Today's Entertainment

BY MICHELLE WILSON 'Tis the season for nostalgia. The holidays have a way of bringing most of us back to simpler, happier times. As this week ticks down the final days before Christmas, we pause to recall a few of our favorite TV things. Mayberry certainly seems like the ideal place to celebrate the yuletide. That is until you encounter "Scrooge." The 1960's "Christmas Story" episode of "The Andy Griffith Show," airing Sunday, Dec. 20, on MeTV, finds Sheriff Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) and Deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts) trying to salvage Christmas for a moonshiner (Sam Edwards) and his family after the town Scrooge (Will Wright) insists he be jailed. Andy, Barney, Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), Ellie (Elinor Donahue), and Opie (Ron Howard) decide to bring the festivities to the jailhouse, preparing a feast complete with all the trimmings and a tree for the family. Another that is sure to get you in the mood for a down- home, old-fashioned family Christmas, available on DVD, is "The Waltons: The Homecoming: A Christmas Story," which aired in 1971 as a prequel to the long-running series. When John (Andrew Duggan) doesn't come home on time for Christmas Eve after traveling back from a work assignment, eldest son John-Boy (Richard Thomas) sets out in the storm to find him. The gifts from Christmases past keep on giving "Movie: Out Stealing Horses" Stellan Skarsgard ("Chernobyl") stars as a man who retires to the solitary life in the Norwegian wilderness following the death of his wife but has memories reawakened when he meets a neighbor he knew in 1948 in this 2019 drama from director Hans Petter Moland ("Aberdeen"). Bjorn Floberg, Tobias Santelmann and Danica Curcic also in this joint Norwegian/Swedish/Danish production. "Movie: Sylvie's Love" Eugene Ashe ("Homecoming") wrote and directed this romantic drama about two friends — a jazz saxophonist (Nnamdi Asomugha) and a TV producer (Tessa Thompson) — who reunite after years to find that while their lives have gone in different directions, their feelings for each other remain the same. Eva Longoria and Aja Naomi King are also in the talented cast. (ORIGINAL) "Movie: The Midnight Sky" George Clooney directed and stars in this adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton's acclaimed novel "Good Morning, Midnight," which follows Augustine (Clooney), a lonely scientist in the Arctic, who tries to stop Sully (Felicity Jones) and her fellow astronauts from returning to Earth to a mysterious global catastrophe. David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir and Tiffany Boone also star. (ORIGINAL) "Soul" (Dec. 25, Disney+) A jazz musician (voice of Jamie Foxx) falls through a New York manhole and into a fantastical land where souls are created before they head off for their human incarnations in this family- friendly animated movie from Pixar Studios and Oscar-winning director Pete Docter ("Up," "Inside Out"). (ORIGINAL) How to watch: www.disneyplus.com ($6.99/mo.) The STREAM Scene Where all the top choices can be found in one place! Page 8 December 21 - 27, 2020

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