What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 14th February 2019.

In January the world bid a fond farewell to a number of stars of the silver screen and the small screen. In brief, shown below, is my passing tribute to those stars who leave an indelible mark on the entertainment industry, and in particular the world of film and television. May you all Rest In Peace, and thanks for the memories . . . . Carol Channing, Windsor Davies, and Andrew Vajna.

* Carol Channing - born January 31st 1921, and died January 15th 2019, aged 97. Channing was an American Actress, singer, dancer and comedienne whose lifetime credits take in eight decades of stage, screen and television appearances that began in 1941 in a New York stage production from which she would never look back. From there she moved to Broadway and secured regular work on various stage productions and in 1948 she picked up the Theatre World Award which really launched her career as a star player. In the latter half of the '50's she worked with George Burns on his television comedy show, and in 1961 she gained a Tony Award nomination for 'Show Girl' and in 1964 won the Tony Award for her portrayal of Dolly Levi in the smash Broadway musical comedy 'Hello, Dolly!'. Channing had 37 film and television credits to her name throughout her career which launched with the feature film 'The First Travelling Saleslady' in 1956 opposite Ginger Rogers, Clint Eastwood, Barry Nelson and James Arness. In 1967 she starred in 'Thoroughly Modern Millie' for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Oscar in the same category. This was followed up a year later with 'Skidoo' with an all star cast taking in Jackie Gleason, Frankie Avalon, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney and Groucho Marx. She also lent her voice talents to various animated feature films and animated television series episodes over the years. Her last film role was in a 2011 documentary of her life 'Carol Channing : Larger than Life' and on television in 2016's 'RuPaul's Drag Race'. She released her autobiography 'Just Lucky I Guess' in 2002. All up Channing won seven awards including four Tony Awards, a Grammy, and a Golden Globe and further six nominations.

* Windsor Davies - born August 28th 1930, and died January 17th 2019, aged 88. Davies was a Welsh born Actor who starred in many British films and television series between 1962 and 2004. Perhaps his best known role was over 56 episodes spanning eight seasons of the hit British sitcom 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' starring as Battery Sergeant Major Williams which ran from 1974 through until 1981. He also appeared in television series 'The Onedin Line', 'Callan', 'Never The Twain' and 'Oh, Doctor Beeching!'. Of his film appearances, he had roles in 'The Pot Carriers' in 1962 his first feature film, and then the likes of 'Murder Most Foul', 'The Alphabet Murders', 'Drop Dead Darling', 'Adold Hitler : My Part in His Downfall', 'Carry On Behind', 'Carry On England', 'Confessions of a Driving Instructor', 'Grand Slam' and 'Old Scores'. All up Davies had 128 Acting credits to his name, and a UK Number One record with 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' co-star Don Estelle in 1975 with 'Whispering Grass'. He also worked extensively on television commercials adding his distinctive Welsh accented voice.

* Andrew Vajna - born Andras Gyorgy Vajna on August 1st 1944 and died January 20th 2019, aged 74. Vajna was a Hungarian born American film Producer. After various ventures in the Far East and Hong Kong including a film acquisition and distribution business, he met Lebanese Film Producer Mario Kassar at Cannes in 1975 and the pair went on to form Carolco a company specialising in the financing, sales and distribution of films worldwide. In less than four years, Carolco became one of the top three foreign sales organisations in the motion pictures industry. In 1982 Vajna and Kassar made their film production debut with 'Rambo: First Blood', starring Sylvester Stallone. The film was a critical and commercial success giving rise to numerous sequels over the years. At Carolco the pair also Produced 'Rambo : First Blood Part II' and 'Rambo III' as well as 'Angel Heart', 'Total Recall', 'Air America' and 'Jacob's Ladder'. In late '89, Vajna sold his interest in Carolco to form  Cinergi Productions for the financing, development, Production and distribution of major event releases. 'Medicine Man', 'Tombstone', 'Color of Night', 'Die Hard with a Vengeance' 'Judge Dredd', 'Nixon' and 'Evita' were among Cinergi's Productions. Never forgetting his Hungarian background, Vajna played a significant role in many films being shot in Budapest including 'Evita', 'Escape to Victory', 'Read Heat' and 'I Spy'. In the late '90's Vajna reteamed with his former business partner Mario Kassar and in 2003 Produced 'Terminator 3 : Rise of the Machines' and thereafter also acted as Executive Producer on 'Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicles' and 2009's 'Terminator Salvation'. From 2011 Vajna worked as the Government Commissioner in charge of the Hungarian film industry where he conceived the Hungarian National Film Fund since which time the Hungarian film industry has won more than 130 international awards while the number of foreign films produced in Hungary has increased significantly.

This week there are six latest release movies coming to your local Odeon. We launch with a Sci-Fi epic based on a popular Japanese manga set five hundred years hence where a dismembered cyborg is taken in by a good doctor and given a new body only to awaken with no recollection of who she is or where she is. Her journey to discover who she really is reveals much more than anyone bargained for.  We then turn to an already highly acclaimed romantic drama film set in the early '70's surrounding a couple and the challenges faced by both which need to be resolved before the birth of their child. Next up is a biographical drama charting the last years of a famed but troubled painter up to his death in 1890, followed by a story of survival in the frozen depths of the Arctic Circle as one man struggles  against the elements to find salvation and civilisation. Then we have a remake of a successful 2000 film that gives one lucky lady the ability to hear mens thoughts, but this in itself creates more challenges than she bargained for. And wrapping up the week we have a horror sequel about a girl stuck in a time loop who must die time and time again in order to save her friends and thwart a maniacal masked killer.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the six latest release new movies as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release and as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the week ahead.

'ALITA : BATTLE ANGEL' (Rated M) - this American cyberpunk action film is Directed by Robert Rodriguez, and Co-Produced and Co-Written for the screen by James Cameron based on the Japanese manga artist Yukito Kishiro graphic novel 'Gunnm' (aka 'Battle Angel Alita'). Going back to 2000, Kishiro's manga was brought to the attention of James Cameron by Guillermo del Toro who so liked what he saw and read that he immediately registered a domain name for the film and by 2003 was announced as Director on a feature length live action film. Then Cameron's 'Avatar' got in the way and it was slated for a 2009 release. In 2010 Cameron stated that the film was still in development but no plans existed as to a release date. In 2013 he set a Production start date of 2017 and in the meantime Robert Rodriguez was in discussions to Direct if he could condense Cameron's script and sizeable notes into a workable Screenplay. Filming began in late 2016 with Rodriguez Directing with Cameron Producing, and a budget of somewhere between US$150 and 200M. Digital effects were provided by Peter Jackson's New Zealand based Weta Digital, amongst others. The film is released in the US this week too.

Set some five hundred years in the future, the abandoned disembodied 'core' of a cyborg, Alita (Rosa Salazar) is found in the scrapyard of Iron City by Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz), a compassionate cyber-doctor who takes the unconscious Alita to his clinic and fits her out with a new body. When Alita wakes, she has no memory of who she is, nor does she have any recognition of the post apocalyptic world destroyed by a technological meltdown that she now finds herself in. They soon discover that Alita is more than what she seems and has an extraordinary past. As she learns to navigate her new life, and the often deadly streets of Iron City she battles other machines who are empowered with skills, while Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious past. Also starring Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, Michelle Rodriguez and Casper Van Dien. If successful, this will set up a series of films.

'IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK' (Rated MA15+) - here we have another acclaimed offering doing very well around the awards and festival circuit with 73 wins so far and another 138 nominations including three Oscar nominations, yet to be announced. Directed, Co-Produced and Written for the screen by Barry Jenkins (of 'Moonlight' fame), based on the 1974 novel by American author James Baldwin. The title of the book is a reference to the 1916 W.C. Handy blues song 'Beale Street Blues', named after Beale Street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The film saw its World Premier showing at TIFF back in September, went of general release in the US in mid-December, and has so far recovered US$15M from its US$12M production budget outlay. And so this American romantic drama film is set in early 1970's Harlem. Daughter and wife-to-be Clementine 'Tish' Rivers (KiKi Layne) vividly recalls the passion, respect and trust that have connected her and her artist fiancé Alonzo Hunt (Stephen James), who goes by the nickname 'Fonny'. Friends since childhood, the devoted couple dream of a lasting future together, but their plans go awry when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit. With the support of close family and friends Tish seeks to clear Fonny's name and prove that he is innocent, before the birth of their child. Also starring Regina King, Brian Tyree Henry, Colman Domingo, Ed Skrein, Finn Wittrock, Diego Luna, Perdro Pascal and Dave Franco.

'AT ETERNITY'S GATE' (Rated PG) - this biographical drama film is Directed and Co-Written by American painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel and has already done much around the awards and festival circuit. It saw its World Premier screening at the Venice International Film Festival back in  early September and was released in the US in mid-November and only now does it get a showing in Australia. Garnering generally positive Press, the film has so far picked up three award wins and another fifteen nominations mostly for Lead Actor Willem Dafoe in his portrayal of Vincent van Gogh, including an Oscar nod. The film primarily focuses on the painters latter years from 1888 when he based himself in Arles in the south of France and during which time he broadened his subject matter to include series of olive trees, wheat fields and sunflowers in a much brighter colour palette. Then in 1890 van Gogh discharged himself from a psychiatric hospital and relocated himself to  Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris where he was cared for by a homeopathic doctor. His bouts of depression and anxiety continued right up until late July 1890 when van Gogh shot himself in the chest, from which he died two days later aged 37. The film also stars an ensemble cast including Oscar Isaac as Paul Gaugin, Rupert Friend as Theo van Gogh, Mathieu Amalric, Mads Mikkelsen and Vincent Perez, and has so far taken US$7M at the Box Office.

 
'ARCTIC' (Rated M) - this Icelandic Arctic Circle survival thriller Premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year where it competed for the Camera d'Or and is Directed and Co-Written by Brazilian musician and filmmaker Joe Penna. Following an aeroplane crash, Overgard (Mads Mikkelsen) is stranded in the Arctic. About to receive a long-awaited rescue, the helicopter that finds him crashes in a blizzard. The pilot is killed with the passenger, a young woman, severely injured (Maria Thelma Smaradottir). He must now decide whether to remain in the relative safety of his makeshift camp in the stricken aeroplane and again wait it out until the next rescue attempt, if there is to be one, or to embark on a potentially deadly trek through the unknown snow covered and harsh wilderness in the hope of making it out alive. Made for just US$2M this film was released in the US on 1st February. Filmed over the course of nineteen days in Iceland, Mikkelsen later commented that it was the most difficult shoot of his career.

'WHAT MEN WANT' (Rated M) - if this title sounds familiar it's because this is a remake of the 2000 Nancy Meyers Directed film 'What Women Want' which starred Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt and off the back of a US$70M production budget grossed US$374M. Here this fantasy comedy offering is Directed by Adam Shankman and centres around Ali Davis (Taraji P. Henson), a successful sports agent who is repeatedly left out by her male counterparts. When Ali is by-passed for a well-earned promotion, she begins to wonder what more she needs to do to succeed in a male dominated world. Hoping to find some direction from a psychic, Ali drinks a strange potion that allows her to hear mens thoughts. Using her newfound skill, Ali starts to outsmart her boisterous obnoxious male colleagues while racing to sign the next basketball superstar, but the lengths she has to go to will put her relationship with her best mates, and a potential new love interest, to the test. Also starring Tracy Morgan, Aldis Hodge, Kellan Lutz and Richard Roundtree. Also released in the US this week.

'HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U' (Rated M) - Jason Blum, of Blumhouse Productions knows a thing or two about the horror genre and how to create a winning formula, clearly having proved himself on numerous occasions over recent years. Here he is at it again, in this sequel to 2017's 'Happy Death Day' which cost a tad less than US$5M to make and grossed US$126M. Blum once again takes a Producer credit, with Christopher Landon once again in the Directors chair on this horror slasher offering that reunites some of the characters from the first instalment and plants them a couple of years on from the first film. And so trapped in a time loop once more, college student Theresa 'Tree' Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) must die over and over again to save her friends from a psychotic masked killer. Determined to escape the time loop now that she has learned that her friends are also involved, and that the original masked killer Lori Spengler (Ruby Modine) has been murdered, Tree must now face a new killer threat, uncover its identity and break free now once and for all. Also starring Israel Broussard and Suraj Sharma. The film is released in the US this week too, and cost US$9M to bring to the screen.

With six new release films this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere in the week ahead at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-