‘Pirates’ ahoy, funny videos, Nashville’s big bash & rockers ring in the new year!
All times Eastern.
FRIDAY, Dec. 27 Your Fault Based on the Culpable book trilogy by Mercedes Ron, this Spanish-language streaming flick stars Nicole Wallace and Gabriel Guevara in the continuing tale of young love and those trying to destroy it, including an ex-girlfriend seeking revenge (Prime Video).
The Greatest Home Videos: Holiday Edition Year-end Christmas fun, cute pets and more holiday hijinks, hosted by Cedric the Entertainer, below (8 p.m., CBS).
SATURDAY, Dec. 28 Pirates of the Caribbean Marathon Set sail with Johnny Depp and the rest of the high-seas scallywags for back-to-back airings of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and The Curse of the Black Pearl (3 p.m., TNT).
SUNDAY, Dec. 29 1923: A Yellowstone Origin Story Watch Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren in a double feature of episodes of the Yellowstone spinoff-sequel (8 p.m., Paramount).
MONDAY, Dec. 30 Darby and Joan Season two begins tonight of the Aussie drama about a retired detective (Bryan Brown) and widowed nurse (Gretchen Scacci) in Queensland (Acorn TV).
Who I Am Not Documentary about a South Africa beauty queen dealing with the discovery that she’s nonbinary. It’s a heart-wrenching look at a fight for acceptance in a world that’s wired differently (10 p.m., PBS).
TUESDAY, Dec. 31 Nashville’s Big Bash Host Keith Urban rings in the new year with Kane Brown, Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, Eric Church, Post Malone and other top stars in live performances from downtown Music City (8 p.m., CBS).
NYE Concert Marathon Celebrate all day with some rocking concert performances from Fleetwood Mac, Queen, AC/DC (above), Bon Jovi, ZZ Top, Blondie, Journey, Willie Nelson and Sammy Hagar (8 a.m., TBS).
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 1 Luther: Never Too Much Learn about the smooth soulful singer Luther Vandross, from his formative years in Harlem through his days on Sesame Street, before becoming the master of the love song (8 p.m., CNN).
THURSDAY, Jan. 2 Holiday Baking Championship Tired of cooking after the holidays? Then sit back watch other people as they rise to the challenges of host Jesse Palmer (8 p.m., Food Network).
Lockerbie: A Search for the Truth What caused Pan Am Flight 103 to explode over a Scottish town in 1988, killing 259 passengers and crew. Colin Firth and Catherine McCormick star in this dramatization of the search for answers, and the truth (Peacock).
New remake of the original vampire flick stirs up chills anew.
Nosferatu Starring Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult & Willem Dafoe Directed by Robert Eggers Rated R
In theaters Wednesday, Dec. 25
A beautiful bride becomes a ravenous obsession for a monstrous vampire in this spectacularly spooky spin on an old, oft-told tale.
How old, and how oft-told? Well, the original Nosferatu was a silent movie back in 1922, long regarded the first vampire film. It was based on the novel Dracula, by Bram Stoker, from the late 1800s. That story, and that movie, are both lauded as groundbreaking masterpieces, launching multitudes of other movie offshoots over the next century. Now this new, supremely crafted creepshow stirs up the terrifying roots of the classic story with chills anew, pouring on a moody megadose of gloomy Gothic doom, dark red blood and gasp-y (sometimes ghastly) arousal to offset all your cozy holiday feelings of comfort and joy.
Lily-Rose Depp (yep, Johnny’ Depp’s model-turned-actress daughter) is Ellen, the young newlywed suffering from unsettling nightmares and violent seizures. Her husband, Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) is a London real estate agent sent to faraway central Europe to arrange for a new home for the mysterious—and chilling—Count Orlock. (Though it’s never mentioned by name, a glimpse at an upside-down map notes the region as “Transylvania.”) And guess where Orlock wants to relocate? Yep, in London, just down the street from Ellen and Thomas.
Is Ellen sick with worry for her traveling husband? Or maybe distempered with melancholy, perhaps even possessed? Her friends (The Crown’s Emma Corwin, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are concerned, puzzled, and unsettled by her troubling spells. During Thomas’ absence, they summon the local doctor (Ralph Michael Ineson), who eventually calls on a scholarly professor of all things ancient and occult-y (Willem Dafoe, perfectly cast).
Soon enough, the prof gets a pungent whiff of what’s up. Turns out the count (Bill Skarsgård) is a vampire with an appetite for blood—and a beyond-the-grave crush on Ellen. But by then, the bodies are piling up, rats have infested the town, the count has arrived after a fateful shipboard journey, and some little girls discover, tragically, that imaginary monsters aren’t so imaginary.
Director Robert Eggers is a maestro of malevolence, as he demonstrated in his previous films The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman. He confidently paints this tale with all kinds of disturbia and draws out—sometimes graphically—the mythos of sexuality that’s often been sublimated in vampire stories. Ellen’s writhing agonies are close to ecstasies as Orlock seduces her from afar, causing blood-spurting, eyeball-bulging contortions—and orgasmic sighs. As different characters say throughout the film, “He is coming!” Uh, well, you could put it that way.
Willem Dafoe is a vampire hunter.
The movie also explores the nature of evil in a world of yore where demons and curses and fairytales are real, science and religion powerless against unholy darkness, and death a fact of life. Orlock, who turns out to be the eternally unquenchable demon Nosferatu, is quite literally death itself. Can the “plague” he brings to London be stopped? Not just with a stake—or pickaxe—through the heart, I’m afraid.
Let’s talk a minute about actor Bill Skarsgård. He’s best known for playing another demonic character, the killer clown in two It horror flicks. Here’s he’s truly unrecognizable under layers of facial prosthetics and slinking around like a half-decomposed corpse. Cloaked in shadow for most of the movie, he’s a hideously ossified incubus, a profane beast for the ages. He is indeed the stuff of nightmares.
And so is this movie, now leading the pack as the best—and most lavishly unnerving—scary movie of the year. It’s a devilishly potent, magnificently orchestrated scare fest that’s intentionally unsettling, but also strangely comforting. Because it’s a dark, delicious reassurance that as long as Robert Eggers is making movies, horror is in good hands.
Timothée Chalamet channels Bob Dylan in tune-filled biopic about the young troubadour.
A Complete Unknown Starring Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro Directed by James Mangold Rated R
In theaters Wednesday, Dec. 25
He hitchhiked a ride, in the back of a station wagon, into New York City in 1961—as a complete unknown—with dreams of becoming a successful singer/songwriter. That’s how this vibrant biopic of Bob Dylan begins, setting up its intoxicating whirl through the turbulent first half of the decade as the former Robert Zimmerman becomes the new “youthful” voice and face of folk music, setting the foundation for all that would follow.
And just this time last year, Timothée Chalamet was singing a different tune, as the spry young chocolatier Willy Wonka. Now he’s kicked it up a few notches and dug down deeper, giving a much more matured, grounded and finely nuanced performance as the enigmatic, petulant, creatively restless and intriguingly shape-shifting writer of such classics as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changing,” “It Ain’t Me Babe” and “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall.” He sings like Dylan, talks like Dylan, looks like Dylan and even nails Dylan’s tics and mannerisms. I’ll let true Bob Dylan scholars weigh in on the deep-dish accuracy, but to me, it sure feels like Chalamet could well be in the year-end Oscars race.
The movie introduces us to other real-life characters in Dylan’s early orbit. There’s banjo-playing elder statesman Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and the legendary Woody “This Land is Your Land” Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), twin pillars of era’s folk scene. Monica Barbaro, from NBC’s Chicago franchise (Chicago Justice and Chicago P.D.), brings fire, spice and ice as folksinger Joan Baez; her complicated and testy relationship with Dylan—she calls him an “asshole,” he disses her songwriting as something like “an oil painting at a dentist’s office”—becomes one leg of a romantic triangle with Bob and New York artist Suze Rotolo (Elle Fanning). Ozark’s Charlie Tahan is Al Kooper—who’d later go on to found Blood, Sweat & Tears—as he scoots behind the Columbia studio’s Hammond B3 for a Dylan session and lays down the distinctive organ intro for “Like a Rolling Stone” (a line from which the movie takes its title). And there’s country hitmaker Johnny Cash (Robert Holbrook), who becomes a pen pal and idol to young “Bobbie.”
Director James Mangold, whose wide-ranging movie and TV work also includes Walk the Line (2005), the Oscar-nominated biopic about Johnny Cash and wife June Carter, creates an authentic, almost encyclopedic milieu of the times, from music-makers in hippie-dippy clothes and smoky Greenwich Village coffeehouses to brow-creasing worries about Communists lurking everywhere, nuclear Armageddon and race riots in the aftermath of the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King. It shows how folk music became instrumental in the social activism of its times, its songs confronting and colliding with politics to create seismic pop-culture shifts and upheaval.
A Complete Unknown is really all about Dylan, how he became interwoven into the larger social fabric of the ‘60s, and how the success he wanted so badly also brought him a suffocating level of acclaim that he didn’t. And it’s about how he continually worked to create and re-create himself, twisting and retooling his musical identity in a stubborn refusal to conform to anyone’s expectations—and how even people close to him felt like they didn’t really know him, who he really was, or who he wanted to be.
Monica Barbaro plays Joan Baez.
Fittingly, the movie ends in 1965, just after Dylan goes “rogue” at the iconic Newport Folk Festival, causing a near riot by introducing a jangly bombast of electric instruments and drums for his three-song closing set—and then coming out, with just his acoustic guitar, to sing “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue.” It’s his final kiss-off to the folk darling he used to be, and how he started. Then he roars off on his motorcycle.
Music fans will dig it for sure, and everyone else—including those too young to “remember” Bob Dylan or the ‘60s—can certainly appreciate the care and attention that clearly went into depicting the events, and finally the pivotal moment when the young troubadour, only in his mid-20s, shook off folk music’s dusty past and headed down a highway into the future. Like a rolling stone, indeed.
Dolly’s Christmas party, a very special ‘The Price is Right’ & Frosty the Snowman’s X-rated past
All times Eastern.
FRIDAY, Dec. 20 Six Triple Eight Kerry Washington stars in this tale inspired by the first and only Women’s Army Corps unit of color to serve overseas during WWII (Netflix).
National Christmas Tree Lighting Annual TV tradition presented by the National Park Service and National Park Foundation, from President’s Park in Washington, D.C., with musical performances by Mickey Guyton, Trombone Shorty, James Taylor, The War and Treaty and Trisha Yearwood (8 p.m., CBS).
SATURDAY, Dec. 21 Frosty the Snowman Jackie Vernon, who voiced Frosty in this 1969 stop-motion classic, was in real life a standup comedian fond of X-rated jokes. Now you know! (5:40 p.m., Freeform).
Cartoon Christmas Get revved up for Christmas with vintage holiday episodes of Casper, Yogi Bear and The Flintstones (4 p.m., MeTV).
SUNDAY, Dec. 22 The Kennedy Center Honors Tonight’s honorees include director Frances Ford Coppola, the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, jazz master Autura Sandoval and the legendary music venue The Apollo. Hosted by Queen Latifah (9 p.m., CBS).
MONDAY, Dec. 23 Bird Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) stars in this coming-of-age tale (above) set on the margins of contemporary English society (Mubi).
TUESDAY, Dec. 24 The Price is Right Annual primetime special edition of the iconic game show honors “holiday heroes,” inviting first responders, police officers, firefighters and military members to “Come on down!” (8 p.m., CBS).
A Christmas Story If you’re not doing anything else tonight, or even if you are, tune in anytime between tonight and tomorrow evening to the annual 24-hour marathon of this 1983 now-classic about a boy who only wants a BB gun for Christmas (begins 9 p.m., TNT).
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 25 Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer In this 1964 Christmas classic, the voice of Donner the reindeer is often mistaken as that of Don Knotts, the star of the era’s popular spy-spoof series Get Smart. But actually it’s the voice of Paul Kligman, who went on to voice Peter Parker’s newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson several years later for an animated Saturday-morning Spiderman series (11 a.m., Freeform).
Jeff Dunham’s Very Special Christmas Special The ventriloquist and his dummy pals celebrate the Big C with some laughs (Comedy Central).
THURSDAY, Dec. 26 Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas The country queen draws on holidays past to find the unique “mountain magic” of Christmas. With performances by Jimmy Fallon, Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus and more (9 p.m., NBC).
Ocean’s Eleven Franchise Feeling a bit weary already of the holidays? Let George Clooney, Brad Pitt and all the other Oceans casts of all-stars steal your blahs away with a day-long marathon of heist dram-edy (1 p.m., Paramount).
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Give a soulful gift of music with the new remastered vinyl edition of Stevie Wonder’s The Definite Collection (Motown/Ume), a hit-filled two-disc roundup with his very first No. 1 in 1963, a live version of “Fingertips,” continuing through the decades with “For Once in My Life,” “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” “Superstition,” “Higher Ground” and more. Complete with pics from the Motown Archives and track-by-track info.
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You might not see much connection between scary comic books and Sunday School, but author Matthew Brake sure does. In Horror Comics and Religion (McFarland), the professor of religious studies breaks down the fascinating thru-lines that connect pulpy ‘zines—like Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror—to age-old religious ideas about hell, resurrection, redemption, demons, morality, the trinity, and more. It’s good stuff for horror buffs!
Jim Carrey all but steals the show from the little blue multimedia mammal
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Starring Jim Carrey, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter and the voices of Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba, Ben Schwartz and others Directed by Jeff Fowler Rated PG
In theaters Friday, Dec. 20
Since 1993—and Super Mario Bros.—Hollywood has been capitalizing on videogames and their built-in fan base of passionate gamers. Sonic the Hedgehog, the Japanese-based Sega series of the early ‘90s, has been one of the most successful, and most prolific, spilling over into television, comics and related games and generating its own galaxy of characters.
This third big-screen movie in the Sonic franchise continues the adventures of the quippy little blue computer-generated anthropomorphic hedgehog who can run faster than the speed of sound. Ben Schwartz (from TV’s Parks and Recreation) returns as the voice of Sonic, who’s joined again by his teammates, the brawny anteater Knuckles (voiced by Idris Elba) and Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessy), a gadget-guru fox.
It’s action-packed, zingy with wit and geared toward the generation-spanning audience the Sonic games and their multimedia spawn have been cultivating now for more than three decades. It’s a kid-friendly spy movie, a sci-fi tale, a meta heist comedy, a perilous adventure and a riff-tastic spin through time and space as Sonic faces off with another super-powered hedgehog named Shadow (voiced with just the right amount of angst by Keanu Reeves), discovering Shadow’s wrenching backstory and unraveling a sinister plot to, well, destroy the Earth.
There are shades of Mission Impossible, Raiders of the Lost Arc,Ocean’s 11, Armageddon, Austin Powers and James Bond, with nods to Godzilla and Casper the Friendly Ghost, loads of far-out gizmos and gimmicks and full-on montages orchestrated to the music of the Beach Boys and Jelly Roll. Even the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album cover gets a nod. And the moon gets sliced in half, like it was indeed made of cheese, and Sonic gets sucked into a gaping black hole. This little hedgehog sure covers a lot of ground.
Other familiar faces get in on the zaniness, including James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Krysten Ritter, Shemar Moore and Natasha Rothwell. And Alyna Brown, the young Australian actress who played young Furiosa in this year’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, has a small part that resonates throughout the film.
But the movie really belongs to Jim Carrey, who doubles down on his gonzo, over-the-top Jim Carrey-ness in a double role, returning as the rotund mad scientist Dr. Robotnik and also Robotnik’s mad-scientist grandfather. “It’s like we’re two characters, played by the same actor!” they both exclaim when they meet, looking into the camera for wink-wink emphasis. Carrey’s jokes fly fast and furious—even giving Sonic a run for his ha-ha’s—as he reflexively punches up nearly every scene with quips and puns and mannerisms and movie lines, from across the spectrum of his movie-comedy career, like he’s filling a carnival funhouse with his own greatest hits. If they handed out awards for best performance by Jim Carrey doing Jim Carrey alongside another Jim Carrey in a videogame franchise about a blue hedgehog, he’d be a solid shoo-in.
But for all its gung-ho go-for-it-ness, the movie has a soft, sensitive underbelly about friendship, family, making good choices, love and loss. It’s the awwwwwww at the center of all it all.
Fans of the franchise, of any age, will find a lot to like—especially in its end-scene hint of more to come. And everyone else, well, just sit back, buckle up and let Jim Carrey and Sonic take you on a way-out trip that suggests this speedy bright blue videogame breakout still has even more places for his blurry little legs to take him.
Adrien Brody is an immigrant architect working to build an American dream in this sprawling post-Holocaust drama
The Brutalist Starring Adrien Brody, Guy Pierce & Felicity Jones Directed by Brady Corbet Rated R
In limited release Friday, Dec. 20
Adrien Brody gives an impassioned starring performance as Lázló Tóth, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who emigrates to America in 1947 to build a new life, hoping to draw on his pre-wartime work as an architect back in Hungary.
Taking its name from a mid-century architectural style, The Brutalist is big and bold as it majestically sprawls across the years and Lázló meets a wealthy industrialist (Guy Pierce) who wants him to oversee a monumental legacy project on a hillside in Doylestown, outside Pittsburgh.
This is a large-scale, epic movie, the kind of serious, soulful drama that generates significant Oscar buzz. It’s gorgeous and enormous (three and a half hours long), filled with dramatic intensity, terrific acting, a multi-tiered plotline, complex characters and over-arching themes about the immigrant experience, antisemitism, homelessness, the downside of the American dream and the lofty aesthetics of design. Add opium addiction, lusty sex, a deadly train derailment and a shocking rape for spicy seasoning.
Felicity Jones plays Tóth’s wife, stricken with osteoporosis from wrenching malnutrition in a concentration camp, forcibly separated from her husband in the turmoil of the battle of Budapest at the close of the war—and now confined to a wheelchair. Their teenage niece (Raffey Cassidy) is an orphan, rendered mute by the traumas of what she’s endured. Joe Alwyn is a pompous, smarmy son of privilege; you’ll want to reach through the screen and give him a good, hard slap across his smug face. A Black U.S. Army veteran (Zachari Bankolé) that Lázló meets in a soup line becomes a close friend.
It all looks amazing, with elaborate period detail and impressive, sometimes jaw-dropping visuals, the kind of grandiose skyscraper of a movie—with an overture, intermission and an epilogue—that harkens back to Hollywood epics of yore. The soundtrack—with originals by composer Daniel Blumberg—is auditory magnificence. The movie towers over most others by its sheer scope, unbridled ambition and elegant artistic vision, like the massive, concrete, steel and granite construction project at its core—an achievement designed not just for the present, but a thing to be admired far into the future. The Brutalist isn’t a popcorn matinee movie. It’s a cinematic triumph, a thing of beauty constructed for the ages, and one I promise you’ll watch in awe.
An evening with Dua Lupa, rocking through the years with Elton, and Nate Bargatze’s all-star Nashville Christmas special
All times Eastern.
Elton John hangs with John Lennon in a new rock documentary.
FRIDAY, Dec. 13 Elton John: Never Too Late The iconic singer reflects on his life and five-decade career in this new rock doc. Plus, you’ll get to hear a brand-new EJ song! (Disney+).
Wonder Pets: In the City New animated series for preschoolers about a trio of critters (a snake, bunny and guinea pig) who live in a kindergarten in New York City when not zooming all over the world in a “Jetcar” to rescue other animals in need (Apple TV+).
SATURDAY, Dec. 14 Disney’s A Christmas Carol Jim Carrey is Ebenezer Scrooge in this 2009 retelling of Charles Dickens’ classic tale, with The Princess Bride’s Robin Wright and Cary Elwes in bit parts (10 a.m., Freeform).
Christmas All the Way Marathon Celebrate the upcoming holiday with Elf, Four Christmases and The Polar Express (AMC).
SUNDAY, Dec. 15 Dexter: Original Sin TV’s favorite serial killer returns for a new origin-story series starring Patrick Gibson and Christian Slater, with a special guest appearance by Sarah Michelle Geller (Paramount+).
An Evening with Dua Lipa The global superstar (above) performs her hits and new material with backing by a symphony orchestra in London’s famed Albert Hall (8:30 p.m., CBS).
MONDAY, Dec. 16 Little Big Town’s Christmas at the Opry Little Big Town hosts this all-star musical holiday celebration from Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry House, with performances from Kelsea Ballerini, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Kate Hudson and more (8 p.m., NBC).
Brenda Lee: Rockin’ Around Keith Urban, Pat Benatar and others weigh in on the pint-sized hitmaker, how her early fame and a life of poverty shaped her artistry across pop, rock and country, and how her signature song, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” became a holiday perennial (10 p.m., PBS).
TUESDAY, Dec. 17 Trans-Siberian Orchestra: The Ghosts of Christmas Eve Ossie Davis narrates, Jewel makes an appearance, and the famed Trans-Siberian Orchestra plays for this grand-scale tale of a runaway’s journey home on the night before Christmas (8 p.m., AXS).
The Beverly Hillbillies What better, the week before Christmas, than to watch this vintage episode of The Beverly Hillbillies from 1968, called “Week Before Christmas,” in which the Clampetts prepare to visit Hooterville for the holidays (9 a.m., MeTV).
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 18 The Secret Life of Animals Hugh Bonneville narrates the 10-part docuseries (above) about the behaviors and innate intelligence of the natural world around us, from fish to frogs and kangaroos and raccoons (Apple TV+).
A Saturday Night Live Christmas Re-watch memorable Christmas skits and sketches from the show’s 50 (yes, 50!) years of the iconic weekend comedy series (9 p.m., NBC).
THURSDAY, Dec. 19 A One Hour Ghostmas Special A leaky water heater threatens to ruin everyone’s holiday plans in this holiday episode of Ghosts (8 p.m., CBS).
Lost Treasures of the Bible The Good Book gets a good look in this docuseries that follows archaeological teams uncovering and investigating cities and civilizations featured in the Bible in some of its most famous stories, like the Tower of Babel (9 p.m., National Geographic).
Nate Bargatze’s Nashville Christmas The acclaimed “clean” comedian mixes stand-up yuks with pretaped comedy shorts, sketches, musical performance and special guests (9 p.m., CBS).
BRING IT HOME
Lady Gaga joins Joaquin Phoenix in Joker: Folie À Deux (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment), a continuation of the tale of Batman’s “trickiest” villain, now with a new accomplice/squeeze. One trick here: It’s dang near a musical! Extras include a longform making-of documentary, and other behind-the-scenes goodies.
One of the most critically hailed films of the year, Conclave (Universal) arrives now on Blu-ray. Rallph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow lead the cast in the story of a group of priests gathering—in conclave—to elect a new pope. It’s got intrigue, suspense, secrecy, scandal and surprises galore…and that’s all before the timely shocker at the end. Highly recommended.
Classic Christmas flicks, Simpsons football & Paris & Nicole go to the opera!
Reality TV stars Paris Hilton & Nicole Richie are back in a TV special.
All times Eastern.
FRIDAY, Dec. 6 The Sticky Inspired by real events, this six-part heist comedy series stars Margo Martindale as a maple syrup farmer who turns to crime when the going gets…well, gummy. With Chris Diamantopoulos and Jamie Lee Curtis (Prime Video).
Paris Has Fallen When a terrorist group attacks a high-profile Paris event in this eight-episode series, investigators discover someone hellbent on widespread vengeance (Hulu).
SATURDAY, Dec. 7 Home Alone Would Christmas be as Christmas-sy without this 1990 classic, which made little McCauley Caulkin into everyone’s favorite pint-sized holiday prankster? Methinks not. And stick around: It’s followed by its sequel, Home Alone 2 (3:25 p.m., Freeform).
Merry ‘80s Marathon Time travel back to a decade of yore with this slate of classics, including National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (above), Ghostbusters and The Great Outdoors (AMC).
SUNDAY, Dec. 8 Miss Scarlet Victorian England’s first female detective (Kate Phillips from Peaky Blinders) gets a new start for the show’s fifth season with a new “boss” in Scotland Yard (PBS Masterpiece Prime).
The Equalizer In tonight’s holiday-themed episode, “Slay Ride” (above), McCall, Dante and Miles find themselves held hostage in a hospital that’s been taken over by a cartel (8:30 p.m., CBS).
MONDAY, Dec. 9 The Simpsons Funday Football Monday Night Football transforms in this TV special—using state-of-the-art 3D animation—into the world of TV’s most successful primetime family as the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Dallas Cowboys (8 p.m., ESPN, Disney+ and ABC).
The Real Full Monty Anthony Anderson rallies his male celebrity friends in this TV event to drop trou, “bare it all” and raise awareness for prostate, testicular and colorectal cancer (8 p.m., Fox).
TUESDAY, Dec. 10 Dr. Suess How the Grinch Stole Christmas Another modern-day Christmas classic, this 2000 remake of the animated 1960s classic was directed by Ron Howard (yes, that Ron Howard) and featured Jim Carrey as the Grinch. Watch for Christine Baranski, Jeffrey Tambor, Molly Shannon…and Howard’s younger brother, Clint (8.30 p.m., Freeform).
Nature of the Crime Get an inside look at the working of the criminal justice system in this documentary, which follows two men convicted of murder when they were teens, their attorneys and their family members as they prepare for upcoming parole interviews and reflect on their crimes and rehabilitation (HBO).
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 11 A Motown Christmas Smokey Robinson and Halle Bailey (above) host this all-star musical event with Gladys Knight, Martha Reeves, Andra Day, Pentatonix, Jamie Foxx, the cast of MJ the Musical and more, singing holiday favorites. Dig it! (9 p.m., NBC).12.12
Too Many Christmases How can a couple spend Christmas with both their families in an attempt to please everyone? You’ll find out in this merry holiday dramady starring Denzel Whitaker and Porscha Coleman (Bet+).
Paris & Nicole: The Encore Two decades after making the scene with their reality-TV series, heiresses Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie return with a new TV special, this time trying to produce an operetta. Yes, you read that correctly (Peacock).
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Get in the happy holiday mood with Hartfelt Family Christmas, the new CD from the country trio Chapel Hart (and also available on vinyl). The Mississippi-based vocal group—sisters Danica and Devynn Hart, plus cousin Trea Swindle—certainly know about family, and their first Christmas CD stirs up sweet and soulful memories with Yule classics (including “Silver Bells,” “Blue Christmas,” “O Holy Night” and “O Come All Ye Faithful”), well-chosen covers (Alabama’s “Christmas in Dixie,” Ray Charles’ “Spirit of Christmas”) and all-star guests including Vince Gill, Darius Rucker, Gretchen Wilson and T. Graham Brown. It’s an all-star Christmas get-together with “hart” and harmony. https://www.chapelhart.com/shop
BRING IT HOME
If you grew up in the early ‘80s, you no doubt remember Rock ‘N’ Roll High School, a rip-roaring B-movie about a rockin’ revolt at a high school, starring P.J. Soles (the “bad girl” from Halloween) and Clint Howard (Ron’s little brother) and featuring the music of The Ramones, who sing the theme song. The 1979 flick has been newly remastered for is 45th anniversary with a locker full of special content, including commentary, interviews and making-of features (shoutfactory.com).
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Paul McCartney has never rested on his Beatles laurels, as The McCartney Legacy Vol. 2 1974-1980 (Dey Street) shows how his post-Beatles adventures included the release of four solo albums, dabbling in music publishing, experimenting as a science fiction writer and filmmaker, recording in Nashville and smuggling cannabis past authority figures…with mixed success. This well-researched exploration of Mac’s exceptionally creative period is a snapshot of a rollicking life after being in the world’s most famous band—and some scars from the group’s breakup that would never be completely healed.
How did live music ever make it onto wax records, then magnetic tape and plastic, and finally into microscopic digital “codes”? It’s all spelled out in Into the Into the Groove: The Story of Sound From Tin Foil to Vinyl (Bloomsbury). Author and avid vinyl collector Jonathan Scott traces the history of recorded sound…including how, for many music lovers, it all came back around to vinyl! And believe it or not, it all started on paper!
The Media Tourist 