12 Films At Christmas - 10

The great films you can watch over and over again. Every Christmas I find myself reluctant to watch It's a Wonderful Life, on the grounds that I know exactly what's going to happen. Every Christmas I am wrong. Yes I know it is sentimental and a little preachy but this really is commercial film-making transmuting into art. It makes you feel warm inside, it makes you laugh and, this being my thing of the moment (you may have noticed this) it makes me ask what would a quintessential American hero like George Bailey make of Donald Trump? I can tolerate the ineffective and sanctimonious in politics (Obama), even the charlatans (either Clinton) and the patrician smug (Cameron) - these are all the peculiarly lovable blemishes of democracy. Trump is the most dangerous Western politician seen in my lifetime. I'm really sorry but you haven't heard the last of this. I am finding it much easier to know what I despise than to locate what I want. I wish it were other.

It's a Wonderful Life. 9/10.