In a Pavlovian response to Christmas, I find myself in receipt of a copy of the double issue of the Radio Times, even though my entire television viewing this year has dwindled almost to the length of a commercial break. It’s all those channels, all that choice – that’s the problem.
In response, I bring you today both a practical solution to this profligacy and a way to carve out for yourself a week of film watching that doesn’t adhere to what the schedulers would have you believe constitutes seasonal viewing.
Avoid the clichés of Christmas film viewing. Flee from The Great Escape! Say “Goodbye, yellow brick road” to The Wizard of Oz! Beg to differ with the assertion that It’s a Wonderful Life! And step into the New Statesman‘s Alternative Christmas Film Guide . . .
Christmas Eve
Festen (12 midnight, Sky Arts 2)
Dreading that family get-together? Stomach knotted at the thought of all those resentments being dredged up over a banquet of excessively boiled veg? After watching Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen, the first Dogme95 film, you can content yourself that at least your clan isn’t that screwed up.
Christmas Day
The Remains of the Day (4.25pm, Channel 5)
Carrie (12.10am, Channel 4)
Why has no one thought of pairing these literary adaptations in a double-bill? The repressed passion of Merchant/Ivory’s best film, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker-winning novel, will sit nicely when followed the same day by the operatic splurge of Brian De Palma’s Stephen King-inspired hormones-and-horror tour de force.
Boxing Day
Return to Oz (11.55pm, Sky Family)
The scariest movie screening on television over Christmas, and an abrasive companion piece to the already freaky original. It begins with Dorothy receiving ECT and later features a headless queen flailing around in a chamber full of her own screaming heads. Not sure how on earth this ever got greenlit, but thank goodness it did.
27 December
Dogtoothand Wasp (1.35am, Film4)
More slices of warped family life. Dogtooth is a Greek one-off about parents who have gone to unusual lengths to subdue and control their adult children; it’s shot with a crisp, formalist precision that lends its harrowing moments a refrigerated air. Wasp is the Oscar-winning short by Andrea Arnold which inspired her second feature, Fish Tank.
28 December
The Shooting Party (11pm, BBC4)
In between La Règle du jeu and Gosford Park, there was another brilliant “country house” drama, though this one is more often overlooked. James Mason (in his last cinema film), Edward Fox and John Gielgud star. Pour yourself a sherry and watch the upper classes in decay.
29 December
Fahrenheit 451 (3.20pm, Sky Classics)
Not because book-burning will be on your mind after clueless relatives bombard you with celebrity biographies – but because Nicolas Roeg’s zinging cinematography is a treat for the eyes. You also get two Julie Christies for your money.
30 December
Primal Fear (11.20pm, TCM)
A friend once pointed out that Richard Gere has two expressions, which can be summarised as: “Where are my keys?” and “Oh, that’s where my keys are”. Any limitations are put to good effect here in his performance as a blinkered, narcissistic lawyer stumbling upon the case of a lifetime. Excellent support from Laura Linney and Frances McDormand, and with a star-making turn from Edward Norton.
31 December
Fly Away Home (3.10pm, Five)
The writer-director Carroll Ballard made one of the greatest children’s movies of all time in 1979 with The Black Stallion. Then he did it again 17 years later in Fly Away Home, about a motherless girl (Anna Paquin) who gets to play mum to orphaned goslings. You might find you have something in your eye by the end.
1 January 2011
Roman Holiday (5.05am)
Whether you’re stumbling through the door in the first breath of the New Year, or unable to sleep because you’re still up compiling resolutions, there can’t be many more inspiring starts to 2011 than the sight of Audrey Hepburn tripping around Rome.
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