Finnegan On Films: Colourful Mix Of Genres On The Box This Week

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Our movie guy, James Finnegan, says there is a colourful mix of styles and genres in this week’s film selections, so hopefully there will be something for everyone’s taste…

The third in a series franchise is normally the scraping of the barrel, but Cars 3 (Saturday 6.35pm RTE1) is considered by some to be as good as the original.

In this film, Lightning McQueen, voiced by Owen Wilson, finds himself at the back of the track when up against the new generation of hi-tech cars.

Can he win again, or does he have to find another way to see his colours on the winner’s podium?

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For the fans of costume romance dramas, you cannot do better than The Age of Innocence (Saturday 9.30pm TG4).

Set in 1870’s New York, wealthy lawyer Newland Archer (Daniel Day Lewis) is engaged to beautiful socialite May Welland (Winona Ryder).  On the surface, it appears to be a perfect match.

However, when his fiancée’s older Cousin Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer), who is separated from her brutish husband, arrives on the scene, Archer finds himself drawn to her despite her being ostracised by polite society.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, and also starring Miriam Margolyes, Geraldine Chaplin, Richard E. Grant, Sian Phillips and Michael Gough, this is a sumptuous production.

I, Daniel Blake (Saturday 11.50pm RTE2) is a heavy dose of reality.  Daniel, played by Dave Johns, is a 59 year old widowed carpenter who suffers a heart attack.

However, when he tries to access his benefits, he finds himself in a labyrinth of an impersonal bureaucracy.

While trying to navigate his way through the process, he meets a destitute, single mum (Hayley Squires) who is trying to take care of herself and her two children.

This is a typically uncompromising, powerful, but unfortunately not, uncommon story, directed with his usual uncompromising style by the great Ken Loach.

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One of the classic films normally shown over the Christmas/New Year period is Bridge on the River Kwai (Sunday 2.50pm RTE2).

Directed by David Lean, this multi award winning epic tells the tale of the construction of the Burma Railway using prisoner of war labour by the Japanese during World War Two.

Starring Alec Guinness playing Colonel Nicholson, and also starring William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa as Colonel Saito, this is a film on a scale they simply do not make anymore.

As we begin to look at New Year Resolutions, Making the Grade (Sunday 4.05pm RTE1) is a lovely uplifting documentary by Ken Wardrop showing some of the stories behind the piano teachers and their pupils as they apply themselves towards the annual Royal Irish Academy of Music examinations.

Put your cynical hearts away for a while and wallow in the transformational power of music.

Just time to recommend again The Post (Monday 9.30pm TG4) with an all star cast telling the story of how the true cost and involvement of several American administrations in the Vietnam War was revealed.  Enjoy and stay safe.

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