Films on TV round-up: dystopian and Dickensian

Yes, I know X Factor's over for another year. But while you wait for the inevitable 'Let's get the Damien Rice version to Christmas number one instead' Facebook groups to spring up so you can join them and feel like a proper music fan again, fill the time with some films on TV instead.

Commencing: Monday 12th December 2011

Westworld (1973) Wednesday, BBC1, 11.55pm



Dystopias, eh? What a bloody carry-on. One minute you're living in a utopia, then all of a sudden it all goes a bit dystopian, and before you know it, it's only gone and turned into a proper bleeding dystopia and no mistake. Hate it when that happens. I blame the EU. Anyway, here's one of several dystopian visions of the late Michael 'Jurassic Park' Crichton, who wrote and directed this story of a robot theme park that goes a bit wrong.

Richard Benjamin (he also directed The Money Pit! HANKSAFACT!) and his friend James Brolin head off to Westworld, where you can interact with lifelike androids in either a wild west, ancient Roman or medieval setting. It's the cowboy life for them, and all's going swimmingly till the machines decide they want to live and turn against them, and then the T-Rex gets loose and there's a little vibrating glass of water and ... no, wait. Ah, sod it: same thing, basically.

The special effects are a bit ropey by today's standards but you can forgive that quite happily: the tension's just about unbearable as 'The Gunslinger', an android played with icy robotic brilliance by Yul Brynner, pursues the two men relentlessly, Terminator-style. He's even got his own theme in the score which plays whenever he's chasing them. Remember when that used to happen in films? I tried playing Fight the Power by Public Enemy on my phone whenever I was walking to the bus stop for a few weeks, but it never really caught on in truth.

Jurassic Park fans who haven't seen Westworld will enjoy the similarities in what is basically a pre-CGI version of the same story, and everyone else will at the very least enjoy Yul Brynner saying: "He needs his mama."
Scrooged (1988) Saturday, E4, 4.30pm



The worst thing about Christmas TV scheduling (and with terrestrial TV commissioning in general, really) is the fact that they know they can lob a couple of period dramas at us and we'll smile sweetly and buy stuff from Argos if they sponsor the ad breaks. Charles 'Chuck D' Dickens's A Christmas Carol can and has been remade a million times, and it doesn't take a scrap of imagination or thought to do it again and again.

They should've stopped making them after Scrooged, though, because it's never been done with as much imagination as this and never will be again. And, crucially, this is the only time it's been done with Bill Murray, who would improve any film, play, audiobook or Argos advert he cared to appear in, because he is just about the greatest living human.

Bill's a cynical, misanthropic TV executive who gets visited by four ghosts who show him the error of his ways. You know the drill, but if you haven't seen it before you won't be quite prepared for how screamingly funny he is when he's a douche ("That's my son!" his assistant complains when he grabs a small boy by the collar. "All right, you beat him!" comes the reply) and how touchingly sweet it is when he inevitably becomes a nice guy later on.

Best Christmas film ever, and that's just cold, hard fact.
Also on this week

Hot Fuzz Monday, ITV2, 9pm
Lethal Weapon 3 Monday, ITV4, 9pm
We Own the Night Monday, ITV1, 10.35pm
Heavenly Creatures Tuesday, BBC1, 11.40pm
Cars Wednesday, BBC3, 9pm
Die Hard 4.0 Wednesday, E4, 9pm (also Saturday, 9pm)
Boogie Nights Wednesday, ITV4, 11.05pm (also Sunday, 12am)
The Day after Tomorrow Thursday, Film4, 6.30pm
Gremlins Thursday, ITV2, 10pm
The Long Kiss Goodnight Thursday, ITV4, 10.35pm
The Life of David Gale Friday, ITV3, 12.05am
Zoolander Friday, Film4, 7.20pm
Knowing Friday, Film4, 9pm
Speed Friday, C5, 9pm
Casino Royale Friday, ITV4, 10.30pm
Unforgiven Friday, ITV1, 10.35pm
Dead Man's Shoes Friday, Film4, 11.20pm
No Country for Old Men Friday, More4, 11.40pm
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Saturday, ITV1, 6.35pm
Tim Burton's The Nightmare before Christmas Saturday, BBC3, 8.55pm
Defiance Saturday, BBC2, 9pm
The Dirty Dozen Saturday, ITV4, 9pm
Forgetting Sarah Marshall Saturday, ITV2, 9pm
The Big Lebowski Saturday, Dave, 9pm
American: The Bill Hicks Story Saturday, BBC4, 11pm
The Omen Sunday, C4, 12.05am