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James Finnegan says there is a period drama, a stunning musical, a graphic indie film and a black comedy to look forward to on Saturday…
Today’s films are still competing with high profile, international sports, but there are also some similarly gifted cinematic stories and performances available.
Emma Thompson won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for her take on Jane Austin’s much loved novel Sense and Sensibility (Saturday 3.15pm RTE1). She also stars as Elinor Dashwood while Kate Winslet plays Elinor’s younger sister Marianne.
They are members of a wealthy English landed gentry family, who have to deal with sudden destitution on the death of their father.
They are forced to seek financial security through marriage, although their feelings are in contrast to their intended partners.
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Also starring Alan Rickman (Colonel Brandon), Hugh Grant (Edward Ferrars), Greg Wise (John Willoughby), this was directed by Ang Lee in his first entire film in the English-Language. If you enjoy period drama, this is a multi-award winning example of the best of the genre.
Hugh Jackman heads the cast of The Greatest Showman (Saturday 6.35pm RTE1) and it is now almost impossible to imagine anyone else taking the role of PT Barnum as he creates his amazing touring circus in the New York of the mid 1800’s.
He recruits the forgotten, lost and abandoned into an innovative and imaginative show that brings him to the highest levels of society. However, the success comes at potentially a great personal cost.
With an ensemble cast including Zac Efron, Zendaya, Michelle Williams and Rebecca Ferguson, an outstanding score by John Debney and Joesph Trapanese and original songs from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, this is a feel good musical hated by the critics when released, but loved by the public.
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Writer/director Quentin Tarantino’s explosive and graphic debut Reservoir Dogs (Saturday 9.30pm TG4) has many of his familiar trademarks.
When a failed diamond heist ends in a bloodbath, the criminals lie low as they try to work out if someone betrayed them, especially as they don’t know each other’s true identity. Could one be an undercover cop?
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It is interesting to note that this made as much money in the UK as it made in the whole of the USA when released.
Starring, among others, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen (whose character has links to Vincent in the later Pulp Fiction), Chris Penn and Steve Buscemi, plus a Seventies influenced soundtrack, it is not hard to see why this is regarded as a milestone for independent film making.
In Downhill (Saturday 9.40pm RTE1), married couple Billie and Pete Stanton (Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell) have a near death experience by an avalanche during a family ski holiday in Austria.
Their behaviour during this emergency results in a re-evaluation of their marriage and indeed their whole lives. Enjoy!
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