Birthday's to share this week : 15th - 21st October 2017.

Do you celebrate your Birthday this week?

Viggo Mortensen does on 20th October - check out my tribute to this Actor, Author, Musician, Photographer, Painter and Poet Birthday Boy turning 59, 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 15th October

• Tanya Roberts - Born 1955, turns 62 - Actress
• Michael Caton-Jones - Born 1957, turns 60 - Director | Producer
• Todd Solondz - Born 1959, turns 58 - Director | Writer
• Dominic West - Born 1969, turns 48 - Actor | Director

Monday 16th October

• Tim Robbins - Born 1958, turns 59 - Actor | Producer | Director | Writer | Singer | Songwriter
• Gary Kemp - Born 1959, turns 58 - Songwriter | Actor 
• Flea (aka Michael Peter Balzary) - Born 1962, turns 55 - Actor | Songwriter
• Kenneth Lonergan - Born 1962, turns 55 - Writer | Director | Actor
• Angela Lansbury - Born 1925, turns 92 - Actress | Producer | Singer  

Tuesday 17th October

• Felicity Jones - Born 1983, turns 34 - Actress
• Lawrence Bender - Born 1957, turns 60 - Producer | Actor
• Rob Marshall - Born 1960, turns 57 - Director | Producer | Choreographer
• Eminem (aka Marshall Bruce Mathers III) - Born 1972, turns 45 - Singer | Songwriter | Actor | Producer | Writer
• Matthew Macfadyen - Born 1974, turns 43 - Actor 

Wednesday 18th October

• Howard Shore - Born 1946, turns 71 - Composer | Songwriter | Orchestrator | Conductor
• Jean-Claude Van Damme - Born 1960, turns 57 - Actor | Producer | Writer | Director 
• Zac Efron - Born 1987, turns 30 - Actor | Singer  
• Freida Pinto - Born 1984, turns 33 - Actress

Thursday 19th October

• John le Carre - Born 1931, turns 86 - Writer | Producer | Actor
• Michael Gambon - Born 1940, turns 77 - Actor
• John Lithgow - Born 1945, turns 72 - Actor | Producer | Singer 
• Jon Favreau - Born 1966, turns 51 - Actor | Producer | Director | Writer
• Trey Parker - Born 1969, turns 48 - Actor | Producer | Writer | Director | Singer | Songwriter 
• Jason Reitman - Born 1977, turns 40 - Director | Producer | Writer | Actor 

Friday 20th October

• Timothy West - Born 1934, turns 83 - Actor 
• Thomas Newman - Born 1955, turns 62 - Composer | Singer | Songwriter | Orchestrator | Conductor
• Danny Boyle - Born 1956, turns 61 - Director | Producer | Writer
• Viggo Mortensen - Born 1958, turns 59 - Actor | Producer | Singer | Songwriter  
• Snoop Dog (aka Calvin Cordozar Broadus) - Born 1971, turns 46 - Actor | Singer | Songwriter | Producer | Composer | Writer | Director 
• John Krasinski - Born 1979, turns 38 - Actor | Producer | Director | Writer | Singer

Saturday 21st October 

• Ken Watanabe - Born 1959, turns 58 - Actor | Producer
• Catherine Hardwicke - Born 1955, turns 62 - Director | Producer | Production Designer | Writer

Viggo Peter Mortensen Jnr. was born in New York City to mother Grace Atkinson, and father Viggo Peter Mortensen Snr. She is American, and he Danish. The couple met in Norway. The family moved to Venezuela , then onto Denmark and then Argentina, where the young Viggo attended primary school and where he became fluent in Spanish. At age eleven, his parents separated and so Viggo Jnr. returned to New York with his mother  where he spent his remaining childhood years attending Watertown High School, in New York and from where he graduated in 1976. He then went on to study at St. Lawrence University in New York graduating with a Bachelor's Degree in Spanish Studies and Politics. That was 1980, and thereafter he spent time living in Spain, Denmark and England where he took menial jobs to pay his way before returning to the US to take up an acting career.  He has two younger brothers, Walter and Charles, both of whom work as geologists. 

In 1984 Mortensen appeared in the television mini-series 'George Washington' with the likes of Beau Bridges, Robert Stack, Hal Holbrook, James Mason and Trevor Howard, and the following year appeared in a single episodes of the long running day time television serial 'Search for Tomorrow'. It was also in 1985 that the aspiring Actor gained this first feature film role in Peter Weir's 'Witness' alongside Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas and Danny Glover. This gave way to a single episode on 'Miami Vice' then a few movies seeing out the '80's including Renny Harlin's horror crime drama 'Prison', then 'Fresh Horses' with Molly Ringwood, Ben Stiller, and Andrew McCarthy and then 'Tripwire'. 

From 1990 Mortensen scored regular feature film work year on year kicking off with 'Leatherface : Texas Chainsaw Massacre III' and then action Western 'Young Guns II' with Keifer Sutherland, Emilio Estevez, Christian Slater, Lou Diamond Phillips and James Coburn. Horror thriller 'The Reflecting Skin' and then the Sean Penn Directed drama 'The Indian Runner' with David Morse, Charles Bronson, and Dennis Hopper. 'Ruby Cairo' with Liam Neeson, 'Boiling Point' with Wesley Snipes, 'The Young Americans' with Harvey Keitel, led to the Brian de Palma Directed 'Carlito's Way' with Al Pacino in 1993.

The years that followed upto the end of the decade saw Mortensen star in a host of 'B' grade movies whilst others shared more notable mainstream success. Included in the latter were Tony Scott's 'Crimson Tide' with Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington; Jane Campion's 'The Portrait of a Lady' with Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich; the Kevin Spacey Directed 'Albino Alligator' with Matt Dillon and Faye Dunaway; the Rob Cohen Directed 'Daylight' with Sylvester Stallone; Ridley Scott's 'G.I. Jane' with Demi Moore and Anne Bancroft; the remake of Hitchcock's 'Dial M for Murder' with 'A Perfect Murder' starring Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow; and Gus Van Sant's frame by frame remake of the classic Hitchcock thriller 'Psycho' with Vince Vaughn and Julianne Moore seeing out the '90's.

2000 saw comedy drama offering '28 Days' with Sandra Bullock and Dominic West, before what is best described as his breakout roll in 2001 as Aragorn in Peter Jackson's epic trilogy 'Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring' which was followed up with 2002's 'Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers' and in 2003 by 'Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King'. The three films went on to huge commercial and critical success winning a combined sixteen Academy Awards plus another 425 award wins and 384 further nominations. In terms of worldwide Box Office the three films cost a total US$281M to bring J.R.R. Tolkien's books to the big screen, and raked in a combined US$2,92B.

Following the four year 'LOTR' trilogy hiatus, Mortensen remained in the saddle (literally) with the Joe Johnston Directed historical biographical action adventure offering 'Hidalgo' with Omar Sharif. His first collaboration with Director David Cronenberg came in 2005 with 'A History of Violence' also starring Ed Harris and Maria Bello. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards and walked away with another 37 award wins and 78 nods. Spanish historical adventure drama 'Alatriste' came next in 2006, followed by his second outing for Cronenberg with crime drama 'Eastern Promises' with Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassel for which Mortensen was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award from its total award haul of 28 wins and another 71 nominations.

Next up for Mortensen in 2008 was the Ed Harris, Co-Written, Directed and starring crime drama Western 'Appaloosa' with Renee Zellweger, Jeremy Irons and Timothy Spall, followed by WWII drama 'Good' with Jason Isaacs and Mark Strong. This in turn led to the Cormac McCarthy adaptation of his post-apocalyptic adventure drama 'The Road' as Directed to Critical acclaim by John Hillcoat and also starring Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce.

2011 saw Mortensen's third collaboration with David Cronenberg in the historical biographical drama 'A Dangerous Method' in which Mortensen plays Sigmund Freud opposite Michael Fassbender's Carl Jung. The film also starred Keira Knightley, and Vincent Cassel and collected 18 award wins and a further 28 nominations from around the traps. 'On the Road' followed a year later with an ensemble cast in the adventure drama film also starring Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Elisabeth Moss, Kirsten Dunst, Terrence Howard and Steve Buscemi. The Argentinian crime thriller 'Everybody Has a Plan' followed also in 2012, and then the romantic thriller 'The Two Faces of January' with Oscar Isaac and Kirsten Dunst in 2014.

2014 also saw the historical drama offering 'Juaja', and then the French drama film 'Far from Men'. This took us up to 2016 and Mortensen's turn in the highly regarded 'Captain Fantastic' as Written and Directed by Matt Ross and also starring Frank Langella, Steve Zahn and a cast of six child Actors all portraying Mortensen's somewhat dysfunctional children raised in remote woodlands totally isolated from the world for ten years, only to have to reintegrate into mainstream society as a result of the tragic and unexpected death of their mother. The film received generally positive Reviews and Mortensen was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and SAG for his performance out of its total fourteen wins and 43 other nominations.

Next up for Mortensen is 'Unabomb' currently in pre-production and telling the story of an FBI Agent who leads an unconventional team on the hunt for notorious Theodore (Ted) John Kaczynski (aka 'The Unabomber') who between 1978 and 1995 killed three people and injured 23 others in a nationwide bombing campaign, and who is now serving eight consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.  In between time Mortensen established his own publishing company - 'The Perceval Press' to help other artists by publishing their works that may not ordinarily find a home in more mainstream traditional publishing houses. He also uses his own company to publish many of his own personal artistic projects in the areas of photography, poetry, music and literature. His credits as an author on numerous books of poetry, photography and painting extend from his initial collection of poems - 'Ten Last Night' released in 1993 that take in a further seventeen publications right up to 2015. He also combines his love of poetry with music and he also boasts an extensive discography taking in seventeen released CD's between 1994 and 2013.

All up Mortensen has 57 Acting credits to his name, three as Producer, three Soundtrack credits and one as Composer. He has 32 Award wins under his belt and a further 93 nominations including two Academy Awards and two BAFTA nominations for 'Captain Fantastic' and 'Eastern Promises', three Golden Globe nominations for 'Captain Fantastic', 'Eastern Promises' and 'A Dangerous Method', and four SAG nods for Captain Fantastic', 'Eastern Promises', 'LOTR : The Fellowship of the Ring' and 'The Two Towers' and a win for 'LOTR : The Return of the King'. 

Mortensen was married to Actress and Singer Exene Cervenka from mid 1987 through until 1992, becoming officially divorced in 1997. They have a son together, Henry Blake Mortensen born in January 1988. Since 2009, Mortensen has been romantically linked to Spanish Actress Ariadna Gil.

Viggo Mortensen - fluent in English, Spanish, Danish and French, understands Norwegian and Swedish and can converse in Italian; is a fan of soccer, baseball (the New York Mets), ice hockey (the Montreal Canadiens), American football (the New York Giants); is an accomplished horse rider; has appeared on numerous 'Top' lists over the years including 100 Sexiest Movie Stars, 15 Sexiest Men, 25 Most Intriguing People, the Hottest Hotties and 50 Most Beautiful People; and turned down the role of Aragorn until his son convince him to take it on . . . . thankfully he made the right decision! Known for his cleft chin, soft mellow voice and for portraying rugged anti-heroes with absolute conviction, you are acclaimed in a multitude of artistic endeavours, and you never disappoint. Happy Birthday to you Viggo, from Odeon Online.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 8th September 2016.

This week sees the release of Clint Eastwood's 35th feature film as Director. Of those 35 films he has Co-Produced 27, starred in 23 of those and mostly in the lead role, composed the music score for six, and either performed the song or written the words and/or music for sixteen of them. Certainly multi talented and still going strong after seven decades in the acting business having gained his first credited acting role in 1955. For his efforts he won the Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards for 'Unforgiven' and for 'Million Dollar Baby' plus he has seven other Oscar nominations together with his total awards haul of 140 other wins and 143 nominations for Acting, Directing, Producing and music. A genuine movie making all-rounder. Below is a summary of his Directing credits to date :-

 * 1971 - 'Play Misty for Me' - starring Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter and Donna Mills
 * 1973 - 'High Plains Drifter' - starring Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom and Marianna Hill
 * 1973 - 'Breezy' - starring William Holden
 * 1975 - 'The Eiger Sanction' - starring Clint Eastwood and George Kennedy
 * 1976 - 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' - starring Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke
 * 1977 - 'The Gauntlet' - starring Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke
 * 1980 - 'Bronco Billy' - starring Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke
 * 1982 - 'Firefox' - starring Clint Eastwood and Freddie Jones
 * 1982 - 'Honkeytonk Man' - starring Clint Eastwood and Kyle Eastwood
 * 1983 - 'Sudden Impact' - starring Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke
 * 1985 - 'Pale Rider' - starring Clint Eastwood and Michael Moriarty
 * 1986 - 'Heartbreak Ridge' - starring Clint Eastwood and Marsha Mason
 * 1988 - 'Bird' - starring Clint Eastwood and Forest Whitaker
 * 1990 - 'White Hunter, Black Heart' - starring Clint Eastwood and Jeff Fahey
 * 1990 - 'The Rookie' - starring Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen
 * 1992 - 'Unforgiven' - starring Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman
 * 1993 - 'A Prefect World' - starring Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner and Laura Dern
 * 1995 - 'The Bridges of Madison County' - starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep
 * 1997 - 'Absolute Power' - starring Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman and Ed Harris
 * 1997 - 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' - starring John Cusack and Kevin Spacey
 * 1999 - 'True Crime' - starring Clint Eastwood, James Woods and Isaiah Washington
 * 2000 - 'Space Cowboys' - starring Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones and Donald Sutherland
 * 2002 - 'Blood Work' - starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Daniels and Angelica Houston
 * 2003 - 'Mystic River' - starring Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins
 * 2004 - 'Million Dollar Baby' - starring Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman
 * 2006 - 'Flags of Our Fathers' - starring Ryan Phillippe and Barry Pepper
 * 2006 - 'Letters from Iwo Jima' - starring Ken Watanabe
 * 2008 - 'Changeling' - starring Angeline Jolie and Amy Ryan
 * 2008 - 'Gran Torino' - starring Clint Eastwood and Bee Vang
 * 2009 - 'Invictus' - starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman
 * 2010 - 'Hereafter' - starring Matt Damon
 * 2011 - 'J.Edgar' - starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Judi Dench
 * 2014 - 'Jersey Boys' - starring Christopher Walken and John Lloyd Young
 * 2014 - 'American Sniper' - starring Bradley Cooper
 * 2016 - 'Sully' - starring Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart.

Turning to the week ahead, we have six new movie offerings coming to an Odeon near you. Kicking off with a superhero film of a different kind that sees a mere mortal father with strong beliefs living well & truly off the grid with his six kids in remote woodland that eventually have to confront the real world with lasting consequences on them all. Then another hero story based on real events surrounding a quick thinking pilot, a flock of geese and the chilly waters of a major waterway; a quirky Australian coming of age drama; and then a couple of documentaries - one into a weird and wacky Church that seems swathed in secrecy and hell bent on covering up its antics, and the next about a campaign to bring about equality and gay marriage rights in a country that you would least expect to blaze such a trail. And then we wrap up with an animated feature of domestic animals doing their own thing when their owners and human friends are out from 9-5.

With another big selection of diverse cinematic content to choose from in the coming week, plus those other films as Reviewed and Previewed between these humble pages that are still doing the rounds on general release, you are invited as always to share your thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your own Comments below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your film.

'CAPTAIN FANTASTIC' (Rated M) - no, this is not a Marvel or DC Extended Universe offering up there with 'Captain America' or another reboot of 'The Fantastic Four', but instead an independently produced comedy drama film Directed and Written by Matt Ross that has garnered much critical acclaim since its release. Having premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January this year, screened in competition at Cannes in May in the 'Un Certain Regard' category and won the Best Director Prize, and released in early July in the US, this film now arrives at a cinema near you and calls for your attention.

Starring Viggo Mortensen as father of six Ben Cash who lives with his family well and truly off the grid in the Pacific Northwest in remote Washington State. His wife Leslie (Trin Miller) has a history of mental illness and is hospitalised with bipolar disorder and then he receives news that she has committed suicide. Having brought up their six children Bodevan - 18 (George Mackay), twins Kielyr - 15 (Samantha Isler) and Vespyr -15 (Annalise Basso), Rellian - 14 (Nicholas Hamilton), Zaja - 8 (Shree Crooks) and Nai - 6 (Charlie Shotwell) in isolation of the outside world, schooled at home in the ways of critical thinking, physical training, mental agility, being an one with nature and living without any 21st century conveniences or technology, he must embark on a road trip to New Mexico to attend the funeral. This however, means taking his children into the outside world for the first time,  and confronting Leslie's parents who threaten him with arrest if he attends the funeral. Their journey of discovery and the ways the children respond differently to it and what they encounter en route, causes Ben to re-evaluate the choices made in their upbringing and his own beliefs. Also starring Frank Langella and Anne Dowd as Leslie's parents, and Kathryn Hahn and Steve Zahn as Ben's sister and her husband respectively.

'SULLY' (Rated M) - this is real life story of Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger who captained the US Airways Flight 1549 on January 15th 2009 that soon after departing New York's LaGuardia Airport bound for Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, hit a flock of geese crippling both engines of the Airbus A320. Three minutes into the flight, still at low altitude and with no airport to divert to quickly Sully (Tom Hanks) and his First Officer Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) make the decision to ditch the stricken aircraft in the near freezing waters of the Hudson River saving every one of the 155 passengers and crew on board. This against the odds story tells how 'The Miracle on the Hudson' as it came to be known unfolded, how Sully is made a hero in the press and in the media, but soon afterwards an investigation unfolds that sees Sully's life turn upside down as he must defend his actions on that day, his family and his reputation. Directed and Co-Produced by Clint Eastwood with Lara Linney starring as Sully's wife Lorraine. This film is based on Sully's autobiography 'Highest Duty'.

'GIRL ASLEEP' (Rated M) - this little Australian coming of age drama was filmed in Adelaide, South Australia and premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2015 where it took out the Audience Award for Most Popular Feature Film being bestowed upon Director Rosemary Myers and Producer Jo Dyer. It also won the Grand Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival, and has garnered much critical praise around the festival circuit before arriving back home for a general, albeit fairly limited release. This tells the story of Greta Driscoll (Bethany Whitmore) who is about to turn fifteen sometime during the mid-70's in Australian suburbia. She is content to live in the shadows, be the underdog, and let life pass her by as she clings onto the last vestiges of childhood where there is familiarity, safety, belonging and all the comforts she is used to. She meanders around with her only friend Elliott (Harrison Feldman) until her parents throw a surprise birthday party and invite just about anyone and everyone within the school and whereupon she is flung into a parallel world where we journey through the whimsical, scary, beautiful mind of a young teenage girl.

'MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE' (Rated M) - quirky and brave documentarian Louis Theroux has sought for a number of years to make a doco about the Church of Scientology but was refused access, permission and any right to do so by Church officials. In 2011 Theroux and his Producer, Simon Chinn, got together with Director John Dower and started planning this film, but not in the traditional talking heads and archival footage sense. Here we see Theroux combine with former senior Scientologist Mark Rathburn to create dramatic reconstructions of incidents and actions using Actors as Church Officials. Here they portray claims of violent behaviour by the Head of the Church David Miscavige at its international headquarters at Gold Base in Riverside County, California. It is not long however, before the Church retaliates on Theroux and his film making crew with their own camera surveillance as though turning the film making tables on the film maker, in a kind of Mexican camera stand-off, which is all documented here, together with supposedly accurate and faithful reconstructions Directed by Scientology Whistleblower Rathburn for authenticity. The funny, revealing and absurd film premiered at the London Film Festival last October and is likely to leave you asking more questions than those answered into exactly what are they hiding?

'THE QUEEN OF IRELAND' (Rated M) - another documentary this time charting the life and times of world renowned Irish drag queen and LGBTIQ rights activist Panti Bliss aka Rory O'Neill, as Written and Directed by Conor Horgan. As Panti fights for equality in her native Ireland, we join her on the campaign trail which ultimately led to the country becoming the first in the world to sanction gay marriage as voted by the people in early 2015, which would have been an unimaginable concept ten years ago. As she becomes a passionate, powerful and persuasive public figure at a time that Ireland perhaps needed it the most, the message within this film is likely to resonate in particular with Australian audiences who are engaged in much debate about the very same topic. When the film opened in Ireland in October 2015, it had the highest grossing opening weekend for an Irish documentary film ever.

'THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS' (Rated G) - this animated feature from Illumination  Entertainment was Directed by Chris Renaud, released in the US in early July, cost US$75M to make and has so far grossed US$767M making it the highest grossing non-Disney original animated feature film, ever! In a nutshell, the film tells the story of the things our beloved pets get up to when us adults and kids are out at work or at school during the day. Featuring an impressive voice cast that includes Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Albert Brooks, Steve Coogan and Louis C.K. You can be sure that this includes the latest in animation design, sight gags, a witty script, loveable creatures, annoying critters,  pesky animals and adorable pets that is sure to please the child in us all.

With six very different films to choose from this week, there is something for just about everyone, so no excuses - get yourself out to your local movie theatre, watch a film, and share your views here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you at the Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-