EAT AND REPEAT
Among a rash of ugly-sweater Christmas movies are a few festive offerings that should have broader appeal, writes Matthew Vice
It’s December already? Where does the time go? As I usually do at the start of each month I immediately looked for lowhanging fruit relevant to the season to make my job easier, in this case things relating to whichever end-of-year tradition you happen to follow. There wasn’t a whole lot on offer, but I found a few. The Lifetime channel (131) is running a whole mess of Christmas movies, none of which seem worth singling out, but if you like that kind of thing, Lifetime has you covered.
Festive food fabrication
The BBC is getting into the spirit of things also, starting with a special on BBC Earth (channel 184) called Inside the Factory, hosted by food competition show host Gregg Wallace, TV presenter Cherry Healey and BBC historian Ruth Goodman. It’s an inside look at the inner workings of the factories that produce holiday treats, like chocolate Santas and probably mince pies and other things Brits are known to partake in at this time of year. If that sounds interesting, it’s showing this Wednesday at 7pm.
Cooking on a pier
The next show, on BBC Lifestyle (channel
174), might be of interest if you’re the kind of person who likes to cook a spectacular feast for whichever year-end celebration you observe. It’s called Jamie’s Christmas Special and features Jamie Oliver cooking a spectacular feast on the picturesque
Southend Pier in Essex, alongside celebrity farmer Jimmy Doherty, pictured below. The spiel also promises “A-list guests”, which I assume means some other celebrities will be attending to stuff their faces. If you need some ideas, get out your notepad and catch it on Tuesday, December 17 at 8pm.
Sh-sh-shallow
That’s about all the seasonal content I could find, so here’s something else. Tonight’s feature movie on M-Net (channel 101) at 8pm is A Star is Born, a fairly interesting movie.
Firstly, it’s the third remake of a film from 1937 with Janet Gaynor and Norman Maine. There was a remake in 1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason, another in 1976 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, and finally this one from 2018 with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
All of the films follow roughly the same plot: the female lead is an aspiring star who moves to the big city to pursue her dreams and runs into her idol, played by the male lead, whose career is plummeting due to alcoholism. Never meet your heroes, kids.
Anyway, the female lead in each movie attempts to help the floundering star get back on his feet, and in turn the has-been helps her to kick-start her career.
In the 1937 original, the woman aspired to be an actor, but in all three remakes she aspired to be a singer. In this 2018 version Gaga plays Ally, a waitress having trouble breaking into the music industry and Cooper plays Jack, a washed-up country singer who frequently makes an ass of himself in public. Jack recognises Ally’s talent and attempts to help her, and as their relationship progresses she attempts to help him in return.
I’m not a huge fan of Gaga, truth be told, so I haven’t seen her much outside of a few videos, but it’s odd to see her without her ostentatious costumes.
I’m also not a fan of the dour, strummy country music that comprises this soundtrack, but it did win an Oscar for the song Shallow, which is performed by Gaga’s character Ally, so fans of country music should check it out.