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Our movie guy, James Finnegan, has some suggestions for your viewing pleasure on TV today…
King Solomon’s Mines (Saturday 3.50pm RTE1) is a film adaptation of the 1885 novel of derring-do by H. Rider Haggard.
Jesse Huston (Sharon Stone in one of her early films) hires adventurer Allan Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain) to find her father, believed lost on an expedition to find the fabled treasures of King Solomon’s Mines.
This is an action-adventure, light-hearted story that is trying just a little too hard to be another Indiana Jones franchise. It is directed by J. Lee Thompson with a soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith and also starring Herbert Lom and John Rhys-Davies.
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Johnny English Strikes Again (Saturday 6.35pm RTE1) is the third film, so far, in the franchise.
A sinister cyber attack has revealed the identity of all active undercover British agents, which means that hapless Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) must be sent to the South of France, not only to protect the Queen, but also find the mastermind hacker. What could possibly go wrong?
Also starring Ben Miller, Olga Kurylenko and Emma Thompson, this is great fun, especially when Johnny trains his geography students in the arts of espionage.
In The Rewrite (Saturday 9.30pm TG4), despite winning an Oscar for Best Screenplay, Keith Michaels (Hugh Grant) has found himself on the scrap heap after a series of flops.
He must now resort to his worst nightmare – teaching – to make ends meet.
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Also starring Marisa Tomei, Allison Janney and JK Simmonds, this is an amiable comedy which you probably knew when you saw who was playing the title role.
Not only writing the screenplay, but delivering a powerful central performance, Clare Dunne plays Sandra in Herself (Saturday 9.45pm RTE1).
Sandra is a mother of two young daughters, who after escaping from an abusive marriage, is living in temporary accommodation and struggling to make ends meet.
She decides to build her own house with the help of friends in her community. Then a problem from her past reappears.
Cops Schmidt and Jenko, played by Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, hated each other when they were at school together, but have become friends as adults in 21 Jump Street (Saturday 10.15pm RTE2).
They make a great comic double act in this big screen version of a 1980’s TV series, which I must admit I never saw, so I’m taking this film on its own merits.
Anyway, the two young looking cops (suspend disbelief here) get to relive their teens by going undercover at a high school to bust a drug ring.
Thirteen Days (Saturday 11.35pm RTE1) refers to the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962, and explores how President Kennedy’s inner circle dealt with the situation.
It tells the tale from the point of view of White House Aide, and Kennedy family friend, Kenny O’Donnell (Kevin Costner).
Directed by Roger Lindsey Donaldson, it also stars Bruce Greenwood as President Kennedy and Steven Culp as Attorney General Bobby Kennedy in a very good film. Enjoy!
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