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Our movie guy, James Finnegan, on some interesting movies on the box today…
Von Ryan’s Express (Saturday 2.20pm RTE1) is the type of film they can’t – or don’t -make anymore.
American pilot Colonel Joe Ryan (Frank Sinatra) is shot down over Italy and is taken to an internment camp.
The prisoners are mostly British solders under the command of Major Eric Fincham (Trevor Howard), but Ryan is now the senior officer.
At this time, the Italian war effort changes direction, and the prisoners stage a mass breakout, commandeer a train and head towards natural Switzerland.
However, the Germans realise what is happening and take up the chase.
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Directed by Mark Robson and also starring many familiar faces from sixties films including Brad Dexter and Adolfo Celi and seventies television Josh Brolin and Edward Mulhare, this is good Saturday afternoon fare.
In Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (Saturday 6.35pm RTE1) our heroes are making their way back home from Africa to New York via Monte Carlo, Rome and London while hiding out in a travelling circus while being chased by an Animal Control Officer voiced by Frances McDormand.
Ben Stiller voices Alex the lion, Chris Rock is Marty the zebra, David Schwimmer is Melman the giraffe, Jada Pinkett Smith is Gloria the hippo and Sacha Baron Cohen returns as King Julien, the ring-tailed lemur.
This is actually very good fun, which is unusual for the third instalment of a franchise. There will be a stage version of the original film story played out during the forthcoming Park Festival in Tralee Town Park in case your children – or you – would like to move it, move it.
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Inglorious Basterds (Saturday 9.00pm RTE2) has been described as Quentin Tarantino’s best film.
In this alternative version of World War Two, American officer Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) leads a group of Jewish solders on an undercover mission in occupied France to kill as many Nazis as possible and spread fear through the Third Reich.
There are, as you would expect from a Tarantino film, multiple story strands involving notable characters, among whom is one of cinema’s most evil baddies, Hans Landa, a ruthless SS officer played with Academy Award-winning style by Christoph Waltz.
Philomena (Saturday 9.45pm RTE1) is a powerful and heartfelt drama, unhappily based on a true story, with a stellar performance from Judi Dench, and an intelligently judged supporting contribution from Steve Coogan.
At its centre is a tough-minded, elderly Irish woman, Philomena Lee (Dench), and her battle to find out what happened to the baby boy taken away from her in the 1950s when she had been forced to put up her child for adoption.
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The Bleeder (Saturday 11.05 TG4) tells the life story of heavyweight boxer Chuck Wepner and his 1975 title fight with heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, which inspired Sylvester Stallone’s Character and the Rocky series of films.
Starring Liev Schreiber as Wepner, Naomi Watts and Elizabeth Moss as two of his wives, this film truly punches above its weight.
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