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Our movie guy, James Finnegan, has a war classic and a Gen X love story among the films on the box tonight…
This week’s films are a curious combination of the little known and quite forgotten, all starring big name stars, but have common themes of secrets and thieves.
Kelly’s Heroes (Saturday 2.55pm RTE1) is in many ways a modern satire dressed up like a World War Two heist caper.
It’s been a while since there has been a Clint Eastwood film shown. Clint plays Kelly who leads a motley crew of American GI misfits, who go AWOL to rob a French bank of its stock of Nazi gold. The trouble is the bank is behind the German lines.
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Also starring Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Carroll O’Connor and a scene stealing Donald Sutherland as “Oddball”, this is directed by Brian G. Hutton, who brought us one of my favourite Saturday adventure films ‘Where Eagles Dare’ and written by Troy Kennedy Martin, whose imagination brought us Z-Cars and the original version of ‘The Italian Job’.
In The House with a Clock in its Walls (Saturday 6.35pm RTE1), ten year old orphan Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) goes to live with his eccentric uncle, Jonathan Barnavelt (Jack Black), in a spooky old house that contains strange tick-tock sounds.
He learns that his uncle and their neighbour Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett) are a powerful warlock and witch.
However, when Lewis accidentally awakens the dead, the town sheds it sleepy facade to reveal a deadly world of dangerous magic.
Perhaps not a film to let the smallies watch on their own, but should be OK for ten year olds and above with adult company.
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Before Sunrise (Saturday 9.35pm TG4) is the first instalment of the “Before” trilogy.
American tourist Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and French student Celine (Julie Delpy) meet by accident on a train travelling to Vienna. On his last day in Europe before returning home, the two form a close connection, and Jesse decides to spend his remaining hours with her, discussing their future hopes and dreams.
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Directed and written by Richard Linklater, this film was followed by ‘Before Sunset’ and ‘Before Midnight’.
John Crowley’s drama, based on the Donna Tartt novel, The Goldfinch (Saturday 11pm RTE2) is about a boy, Theo Decker (Ansel Elgort) who is taken in by a rich family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Theo is persuaded to take a famous painting, the titular Goldfinch, from the Museum, in the aftermath of the blast, beginning a complex spiral of events.
Also starring Sarah Paulson, Luke Wilson, Jeffrey Wright and Nicole Kidman, this is a very deep and intense story directed by John Crowley of ‘Brooklyn’ and ‘Intermission’ fame.
Finally, Michael Caine stars in King of Thieves (Saturday 11.35pm RTE1) as Brian Reader, who leads a group of elderly and experienced thieves who commit the biggest burglary in British legal history with the spectacular Hatton Garden diamond robbery.
Also starring Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtney, Charlie Cox, Paul Whitehouse, Michael Gambon and Ray Winstone and is directed by Oscar winner James Marsh.
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