Friday's TV tips
'Life', the lifestyle programme that shows what's weird and wonderful about living in Ireland today.
Presenter, Sybil Mulcahy meets the Kilkenny man who has turned his love of Irish antiques and trinkets into a business, setting up his own Folk Museum in a barn.
She also meets the Sligo woman, who's turned her childhood love of Barbie into the nation's biggest doll collection.
Reporter, Michael Ryan is in Waterford to go behind the scenes at the counties most famous export, Waterford Crystal.
He's also in Galway to solve a mystery 100 years in the making.
Academy Award winners Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts star in this heart-warming romantic drama.
Until he was downsized, affable, amiable Larry Crowne (Hanks) was a superstar team leader at the big-box company where he's worked since his time in the Navy.
Underwater on his mortgage and unclear on what to do with his suddenly free days, Larry heads to his local college to start over.
There he becomes part of a colourful community of outcasts, also-rans and the overlooked all trying to find a better future for themselves...often moving around town in a herd of scooters.
In his public-speaking class, Larry develops an unexpected crush on his teacher Mercedes Tainot (Roberts), who has lost as much passion for teaching as she has for her husband.
Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts
Rochefort is easily one of the best TV villains of recent years in this lavish version of the Dumas tale. However, following his recent assault, in which the Queen wounded him, who knows what he will do?
Well, we knew he wasn’t going to play nice, and this week he steps up his campaign of terror... while sporting the ultimate TV villain’s accessory: an eye patch.
Rochefort provides evidence of a letter she wrote to her brother, the King of Spain – as a result of which she is suspected of treason.
Concerned for her safety, our swashbuckling heroes steal her away from the palace while searching for evidence that Rochefort is a Spanish spy.
Alas, it appears no-one is safe from the count’s grasp, not even the King.
The cast includes Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Santiago Cabrera and Tom Burke, while Marc Warren steals the show, as the murderous villain of the piece.
You might find the idea of celebrities drinking their own urine hard to swallow, but that’s just the sort of predicament some of the celebrities in this show have encountered.
Signing up for a series with one of Blighty’s best survival experts was never going to be a walk in the park, and as we see from this, the penultimate part of their journey, the four remaining stars are not out of the woods yet.
Aside from finding and eating the fruits of the forest, they must carefully separate nutritious treats from any potentially deadly dinners.
Then there’s just the little matter of enduring another stormy night and crossing a 200ft ravine one by one on a rope.
On top of that, they have to start a fire using only bamboo poles, knives and flints.
Then Grylls decides which three he will take through to the Mission Survive final.
As Alan Carr kicks off another run of Chatty Man, long-term fans know what to expect by now. For the uninitiated, plenty of laughs, daft stories and a lot of Lambrini lay ahead.
His first guests are all four of The Voice judges – Rita Ora, Will.i.am, Ricky Wilson and Tom Jones – who chat about the forthcoming live shows, and their opinions about this series’ most talented folk to keep an eye out for.
Hollywood A-lister Antonio Banderas will also be dropping by to talk about his latest film, The SpongeBob Movie: A Sponge Out of Water, while EastEnders’ Danny Dyer discusses his latest film, Assassin.
And as if that little lot wasn’t enough, music for the evening comes courtesy of Ella Henderson, who performs her next single Mirror Man.
We knew there was a reason he won that NTA...
Kevin Rowland’s life was going nowhere fast. He left school with no qualifications at 15, thought prison was a possibility, had come bottom of the class in several subjects and had bounced from one job to another.
According to Rowland, even his family saw him as a drifter, but from those uninspired beginnings he determined to make something of himself.
With a passion for music, the Wolverhampton-born artist was obsessed with getting it right, and his band Dexys Midnight Runners became one of the most dynamic forces in the music industry during the 1980s with number one smashes Geno and Come On Eileen.
Directed by recent BAFTA winner Kieran Evans and Paul Kelly, this film documents Dexys’ residency at the Duke Of York’s Theatre in London last spring.
Aside from capturing songs from those theatrical shows, it features an honest, revealing and touching interview with Rowland and Jim Paterson charting the extraordinary story of the band.
This controversial dark comedy centres on a downtrodden man who is already nearing the end of his tether when his wife leaves him, he’s diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour and he’s fired from his job.
Contemplating suicide, he instead opts to steal his neighbour’s car and go on a killing spree, attempting to rid modern America of everything he thinks is making it intolerable.
Along the way he encounters a disillusioned teenager who tells him she wants to help him in his cause to escape her abusive home life.
It’s not the natural subject matter for a comedy, however it’s sharp and witty, and certainly sets out with a point to make – albeit one which it makes a touch too loudly at times.
Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr, Melinda Page Hamilton, Mackenzie Brooke Smith, Rich McDonald
This Canadian First World War-set drama follows Michael, a soldier from Calgary who is injured during heavy fighting on the Western front, and sent home for treatment.
He meets and falls in love with a nurse, who is distraught when brother is sent to fight on the front line – so Michael, who has been declared unfit for service, tricks his way back to Europe using an alias in order to protect him.
It’s safe to say this is a personal project for Due South star Paul Gross, who wrote, directed and produced the film, as well as taking the lead role. He’s even responsible for the closing song, too.
It certainly feels as though Gross had a tale to tell here, and he does so conscientiously: it has been lauded for its historical accuracy in terms of its depiction of both battlefield conditions in general, and of specific engagements.
However, it earned mixed reviews overall, with some critics finding it mawkish and over-sentimental. It made back less than a quarter of its 20million budget.
Paul Gross, Caroline Dhavernas, Joe Dinicol, Meredith Bailey, Jim Mezon, Michael Greyeyes
A Mexican ex-cop becomes a mercenary after turning his back on the government and relocating to Texas. He’s hired to assassinate a politician, however it soon becomes clear that his shady employers may have in fact double-crossed him.
Setting out to take revenge, he assembles a band of cutthroat illegal immigrants and wreaks a bloody vengeance.
It’s shallow, over-the-top, cartoonish violence – so yes, basically, if you like that sort of thing. It’s well executed and stylish, as one might expect from director Robert Rodriguez, a frequent collaborator of Quentin Tarantino.
It boasts a fine array of big stars, including Robert De Niro, but it’s renowned tough guy Danny Trejo in the lead who steals the show.
Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin
