 10 p.m., which when jlnight posted the name I had initially assumed was a repeat of that Burt Reynolds film, but is apparently a documentary about a Bradford filmmaking club. That all clashes with Film4 premiering the Mark Wahlberg film Mile 22 at 9 p.m., and a repeat of Ridley Scott's Black Rain at 10:55 p.m., which amusingly had Alan Poul as an Associate Producer on it, who is Executive Producer of Tokyo Vice and even directs the final episode of the series! So he's competing against himself there! (If Film4 really want to tie in or compete with Tokyo Vice on the BBC, they should consider showing Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters on their channels for the first airing since 1998, since that was Poul's first producing role: he's a great presence on the Criterion commentary track for that film)

And of course E4 moved the new episodes of Rick & Morty to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays too, so that clashes with everything else on that evening as well!

Beyond that (and the fourteen Christmas TV movie premieres on Channel 5 throughout the week) Film4 pretty much owns the week in new films with a lot of interesting films from around the world. jlnight has already noted them, but I'll add their trailers.

In the early hours of Wednesday 14th (just after the repeat of Black Rain) at 1:20 a.m. Film4 are showing the Mexican film La Civil. The Malaysian film Deed of Death is showing at 1:15 a.m. on Thursday 15th; and the Canadian film The Oak Room at 11:10 p.m. on Friday 16th. Plus, er, the Tiffany Haddish film Uncle Drew at 7 p.m. on Friday 16th, which according to the RadioTimes has apparently been "edited for content"!
___
Repeat-wise Film4 has the most interesting films of the week too. There is a Thomas Turgoose double bill on the night of Thursday 15th with a rare showing of Shane Meadows' Somers Town at 11:10 p.m. (which I seem to remember being the only other film other than Kore-eda's Kiseki/Miracle/I Wish that was funded by a railway company and had its storyline written to reflect that! I think in this case EuroStar, hence the train travel and Channel Tunnel featuring prominently in it as 'product placement'!) followed by The Scouting Book For Boys at 12:35 a.m.

Though the really rare repeat, and the film of the week I'm most excited about is The Holly and the Ivy from 1952 starring Celia Johnson and Ralph Richardson, with early roles for Denholm Elliot and a pre-Doctor Who WIlliam Hartnell! That's on FIlm4 at 1:10 p.m. on Wednesday 14th.

There's a bit of a George Clooney week going on with the BBC, with Suburbicon showing on BBC2 at 11:15 p.m. on Monday 12th and Out of Sight showing on BBC1 at 10:40 p.m. (or 11:25 p.m., depending on the football), repeated on BBC3 at 9:45 p.m. on Friday 16th.

BBC2 is showing A Matter of Life and Death at 2 p.m. on Saturday 10th, which is always nice to see but especially after its recent strong showing in the Sight & Sound poll.

And BBC4's classic television strand continues with a repeat of the 1996 adaptation of the Iain Banks novel The Crow Road with a ten minute introduction from the lead actor Joe McFadden from 10 p.m. on Wednesday 14th. That was originally four one hour episodes but it is showing in two two-hour blocks this time around, with episodes 3 and 4 showing together from 10:55 p.m. on Thursday 15th.

[DarkImbecile]

The big night of the week is Tuesday 13th where everything annoyingly clashes together. There is the fifth episode of Tokyo Vice on BBC1 at 10:40 p.m., whilst BBC4's Storyville season continues with A Bunch of Amateurs at 10 p.m., which when jlnight posted the name I had initially assumed was a repeat of that Burt Reynolds film, but is apparently a documentary about a Bradford filmmaking club. That all clashes with Film4 premiering the Mark Whalberg film Mile 22 at 9 p.m….

Let me assure you that the Wahlberg movie is extremely skippable, no matter what it’s up against

[colinr0380]

The big night of the week is Tuesday 13th where everything annoyingly clashes together. There is the fifth episode of Tokyo Vice on BBC1 at 10:40 p.m., whilst BBC4's Storyville season continues with A Bunch of Amateurs at 10 p.m., which when jlnight posted the name I had initially assumed was a repeat of that Burt Reynolds film, but is apparently a documentary about a Bradford filmmaking club. That all clashes with Film4 premiering the Mark Whalberg film Mile 22 at 9 p.m….

Let me assure you that the Wahlberg movie is extremely skippable, no matter what it’s up against

Yes, there was already no way it could compete against Tokyo Vice and A Bunch of Amateurs! Plus it looks exactly the kind of Bloodshot/Mechanic/xXx "9 p.m. action" film that Film4 will be certain to repeat to death a few times over the next months.