Big screen

Opening Tuesday

Django Unchained (R) Quentin Tarantino delves into history again, this time using the spaghetti western genre to explore pre-Civil War slavery in the U.S. Jamie Foxx stars as a slave separated from his wife and Christoph Waltz is the bounty hunter who tries to help to reunite the couple.

Les Misérables (PG-13) Director Tom Hooper ( The King’s Speech) brings the beloved stage musical to the screen, with Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Helena Bonham Carter and an Oscar-bound Anne Hathaway singing their hearts out.

Parental Guidance (PG) Billy Crystal and Bette Midler star as a couple who agree to look after their grandkids for a spell, but their old-fashioned rearing methods clash with the kids’ parents (Marisa Tomei and Tom Everett Scott). Many PG-rated high jinks ensue.

Rene Rodriguez

Small screen

A Christmas Story (8 p.m. Monday, TBS) Almost universally panned and even more universally unseen when it was released in 1983, this hilarious tale of a young boy’s epic quest to convince his parents (or, perhaps, the guy at the North Pole; Ralphie is a Santa agnostic) to give him a BB gun for Christmas found new life a few years later on cable TV. Now it’s on the National Film Presentation Board’s list of culturally significant movies. TBS is airing it 12 times during a 24-hour marathon.

Yule Log (6 a.m. Tuesday, WSFL-CW 39) For four hours, nothing but video of a crackling fire. Then Santa tries to drop down the chimney, and you get outtakes from old China Beach episodes about napalm attacks. Just kidding! About Santa and the napalm, that is. The part about four hours of nothing but crackling flames is true. Really.

Glenn Garvin

Let Miami Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin program your TiVo! Just click on his best bets for the week at http://www3.tivo.com/tivo-tco/mix/index.do