Thursday, December 30
Although he now barely generates two laughs throughout the duration of his recent 'comedies', Steve Martin was once a proper hoot – as demonstrated by the hilarious The Man With Two Brains (4.25pm, Sky Modern Greats). Doug Liman's Jumper (9pm, Film4) divided audiences, but that serves them right for expecting a movie about knitwear – instead of a rather underrated sci-fi flick. Finally, Tremors (11pm, ITV4) is the perfect way to round off the day, as Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward tackle a very serious case of worms…
Dick Van Dyke in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (10.50am, Sky Movies Christmas) will ensure the final day of the year starts with a hearty singsong. Then celebrate the cruelly abridged tenure of Timothy Dalton as James Bond with The Living Daylights (3pm, ITV1) – and raise a glass to the recently-departed Norwegian band a-ha, who provide the corking theme tune. Alternatively, there's always the festive staple The Sound Of Music (3.30pm, BBC One).
The evening is best spent avoiding channel-hopping, as a certain Martin Lawrence movie involving a large matriarch is lurking in the schedules like a stubborn verruca. So tune into Liam Neeson's superior thriller Taken (9pm, Sky Movies Crime) and stray at your own risk. For those whose sleeping patterns have been ravaged by staying up late to watch The Ashes, indulge in an imaginative late-night invasion courtesy of Tim Burton's brilliant Mars Attacks! (12.05am, ITV1).
New Year's Day - Saturday, January 1
The evening is punctuated by the sound of Harrison Ford's zimmerframe in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (5.35pm, BBC One). There's also Will Smith kicking extraterrestrial ass (with the help of Jeff Goldblum hacking into a Windows-friendly alien computer system) in Independence Day (6.20pm, Channel 4). The Western thriller 3:10 To Yuma (9pm, Five USA) sees Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in exhilarating form, while Sacha Baron Cohen provides plenty of laughs to round off the night in the outrageous Brüno (10pm, Sky Movies Comedy).
