DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

ALEX STRACHAN

MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2017
Dec
24
 
 
On Christmas Eve, there are many, many things to enjoy on television, because TV knows there are a lot of eyeballs out there – many of them belonging to adults who are exhausted already, and lots of them looking for things to keep the young ones quiet, and relatively still. Encore is one of those savvy TV programmers, and tonight presents the three Home Alone movies in a mini-marathon – starting with John Hughes’ smash 1990 original, in which eight-year-old Kevin (Macaulay Culk
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Dec
24
 
 
Now that the live-action version is out, ABC is celebrating the holidays by bringing back the 1991 animated original movie musical, with the voices of Paige O’Hara as Belle and Robby Benson as the Beast.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Dec
24
 
 
With NBC-owning Universal holding exclusive rights to this 1939 holiday fantasy drama starring James Stewart, it now shows up rarely, and usually at well-timed occasions. Here, for example, it’s shown exactly when it ought to be: on Christmas Eve.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Dec
24
 
 
A well-timed instant repeat from Friday: For four years now, CBS has shown a pair of colorized episodes of I Love Lucy: one of them always the aptly named “The Christmas Episode,” from the classic sitcom’s final season in 1956, and the other a newly computer-colorized episode from the Lucy canon. Tonight, the new color-enhanced oldie is “The Fashion Show,” from 1955. It’s the one in which Lucy, linking with several other show-biz wives, puts on a fashion show
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Dec
24
 
 
Like Home Alone, Die Hard launched a franchise, but began as a holiday movie – or, at least, one set during the holidays. Remember, this 1988 action film, which next year turns 30 years old, stars Bruce Willis as John McClane, whose wife is one of several office workers taken hostage during a Christmas party.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Dec
24
 
 
One week ago, Fox presented a live, musical version of A Christmas Story. Tonight, both TBS and TNT present the original 1983 movie – and present it and present it, for 24 hours straight. That’s a lot of Fragile…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Dec
24
 
 
Another well-timed instant repeat from Friday: The Dick Van Dyke Show, too, is a CBS classic given the colorized treatment of late. And while I’m of two minds about this phenomenon – I’m fine with the original black-and-white versions, yet these full-color versions are tinted with taste and care – anything that preserves the legacy of The Dick Van Dyke Show, the smartest and funniest sitcom of the 1960s, is fine with me. Tonight’s special offers two newly colorized
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Dec
23
 
 
If you’re looking for a movie to watch on the night before the night before Christmas, TV offers a lot of them. For the slightly older members of the family, there’s this 1992 comedy starring Joe Pesci. It’s a riot, and not only for the standout, caricature-perpetuating performances by Pesci (as a brash New Yorker used to talking his way through everything, and finding it tougher when he travels to rural Alabama to defend his cousin on a murder charge) and Marisa Tomei (as his
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Dec
23
 
 
This 2015 movie picked up the Star Wars saga, bringing Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill back, but shifting most of the story line to the next generation of Star Wars stars, including Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega. All of them are back in the next installment, just hitting theaters – but this is a nice, stay-at-home alternative.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Dec
23
 
 
The perfect family movie, shown when many families are gathered, and, by now, maybe looking for something to help avoid arguments. And The Wizard of Oz will work, so long as you don’t think of President Trump as the Wizard, the Munchkins as Congress, and the Wicked Witch of the West as Hillary Clinton.