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Our movie guy, James Finnegan, has the pick of the films on RTE/TG4 on Saturday…
A resourceful orphan Madeline (Saturday 1.20pm RTE2), played by Hattie Jones, is the star of this utterly charming story based on the children’s books based in Paris and the film cleverly shows its literary origins.
Hattie overhears a plan to sell her beloved school, and manages to get caught up in a kidnapping plot and schemes of an international aspect. There is also a bad boy to boo and hiss.
With an extremely strong supporting cast including Nigel Hawthorn as the severe Lord Covington, Stephane Audran as his benevolent wife and most especially Frances McDormand as the stern headmistress with a heart of gold Miss Clave, this is a perfect film, particularly for your own adventurous little girls.
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Next up is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Saturday 6.35pm RTE1) which is an excellent addition to, well, the Spider-Man saga.
In this animated version, Miles Morales, voiced by Shameik Moore, has, like his counterpart Peter Parker, been bitten by another radioactive spider, gaining the usual arachnid abilities.
However, when a super collider device opens a gateway to other dimensions, Miles joins up with five other versions of himself to evil and wrong doers across the various realms and save the universe as we know it.
Back to a more grounded reality with Bridge of Spies (Saturday 9.30pm TG4) based on a true story when James Donovan (Tom Hanks), a lawyer in 1950’s New York, is hired to represent Rudolf Abel played by Mark Rylance, in Oscar-winning form.
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Abel is being charged in a showcase trial meant to show the fairness of the American Justice System, especially fraught as there is a strong death penalty sentence possibility.
Donovan’s stance, much against the prevailing public opinion, leads to his involvement in a Cold War exchange of prisoners in East Germany some years later.
Directed by Stephen Spielberg, this is an absolutely engrossing story with a significant screenwriting contribution by Ethan and Joel Coen.
Back to the arachnid themes with The Girl in the Spider’s Web (Saturday 9.50pm RTE2) based on the characters of the Millennium book series by Stieg Larsson.
Swedish hacker expert Lisabeth Salander (Claire Foy) is hired to retrieve Firefall, a computer programme that can access all the nuclear codes from across the world.
Naturally, there are a lot of nasties and heavies who would also like to get their paws on this, so it’s not a surprise to see Lisabeth fighting off the deadly intentions of a series of mercenaries.
Extra Ordinary (Saturday 11.55pm RTE2) is an Irish horror-comedy starring Maeve Higgins as a lonely driving instructor with supernatural talents.
It is great fun, especially with Will Forte’s washed up satanic rocker adding to the adventure. Enjoy!
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