I was about 10 years old when Jim Bakker and his wife, Tammy Faye, has their televangelist empire fall apart. That’s not old enough to know or understand all of the gritty details but I vividly remember the couple on TV outside the courthouse and doing interviews. So I was very interested when I saw there would be a biographical drama that I could stream on HBO Max.

Tammy Faye LaValley meets Jim Bakker at North Central Bible College. The two get married and travel around the United States preaching. After a few years, they moved their preaching to a television network, where they became very popular. Popular enough that they created their own gospel network. However, in 1987, their empire collapsed due to allegations of fraud and rape.

This version of The Eyes of Tammy Faye is based on a 2000 documentary, also titled The Eyes of Tammy Faye. I haven’t watched the original documentary so I’m not sure how close this movie follows it. But this movie is very pro-Bakker. It paints Tammy Faye as a woman who was treated poorly as a child and, as a result, craves attention and admiration from other people. There is also this weird duality where she is portrayed as both the mastermind that got the couple all of the opportunities that led them to be as popular as they were and also a naive woman who was mistreated and ignored by her husband. I’m not sure that the real Tammy Faye was either of those. I think that both Jim and Tammy Faye manipulated their way into the hearts of Christians and that they were terrible to each other. They were both the same level of horribleness.

To be honest, I don’t think this movie was particularly worth watching. There were some interesting visuals but I feel like it misses out on how awful the Bakkers were to their followers. They conned people into donating more money than they were able to afford. While you can tell that the Bakkers are rich, we never really see whether the money was really theirs or if they were spending church money on their luxuries. It would have been better if we got to see more of the results of their “charitable begging.” Maybe, if you have never heard of Jim or Tammy Faye Bakker, this might be an OK introduction to who they are but you would probably do better with something closer to the truth.

It’s time for HBO Max to throw themselves into the Christmas movie ring with 8-Bit Christmas. Can HBO even compete with the Hallmark, Lifetime, and Netflix Christmas juggernauts?

Annie (Sophia Reid-Gantzert) wants a cell phone for Christmas. Her father, Jake (Neil Patrick Harris), decides to regale her with the story of how he received his beloved Nintendo Entertainment System in the late 1980s. The story doesn’t go quite the way Annie thinks it will.

I have seen people comparing this movie to A Christmas Story or Jingle All The Way. I can see the similarities that people are noticing but they aren’t really good comparisons. A Christmas Story is entirely told in flashback, like 8-Bit Christmas, but we never see Ralphie as an adult and it’s also a series of smaller stories within the big story of Ralphie trying to get a Red Ranger BB gun for Christmas. Jingle All The Way is the story of a father trying to get his kid the hot toy of the season. The parents in 8-Bit Christmas refuse to buy Jake the Nintendo he so desperately wants. Sure, both the Nintendo and the Turbo-Man action figure were “hot” toys for their respective eras but that is the only real comparison there.

Personally, I really enjoyed 8-Bit Christmas. Maybe it’s the nostalgia factor - I did grow up in the 80s so this story pretty much hits me in my childhood. But it was also just fun. Winslow Fegley as young Jake is so emotive. It’s difficult to not feel disappointed when he’s disappointed or smile when he’s having fun with his friends. And he’s not the only one. All of the kid actors were really good. The only one I had difficulty connecting with was Jake’s younger sister, Lizzy (Bellaluna Resnick), which I think was intentional since Jake is the storyteller.

I don’t know that I would watch 8-Bit Christmas every year but I think I will show it to my daughter. It is some good family entertainment. Just keep in mind that it won’t end the way you think it will!