Friday! Friday! Gotta get down (with some movies) on Friday!
Fridays are always good for movie lovers.
You’ve got all the new stuff in the cinema (which we’ve reviewed in full here), and all the great movies on telly for folks settling in for the weekend.
FRIDAY 26 JULY
The Frighteners – Syfy – 9pm
Michael J. Fox plays a medium who can talk to the dead, but uses his powers to con people. However, he eventually crosses paths with a demon that could end the world as we know it, and only Fox has the power to potentially stop it. Directed by Peter Jackson, it is one of the few horror-comedies that is both very funny and very scary.
The Martian – FilmFour – 9pm
Matt Damon is the botanist astronaut who is accidentally left behind on Mars, and must survive for several hundred days on his own while his all-star supporting cast try to mount an rescue mission. Highly recommended.
Under Siege – ITV4 – 10pm
Arguably the best Steven Seagal movie in existence (which, admittedly, sounds like damning with faint praise), but there is a lot of fun to be had in Seagal as a chef-turned-master-killer, defending a US battleship from being taken over by bonkers bad guy Tommy Lee Jones.
The Boy In The Striped Pajamas – BBC Two – 11.05pm
Two young boys become best friends, but with one boy on each side of a fence, separating a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Prepare to cry.
The Crazies – Syfy – 11.10pm
Very decent horror remake, with Timothy Olyphant as the sheriff of a small town, who notices that his friends and neighbours are all starting to slowly go a little bit crazy, and then A LOT crazy, turning violently on each other.
Postcards From The Edge – RTE One – 11.25pm
Meryl Streep plays an actress released from rehab, and suggested to go live with her mother (Shirley MacLaine), who it turns out, has become a big fan of drinking alcohol often and in large amounts.
Outbreak – TCM – 11.45pm
Dustin Hoffman heads up a group of scientists attempting to contain a viral outbreak brought on by a tested-on monkey (who is definitely not the same monkey from Friends).
Dracula Untold – Channel 4 – 12.05am
Luke Evans was supposed to kick off the Universal Monster Universe with this one, but while it failed to light up the box office and leans a little too hard on being influenced by Game Of Thrones, it is still good fun if you can not take any of it too seriously.
Philomena – BBC One – 12.20am
Judi Dench is fantastic as the woman who is trying to find her son who was taken away from her decades earlier, and Steve Coogan is equally fantastic as the world-weary reporter who takes it upon himself to help her in her search. A funny but heartbreaking true-story.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
