Birthday's to share this week : 2nd - 8th August 2015.

Do you celebrate your Birthday this week?

Evangeline Lilly does on 3rd August - check out the tribute to this Birthday Girl turning 36, at the end of this feature.

Do you also share your birthday with a well known, highly regarded & famous Actor or Actress; share your special day with a Director, Producer, Writer, Cinematographer, Singer/Songwriter or Composer of repute; or share an interest in whoever might notch up another year in the coming seven days? Then, look no further! Whilst there will be too many to mention in this small but not insignificant and beautifully written and presented Blog, here are the more notable and noteworthy icons of the big screen, and the small screen, that you will recognise, and that you might just share your birthday with in the week ahead. If so, Happy Birthday to you from Odeon Online!

Sunday 2nd August

• Mary-Louise Parker - Born 1964, turns 51 - Actress
• Edward Furlong - Born 1977, turns 38 - Actor | Producer
• Sam Worthington - Born 1976, turns 39 - Actor | Producer
• Kevin Smith - Born 1970, turns 45 - Director | Producer | Writer | Editor | Actor
• Wes Craven - Born 1939, turns 76 - Director | Producer | Writer | Editor | Actor

Monday 3rd August

• Martin Sheen - Born 1940, turns 75 - Actor | Producer
• John Landis - Born 1950, turns 65 - Director | Producer | Writer | Actor
• John C. McGinley - Born 1959, turns 56 - Actor | Producer
• Steven Berkoff - Born 1937, turns 78 - Actor | Director | Writer
• Evangeline Lilly - Born 1979, turns 36 - Actress

Tuesday 4th August

• Billy Bob Thornton - Born 1955, turns 60 - Actor | Producer | Director | Writer
• Daniel Dae Kim - Born 1968, turns 47 - Actor
• Martin Jarvis - Born 1941, turns 74 - Actor

Wednesday 5th August

• Mark Strong - Born 1963, turns 52 - Actor
• John Jarratt - Born 1951, turns 64 - Actor | Writer | Director | Producer

Thursday 6th August

• M. Night Shyamalan - Born 1970, turns 45 - Director | Producer | Writer | Actor
• Frank Finlay - Born 1926, turns 89 - Actor
• Barbara Windsor - Born 1937, turns 78 - Actress
• Melissa George - Born 1976, turns 39 - Actress
• Michelle Yeoh - Born 1962, turns 53 - Actress | Producer | Writer
• Vera Farmiga - Born 1973, turns 42 - Actress | Producer | Director

Friday 7th August

• Charlize Theron - Born 1975, turns 40 - Actress | Producer
• Abbie Cornish - Born 1982, turns 33 - Actress
• Megan Gale - Born 1975, turns 40 - Actress
• Michael Shannon - Born 1974, turns 41 - Actor
• Tobin Bell - Born 1942, turns 73 - Actor | Producer
• David Duchovny - Born 1960, turns 55 - Actor | Producer | Director | Writer

Saturday 8th August 

• Dustin Hoffman - Born 1937, turns 78 - Actor | Producer | Director
• Donald P. Bellisario - Born 1935, turns 80 - Producer | Director | Writer

Nicole Evangeline Lilly was born in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada and grew up in British Columbia. Her mother is a school secretary and former cosmetician, and her father a Home Economics Teacher. She graduated from W. J. Mouat Secondary School in Abbotsford, British Columbia where she was the President of the School's Student Council, and, where she played soccer. Whilst studying, she worked several jobs to fund her schooling, including waitressing, flight attendance, and as a mechanic working minor maintenance jobs on trucks and big rigs. At age 18, influenced by her Christianity she worked in the Philippines on a short term mission project, and such experiences led to her graduation in International Relations from the University of British Columbia.

Discovered on the streets of Kelowna, British Columbia by the Ford Modelling Agency, this led to bit parts in TV series 'Smallville' and 'Kingdom Hospital'. Soon afterwards she was encouraged to apply for a role on the upcoming 'Lost' expecting to get nowhere. With over seventy women auditioned for the role of Kate Austin, it was Co-Creators J.J.Abrams and Damon Lindelof who overwhelmingly agreed she was the girl for the role. Gaining a working Visa to work in the US was not without its challenges, but perseverance prevailed, and the rest, as they say, is history!

'Lost' was one of the most successful and highly acclaimed television shows of the last decade winning a Golden Globe and numerous Primetime Emmy Awards. As the female lead character, Lilly appeared in 116 out of the 121 episodes that aired. Whilst working on 'Lost' from 2004 until 2010 there were several film roles that included 'Stealing Sinatra' with David Arquette, 'The Long Weekend' with Chris Klein, 'Afterwards' with John Malkovich, and then the multiple Oscar winning 'The Hurt Locker' with Jeremy Renner in 2009.

In 2011 she was cast alongside Hugh Jackman in 'Real Steel', with Peter Jackson then creating a role for her as Tauriel, the Mirkwood Elf in 'The Hobbit' Series - 'The Desolation of Smaug' and 'The Battle of the Five Armies' in 2013 and 2014 respectively. 

After this was the recently released Marvel big screen adaptation of comic book hero 'Ant-Man' as the daughter to Michael Douglas' Dr. Hank Pym, Hope van Dyne. Right now Lilly doesn't appear to have any other film roles on the immediate horizon. For her film and television appearances, to date Lilly has five Award wins and a further 35 nominations. In the meantime however, Lilly has turned her attention to her other love of writing, and in 2013 at the San Diego Comic-Con released her first children's book - 'The Squickerwonkers' - a kids graphic book intended to run as a series.  

From 2003 to 2004 Lilly was married to Canadian Hockey squad player Murray Hone, and from 2004 to 2009 she was romantically linked to her 'Lost' Co-Star Dominic Monaghan. In 2011, she and boyfriend Norman Kali welcomed their first child Kahekill, into the world, with their second child due last month in June 2015.

Lilly supports a number of humanitarian causes and charities including : 'GO-Campaign', 'Task Brasil', and the support of orphans and widows in Rwanda. When she's not Acting, Writing or raising monies for worthwhile causes, she reads, paints, walks, drinks tea and enjoys the outdoor life.

Evangeline Lilly - forever known to 'Lost' followers as 'Freckles', a star on the rise, beautiful, multi-talented, a bit of a Tom-Boy and lover of the adventurous outdoor fun-loving life - Happy Birthday to you, from Odeon Online.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

'ANT-MAN' : Monday 20th July 2015.

I like a Marvel film, and so I saw the latest offering in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the just released 'ANT-MAN' earlier this week. Introducing us to a not seen before comic book hero but referencing many a character from the MCU that we have come to know and love, this film stands alone from the eleven films that have gone before but ties in to those that we have so far followed, and it does so well. Made for US$130M and at the time of writing has brought in US$120M this film has been a long time in gestation having been in development since early 2006 when Edgar Wright was hired to write a script with Joe Cornish. Fast forward to late 2013 and the film went finally into pre-production with Edgar Wright Directing and Paul Rudd set to play Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man). By May 2014 Edgar Wright had left the Director's chair citing creative differences with the Studio. The next month Peyton Reed was introduced as the new Director, with Wright & Cornish still gaining a storyline and screenplay credit.

The film opens in 1989 when a young Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) quits S.H.I.E.L.D. as Howard Stark (John Slattery) makes attempts to replicate his Ant-Man shrinking technology for other means. Vowing to keep his technology a secret until his dying day we fast forward to the present day and Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), a former protege of Pym has forced him out of his own company with designs on finalising his own shrinking technology - and it seems that Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Pym's estranged daughter, is part of Cross' grand plan to militarise the technology.

Meanwhile Scott Lang is about to be released from a stint in San Quentin prison where he served time for robbery. His ex-wife Maggie (Judy Greer) and young daughter now live with Paxton (Bobby Cannavale), a police officer, who are both reluctant to let Lang access to his daughter until he gets a home, gets a job, gets a life and gets the means to support his young daughter. Trying to get on the straight and narrow and leave his cat burgling life behind, after a string of failed jobs in his wake he agrees to a home robbery that should be an easy bust. But of course it's not, and this 'robbery' is in fact a set-up by Hank Pym to snare Lang for his own means, and whom he has been watching for sometime now. During the household heist however, Lang recovers what looks like an old motorcycle suit & helmet.

Back home, Lang out of curiosity tries on the suit, presses a few buttons and in an instant is shrunken to the size of an insect. What follows is a montage of a tiny Scott Lang battling all the elements of a suddenly very big world - getting trampled underfoot, washed down a drain, and other terrifying larger than life experiences that he would rather forget. These effects by the way are handled very well with just the right amount of humour to add levity to the action, and create a degree of realism to the new world that Lang is confronted with.

This in turn leads to Lang's introduction to Pym, at which he is given the low-down on the shrinking suit, the ins & outs of the technology, the do's and dont's of the outfit, and what it is that Pym wants of Lang. The bottom line is that Darren Cross is developing his own shrinking technology and is inching ever closer to perfecting the procedure. Cross has developed a 'yellowjacket' suit which he has weaponised and militarised and is seeking to sell to the highest bidder once his own technology is perfected . . . but for now Pym has the upper hand for a short while longer.

With a sequence of 'training' that is conducted by Pym's not so estranged daughter Hope, who is using her estrangement as a front to win the confidence of Darren Cross, we see the new Ant-Man put through his strength paces, his at will shrinking ability, and his control of the ant kingdom to use as necessary to thwart the enemy foe. When Lang is able to control his new found abilities and his ant colleagues at will, he is given his mission to infiltrate Cross HQ, overpower him, and prevent him from using the 'yellowjacket' suit, but Ant-Man is just too late, leading to the final showdown.

As Ant-Man and Yellowjacket collide in both large and small form with an impressive enough fight sequence coupled with some laugh out loud moments that largely take place around a Thomas the Tank Engine train track, it all comes down to survival of the fittest, fastest and smallest. As good conquers evil, the little guy kicks the big guys ass, and old tech beats new tech so all's well that ends well. As the credit's roll stay seated for the mid-credits scene that help sets up the next instalment and then stay seated until the end credits for The Avengers 'The Falcon' and 'Captain America' leading us into the upcoming 'The Avengers : Civil War' . . . maybe!

Ant-Man is a welcome addition to the Marvel big screen canon and is certainly worth the price of your ticket and worth catching on the big screen.

  

-Steve, at Odeon Online-