No, Tiger, get off, we're trying to write the film guide, we'll give you a kiss later.

Hullo and welcome to Films on Friday, which has just had delivery of its Christmas sets. The snow is falling, sleigh bells are jingling and Arnold Schwarzenegger is running around trying to kill Sinbad. With just 20 Chopin days until Christmas, we reach #41 in our Top 100 Liszt, with nary a mention of Beethoven. But Bach to what I was saying, if I can just get a Handel on it: after last week's faintly abysmal guide, we're back with, if not a bang, then a touch more than a whimper. Our regular Films on TV guide includes Hayley Mills as the "glad girl", Paul Newman sucking eggs and Katie Holmes, who must be pining for the days when the most eccentric thing her partner did was dress up as a bat.

TV Burp was great, incidentally - it was the review of the year, screening on Boxing Day.

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Films on TV - your guide to the week ahead
Nov 5 to 11

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5

First up this week is one of the best I've seen this year, an enchanting family film based on an enduringly popular novel: Pollyanna (1960, ITV1, 11am). The last Disney production overseen by Walt, it takes numerous liberties with the source – and even makes up an Abraham Lincoln quote to give Pollyanna's musings some gravitas – but it's utterly charming. The "glad girl" of the title (Hayley Mills) moves in with her aunt, uptight town matriarch Jane Wyman, and her boundless optimism begins to work its magic on Wyman, hypochondriac Agnes Moorhead, embittered loner Adolphe Menjou and intolerant, weak-minded priest Karl Malden. Disney called off the search for his Pollyanna after Walt's wife saw Mills in Tiger Bay, while her father (celebrated British screen star Johnny) famously sparked her into life with on-set coaching ("You are like a great big white cabbage! Yes, really boring. Go on, pull your finger out"). Her natural performance, and pinpoint characterisations from the on-form veterans, spark many lovely vignettes in this episodic, excellent movie. Lovely cinematography too. (5/5)

Peter Pan (2003, ITV1, 1.35pm) is a live action take on the J.M. Barrie story, devoid of appeal, despite some passable production design, and boasting the kind of Pan it would be a real privilege to punch in the face. Rachel Hurd-Wood makes an appealing Wendy, but that's yer lot. I'd really like to see the Betty Bronson version. And the Charles Bronson version, but that doesn't exist. (1/5)

May the tolerance for mawkish sentimentality be with you. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983, ITV1, 3.50pm) was where it started to go wrong, as Luke Skywalker and his ragtag band of allies struck back against the dark side, and George Lucas waged war on the agreeable sense of darkness that had permeated the previous instalments. There's plenty that's good, like an emotionally-charged lightsaber duel that's among the highlights of the series, the Sarlacc set-piece and the gripping hoverbike chase, but lots that's indifferent or just plain poor, including the wrongheaded Ewok sequences, in which a bunch of furry critters kidnap camp robot C-3P0 and hail him as a deity. There's not much chance of anyone doing the same with Lucas after this entry, with its clammy emotional resolutions, or given the series' subsequent descent into mindnumbing tedium. Hamill, a somewhat underrated actor, has a great introduction here and gives a decent performance. (3/5)

*SOME SPOILERS*
Paul Newman was about to enter what I like term the "twinkly-eyed smugness" phase of his career when he made Cool Hand Luke (1967, Five, 4.55pm), offering a hybrid of the brooding, emotionally complex characters he'd played to date and the smirking borderline-irritants he'd specialise in for much of the next decade. He's magnificent here, incidentally, firing up the only anti-establishment classic that features a man eating 50 eggs. Sent to a chain gang for a parking violation, Newman's hero refuses to be caged, becoming a serial escapist and ending up cornered. It's funny and offbeat, but with an underlying sense of dread and suspense and a gem of a fatalistic ending. George Kennedy won a somewhat ill-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Newman's buddy after hiring a press agent to co-ordinate his campaign. He was slightly more successful than Chill Wills' publicity man... (5/5)

Jackie Brown (1999, C4, 1.20am SUN) was the film in which Quentin Tarantino "grew up", which you might have noticed didn't last very long. An adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch, its labyrinthine plot takes in an air hostess-come-smuggler (Pam Grier), a lovelorn bondsman (Robert Forster), and a bad-tempered gun runner (Samuel L. Jackson) and his former cellmate (Robert De Niro). Despite the promising subject matter and big-name cast, it never really catches fire, with an uninvolving plot, unengrossing characters and dialogue that oscillates between banality and self-parody. Tarantino's use of music is typically astute and both Forster and Grier do their best work in a while, but this is unworthy of the major re-appraisal it's enjoyed over recent years. (2/5)


SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6

Contrary to popular opinion, Batman Begins (2005, ITV1, 8.30pm) – and not The Dark Knight – is Christopher Nolan's bat classic. It's a complex, fascinating take on the legend, breathing new life into DC Comics' masked superhero by offering two parts introspection and myth-making to each dose of frenetic action. Christian Bale is ideally cast as millionaire Bruce Wayne, who leaves the crime-ridden Gotham City to travel the world, and returns a vigilante – jeopardising his burgeoning relationship with attorney Katie Holmes. The narrative is meticulous, sometimes surprising and always satisfying, with Nolan's emphasis on dreamlike imagery giving the movie a slow-burning power. Some of its class and intelligence is jettisoned in an explosion-heavy final third featuring a monster truck, but this is still one of the best superhero movies we've seen, and streets ahead of the messy if sporadically magnificent Dark Knight. (4/5)

Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992, Film4, 1pm) is a total misfire from John Carpenter, who helmed classics like Assault on Precinct 13, Escape From New York and The Thing, before wheeling his little director's chair off the rails. Chevy Chase, giving the impression of a man who could only function in the rarefied atmosphere of the 1980s, is our annoying yuppie 'hero', turned invisible by a lab accident and sought after by all manner of uninteresting competing parties. The scene where love interest Daryl Hannah paints a new face on Chase is memorably dreadful (for a more convincing variation, see James Whale's 1933 movie, The Invisible Man), but mostly this is just dull. Father Ted fans may want to look out for Bishop Brennan (Jim Norton), popping up in a rare film role, but it will take a will of iron to get all the way through this travesty. (1/5)


MONDAY, DECEMBER 7

Appointment in London (1952, Film4, 11am) was a late addition to the slew of WWII movies detailing the exploits of British flyers, but it's one of the best. Dirk Bogarde is terrific as a wing commander who's dedicated to the job, but may just be cracking up. This Home Front drama is moving, well-observed and has a wonderful feel for time and place. And while it may be a notch below THE flyer film par excellence, The Way to the Stars, fans of the genre won't want to miss it. Bogarde's later partner Anthony Forwood has a supporting role. (5/5)

High Anxiety (1977, F4, 5.20pm) is the usual rubbish from Mel Brooks, a succession of obvious jokes and unfunny Hitchcock pastiches. (1/5)


For TUE to FRI picks, please click on the link below right.