Birthday's to share this week : 27th December 2015 - 2nd January 2016.

Do you celebrate your Birthday this week?

Noomi Rapace does on 28th December - check out my 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 27th December

• Gerard Depardieu - Born 1948, turns 67 - Actor | Producer | Director
• Maryam d'Abo - Born 1960, turns 55 - Actress | Producer | Writer

Monday 28th December

• Sienna Miller - Born 1981, turns 34 - Actress
• Noomi Rapace - Born 1979, turns 36 - Actress
• Maggie Smith - Born 1934, turns 81 - Actress
• Denzel Washington - Born 1954, turns 1954 - Actor | Producer | Director
• Stan Lee - Born 1922, turns 93 - Writer | Producer | Actor
• Alex Dimitriades - Born 1973, turns 42 - Actor

Tuesday 29th December

• Jude Law - Born 1972, turns 43 - Actor | Producer
• Ted Danson - Born 1947, turns 68 - Actor | Producer
• Jon Voight - Born 1938, turns 77 - Actor | Producer | Writer
• Andy Wachowski - Born 1967, turns 48 - Director | Producer | Writer
• Bernard Cribbins - Born 1928, turns 87 - Actor
• Patricia Clarkson - Born 1959, turns 56 - Actress | Writer

Wednesday 30th December 

• Bennett Miller - Born 1966, turns 49 - Director | Producer
• Tyrese Gibson - Born 1978, turns 37 - Actor | Producer
• Tracey Ullman - Born 1959, turns 56 - Actress | Producer | Writer | Television Personality

Thursday 31st December 

• Val Kilmer - Born 1959, turns 56 - Actor | Producer | Director
• Anthony Hopkins -Born 1937, turns 78 - Actor | Producer | Director | Writer | Composer
• Ben Kingsley - Born 1943, turns 72 - Actor | Producer
• Taylor Hackford - Born 1944, turns 71 - Director | Producer | Writer

Friday 1st January

• Frank Langella - Born 1938, turns 77 - Actor
• Verne Troyer - Born 1969, turns 46 - Actor | Stuntman

Saturday 2nd January

• Cuba Gooding Jnr. - Born 1968, turns 47 - Actor | Producer
• Todd Haynes - Born 1961, turns 54 - Director | Producer | Writer
• Tia Carrere - Born 1967, turns 48 - Actress | Producer
• Paz Vega - Born 1976, turns 39 - Actress
• Kate Bosworth - Born 1983, turns 32 - Actress | Producer

Noomi Noren was born in Hudiksvall, Sweden to mother Nina Noren, a Swedish Actress, and father Rogelio Duran a Spanish Flamenco Singer from Badajoz close to the border with Portugal on the River Guadiana. Her father died in late 2006 just before his 53rd birthday. She has a sister Saerun Noren, a photographer. Her mother and father separated when she was young, and at age five she moved from her home in Sweden with her mother and stepfather to Iceland. Two years later in 1988 she made her big screen debut in a non-speaking part in 'In the Shadow of the Raven' - an Icelandic Viking film. It was this film experience that even at such a young age made her want to be an Actress. At 15, she left home and took up Acting at a Stockholm theatre school.

In 1996 she won her small screen debut in the long running soap series 'Tre kronor' for twelve episodes. The next, her second film was released with the Swedish movie 'Sanning eller konsekvens' with the balance of the decade spent as a jobbing actor and at acting school. The new decade brought a number of theatre productions in the first half and all staged throughout Stockholm's theatre land. During this time too more film roles and television series were to follow with fairly regular work coming in year on year too through until 2007 when she gained critical acclaim in the Danish film 'Daisy Diamond' for which she won two major awards for Best Actress and the film was up for competition at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

2009 was however, the year that changed her life forever, starring as Lisbeth Salander in the highly acclaimed trilogy of the films based on the Steig Larsson hugely successful novels in the 'Millennium' series - 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', and then 'The Girl Who Played With Fire' and finally 'The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest'. For her role in the first film she won Sweden's highest Guldbagge Award, and was nominated for a BAFTA and a European Film Award.

'Beyond' came next in 2010 and then 'The Monitor' - Swedish and Norwegian films respectively, before her English language film debut in 2011 for Director Guy Ritchie in 'Sherlock Holmes : A Game of Shadows' opposite Robert Downey Jnr. and Jude Law. 2012 saw 'Prometheus' for Ridley Scott with Michael Fassbender and Idris Elba.

The last couple of years have seen 'Dead Man Down' in 2013 with Colin Farrell, and 'Passion' that same year for Brian De Palma with Rachel McAdams. Crime drama 'The Drop' with Tom Hardy followed in 2014, and then 'Child 44' with Tom Hardy once again.

Next up is 'Rupture' due in 2016 and currently in post-production, as is 'Unlocked' with Michael Douglas, John Malkovich and Orlando Bloom, and then 'What Happened to Monday' with Willem Dafoe and Glenn Close. After this will be 'Amy Winehouse' currently in pre-production with Rapace playing the title role as the tragic eclectic English singer/songstress. For 2017 there will be 'Enzo Ferrari' Directed by Michael Mann and starring Christian Bale in the title role as the Italian sports car entrepreneur, and then 'Alien : Covenant' with Rapace reprising her role from 'Prometheus' for Director Ridley Scott again.

All up Rapace has 36 acting credits to her name so far and has garnered thirteen award wins and another seventeen nominations including a 2011 BAFTA.

In 2001 Rapace married Swedish Actor Ola Norell, with whom she adopted the surname 'Rapace' meaning 'bird of prey' in both French and Italian. They filed for divorce in 2011, and have a son together born in 2003 - Lev.

Noomi Rapace - fluent in Swedish (her native tongue), Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic and English; a reformed teenage punk rocker who had designs in her youth to emulate Nancy Spungen; insists on performing her own stunts no matter how dangerous; and judging by her current workload is very much in demand and destined for bigger things since starting out on her acting career aged less than ten! Happy Birthday Noomi, from all at Odeon Online.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week - Thursday 13th November 2014.

As we inch ever closer to Summer in Australia with longer, and certainly warmer days, there is another reason to get out and catch a movie to take advantage of the all new cinema content currently on offer on a balmy late Spring evening. After last weeks mega budget Sci-Fi epic that seems to have dominated the movie critic headlines and it appears to have divided opinion also, we have four new releases for the week ahead that provide for more balanced viewing. There is yet another attempt to revitalise the comedic buddy actioner with two mates masquerading as Police Officers and no doubt hilarity and misadventure will ensue . . . or not! Then we have a NYC gangster, low-life crims, and, surprise surprise, more Russian hoodlums beating each other up and falling over each other in the process with a couple of central characters caught in the middle who knit the story together - better than your average . . . apparently! Next up an English comedy drama set in Paris where three unlikely characters share an unknown connection that throws them together in unexpected ways; and finally a Turkish offering showing us the great divide that exists between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, liked and disliked set amidst a backdrop of rugged mountain land.

So there is a taster of what is to come, and if this doesn't get you out to your local multiplex or local independent, then there are plenty of other offerings to tempt to you yet still doing the rounds and in general circulation. Whatever you choose for your viewing pleasure, when you have sat through your film of choice, share your views and opinions in the Comments Box below this Post and let my other Follower know what you thought. Enjoy your movie experience!

THE DROP (Rated MA15+) - Directed by Belgian Michael Roskam and written for the screen by Dennis Lehane based on his own short story, this stars at its leads Tom Hardy, Noomi Repace and James Gandolfini in his last film outing before his sudden death last year. Tom Hardy plays Bob Saginowsky as the quiet, unassuming, good natured guy going about his business working in a bar which is under the management of Marv (James Gandolfini), also Bob's cousin. The bar in question however, is under the control of the local Chechen mob who use it to 'drop' money and launder it back into circulation. When the bar is raided by two masked armed gunmen, the local Police and the Chechen mobsters start to take a more active interest in the bar than they have before which begins to place both Bob and Marv under close scrutiny from all quarters.

When local friends, family and enemies also start to have the spotlight thrust upon them in this little Brooklyn community, relationships will be tested and loyalties divided. Is Bob everything he seems, and as for Marv - what's his part in all of this? Bob meanwhile picks up an injured dog and nurses it back to health then adopting it as his own. Along the way he befriends local neighbour Nadia (Noomi Rapace) and their relationship starts to become something more. But there is more to this than we know as the story unfolds revealing more about the principle characters, their backgrounds, motivations, and who they really are. Tom Hardy is turning in increasingly solid performances and this is right up there, and as for the late James Gandolfini - worth seeing him just because it is his last film role.

LET'S BE COPS (Rated MA15+) - really, do we have to?? This is the tale of two 30 something guys - long term friends, who get invited to a fancy-dress party and decide to go as two of LA's finest - mature, upstanding Police Officers. After the party on the walk home dressed still in their full authentic looking Police uniforms the local community begin to take notice of them and show respect and treat them as though they are the long arm of the law. Keeping this charade up the two lads Justin and Ryan (Damon Wayans and Jake Johnson respectively) decide to take it up another notch learning Police techniques, procedures and buying an ex-patrol car that they modify, re-paint and adapt to look like the real thing. This only strengthens their case to keep at it, and needless to say tangles follow with the local Albanian mobsters, the real local LAPD, and the local love interest who 'lurves' a man in uniform! Needless to say there'll be car chases, gun toting action, rapid one-liners and all sorts of impossible situations that our would-be cops find themselves in before saving the day, the neighbourhood, their livelihoods and their reputations. Sounds predictable - with a few laughs along the way . . . maybe!

MY OLD LADY (Rated M) - Kevin Kline, Kristen Scott-Thomas and Maggie Smith star in this dramedy of down at heel struggling writer cum alcoholic Mathias Gold (Kevin Kline) who arrives in Paris to claim an apartment he has been left by his recently departed and estranged father. On arrival he encounters 92 year old Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith) who lives in the apartment and is allowed to do so until she dies by French real-estate law. Deciding to take up residence with Mathilde, Mathias moves in and quickly learns that the old lady is living there with her daughter Chloe Girard (Kristen Scott-Thomas). Mathias takes up a position with a local real-estate agent and learns that there was more to Mathilde's relationship with his father than simple landlord and tenant, and that in fact the three of them are connected in unexpected unforeseen ways, that only the old lady can reveal. A strong cast, the makings of a good story, but will it deliver - see it to decide!

WINTER SLEEP (Rated M) - this is a Turkish drama film that won the Palme D'Or at The Cannes Film Festival and is the Turkish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at next Years Academy Awards. Set in Anatolia in the mountain steppes of Cappadocia it tells the story of former actor Aydin (Haluk Biliginer) who now runs a small hotel carved into a mountain side with his younger wife and his sister who is recently divorced. Aydin thinks he is the surrogate self appointed keeper of the local community dishing out his advice, guidance and opinion to the townsfolk whether they like it or not! And they don't - they dislike him and despise him, and so does his wife it seems. As the warmth and busyness of Summer gives way to the cold empty isolation of Winter relationships in the now quiet hotel and local village start to fray and stretch as Aydin must come to terms with who and what he really is and the people he has crossed paths with. Touted as compelling viewing as the central character unfolds, this is dialogue heavy but rewarding if you are prepared to sit through the near 200 minutes running time.

Four films offering a variety of viewing options in the week ahead. Check one (or two) out and share your opinion with Odeon Online.

Movies - see one this week!

-Steve, at Odeon Online-