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Our movie guy, James Finnegan, has a classic musical and true life drama among his choices for your viewing pleasure today…
A true cinematic classic My Fair Lady (Saturday 2.35pm RTE1) is the glossy musical version of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion.
It won eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director (George Cukor) and Best Actor for Rex Harrison who reprised his role from the original stage musical.
Harrison plays Professor Higgins, a phonetics expert who makes a wager with his friend Colonel Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) that he can train a cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) to pass herself off as a lady of High Society.
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With spectacular performances all round, including Stanley Holloway (Alfred Doolittle), Gladys Cooper and Jeremy Brett, the real stars are the Lerner and Loewe songs including “I Could Have Danced All Night”, “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” “With a Little Bit of Luck” and “The Rain in Spain” amongst others.
I feel a special acknowledgment for the talents of Marni Nixon, who dubbed Audrey Hepburn’s signing, as she did for so often and for so many actresses in musicals, without receiving the credit for so doing at the time.
A different type of musical is Trolls World Tours (Saturday 7pm RTE1) where Poppy and Branch discover that there are different toll tribes scattered over six different lands, each devoted to a different kind of music.
When rockers Queen Barb and King Thrash try to destroy the other music, our heroes must unite the tribes and save the diverse melodies from becoming extinct.
This animated adventure uses the vocal talents of Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Rachel Bloom and Mary J Blige among others.
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In a total change of pace and tone, Some Mother’s Son (Saturday 9.20pm TG4), Kathleen Quigley’s (Helen Mirren) only son, Gerard (Aidan Gillen), is shot, captured and charged with the murder of a British soldier
Gerard shares a cell with Bobby Sands (John Lynch), the leader of the protests by the H-Block prisoners. Gerard also goes on hunger strike and Kathleen finds herself used as a political pawn by the various sides.
Written by Terry George and Jim Sheridan, and directed by Terry George, this also stars Fionnula Flanagan, Tom Hollander, Ciaran Hinds and Gerard McSorley, this is a very gritty and realistic story well told.
Ironically in the week of the D-Day Eightieth Anniversary, Dunkirk (Saturday 9.50pm RTE1) Director Christopher Nolan brings to life the astonishing true story of the evacuation of Allied soldiers during the Second World War.
This is not done with the usual “stiff upper lip” stance but the very human story of struggle to stay alive and get home physically and dealing with the war mental trauma.
With spectacular cinematography, Hans Zimmer’s atmospheric score and excellent performances from Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance in particular, this is a must watch.
Denzel Washington is impressive as Malcolm X (Saturday 10.30pm RTE2), the controversial militant activist who led the fight for civil rights in 1960’s America.
Director Spike Lee’s epic political biographical drama also stars Angela Bassett. Enjoy!
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