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James Finnegan takes a look at some good movies on TV this week and available on Netflix…
A Beautiful Mind (Saturday 9.20pm TG4) is the story of John Nash, a mathematical genius who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Economics.
However, the film starts in his early days at Princeton University, where Nash beings to develop paranoid schizophrenia.
This has significant effects, not only for Nash himself, but also for his wife, Alicia, and their friends.
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Directed by Ron Howard, and staring Russell Crowe as Nash, this is an exemplary biographical film.
It gives a very clever visual interpretation of how the mind of a genius could work. The Acting roles are uniformly excellent with Russell Crowe giving, in my opinion, a career best performance as John Nash.
A very strong supporting cast including Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly as Alicia, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, Paul Bettany and Christopher Plummer help give the story the gravitas it deserves.
It also shows why it also won the 2001 Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay from the original book from Alicia Nash.
In 1976, terrorists hijacked an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. The plane lands at Entebbe Airport in Uganda where demands are made for the release of Palestinian prisoners, and a ransom of five million dollars for the release of the passengers and airplane.
Entebbe (Sunday 9.00pm TG4) is the forth film version of the events around Operation Thunderbolt that transpired following the breakdown of diplomatic efforts to resolve the situation.
Directed by Jose Padilha and starring Daniel Bruhl and Rosamund Pike, this is a compelling story that is worth a look.
Meanwhile on Netflix, Galaxy Quest is the story of the cast of an old science fiction television series, not a million light-years away from the original Star Trek.
Unfortunately since the series ended, the actors have found it hard to find new roles, although the series is still a geek favourite.
An oppressed alien race has picked up the broadcasts, but believes the series to be a real life documentary. They kidnap the actors to lead a rebellion against the evil Warlord Sarris in a working replica of their television starship Protector.
A cast including Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, the late lamented Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub and Sam Rockwell look like they are having a great time, and the humour is affectionate and respectful of its source material, although, of course, as resemblance between this and the personalities of another actual group of actors is purely coincidental.
Also on Netflix, The Prom is the all singing, all dancing story of what happens when James Maddison High School in Indiana cancel the annual School Prom rather than allow a student Emma bring her girlfriend to the event.
When Broadway stars Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep), Barry Glickman (James Corden) Trent Oliver (Andrew Rannells), Angie Dickinson (Nicole Kidman) and the cast of Godspell get involved, you can be certain that there will be a happy end to the story. Enjoy and stay safe!
