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Our movie guy, James Finnegan, on some movies on RTE and TG4 today…
It’s not the quantity but the quality today for our film choices, and the first one is Abominable (Saturday 6.35pm RTE1) – its title rather than a comment on its quality!
Teenager Yi and her two friends, Peng and Jin, discover a magical creature, which they believe to be a Yeti. This sets them off on an enchanting epic adventure, when they decide to reunite the creature with its family.
However, there are others with a somewhat less altruistic ambition, notably a wealthy financier and a determined zoologist who wish to capture the creature for their own purposes.
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There are some lovely messages in this film, and the vocal cast of Chloe Bennet, Albert Tsai, Tenzing Norgay Traynor and especially Eddie Izzard and Sarah Paulson have great fun with the script.
Last week we saw the Clint Eastwood directed film ‘Flags of our Fathers’. Tonight, its companion piece, also directed by Eastwood, is on offer.
Letters from Iwo Jima (Saturday 9.46pm TG4) again depicts this famous battle, but from the Japanese soldiers perspective. Both films were filmed back to back.
The story of the defence of this strategically important island, and of the forty day battle, is based on the letters the Japanese soldiers sent back to their families.
It is not an easy watch, and the fact that most of the dialogue is in Japanese does not make this any easier, but stick with it because the effort to show both sides of a battle is a fascinating concept in its own right.
It stars Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara and Ryo Kase, with only Watanabe familiar to western audiences from his appearances in ‘The Last Samurai’, ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘Inception’.
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Arguably the best film of Bruce Willis’s career, Die Hard (Saturday 10.20pm RTE2) sees him play maverick New York cop John McClane for the first, but not last, time, and what film doesn’t like a maverick cop?
Bruce Willis in Die Hard.
McClane visits Los Angeles to see his family over the Christmas holiday. When he stops off at Holly’s (Bonnie Bedelia) workplace, the Nakatomi Corporation, he discovers that the building has been taken over by armed men.
The staff are being held ransom by an audacious group led by the villainous Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman in a career defining role).
McClane is out of his jurisdiction, but not out of his depth. With nothing but a white vest, a sense of daring do and some pithy, colourful catch phrases, he sets out to save the day.
Slightly outside my time frame, When Harry Met Sally (Sunday 12.20am RTE1) is Rob Reiners top-notch romcom, from a Nora Ephron script which set the benchmark for this genre.
Two friends, Sally (Meg Ryan) and Harry (Billy Crystal) graduate together and meet up again a few years later. However, their relationship slowly develops into something more. Enjoy!
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