Our movie guy, James Finnegan, has some films on TV to distract you from the festival fun in Tralee tonight…

Somewhere between trying to fill that Olympic sized hole in our lives, and attempting to pick a winning Rose, comes a number of very entertaining films.

Where Eagles Dare (Saturday 2.50pm RTE1) is a staple of Saturday afternoon escapist cinema.  When an American general is held captive by the Nazis in a heavily defended fortress in the Alps, a crack team of British soldiers and an American Lieutenant are sent to rescue him.

However, it is apparent very soon that there is a traitor in their mist, and so begins a tale of double and triple cross with some pretty impressive action scenes and baddies who are, thankfully, terribly bad shots.

Starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Patrick Wymark, Mary Ure, Robert Beatty and Ingrid Pitt, this Alastair MacLean script and book were outstanding commercial successes. Plus there is the famous stirring Ron Goodwin theme in which to wallow.

Jack Black excels in a role that was quite literally written for him in School of Rock (Saturday 6.35pm RTE1) 

Dewey Finn (Black) is an enthusiastic amateur rock musician who is fired from his band.  Posing as a supply teacher to make some money, he moulds his students into a rock band in an attempt to win the forthcoming Battle of the Bands.

This is a wonderfully entertaining film, where the children are all talented because director Richard Linklater insisted on the cast being able to play their instruments as well as sing.  The acting could be taught!

This also stars Joan Cusack, Sarah Silverman, Miranda Cosgrove and Mark White, and has gone on to spawn a very popular and successful Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

Continued below…

Saving Private Ryan (Saturday 9.20pm RTE2), directed by Steven Spielberg, is renowned for the battleground scenes set during the Normandy landings, although it is not in fact the opening scene as is often stated.

A group of American soldiers search the battlefields of France, looking for a missing infantryman who has been given compassionate leave to return home, as his brothers have already been killed in this conflict.

As you would expect, there are many spectacular scenes, and of course with a cast including Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Edward Burns and Tom Sizemore among others, there is plenty of philosophy on the meaning of life and war which helped win Spielberg a Best Director Academy Award, although it perhaps surprisingly lost out on Best Picture to “Shakespeare in Love”

Play Misty for Me (Saturday 10.35pm TG4) is a superlative Clint Eastwood psychological thriller in which he stars and makes his directorial debut.

He plays DJ Dave Garver, who has what he considers to be a casual relationship with Evelyn (Jessica Walter).  However, Evelyn has a very different interpretation.  So when Dave takes up with an old flame Tobie (Donna Mills) you know it is not going to end well. Enjoy!

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