Birthday's to share this week : 9th - 15th August 2015

Do you celebrate your Birthday this week?

Jennifer Lawrence does on 15th August - check out the tribute to this Birthday Girl turning 25, 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 9th August

• Gillian Anderson - Born 1968, turns 47 - Actress
• Anna Kendrick - Born 1985, turns 30 - Actress
• Rhona Mitra - Born 1976, turns 39 - Actress
• Audrey Tatou - Born 1976, turns 39 - Actress
• Melanie Griffith - Born 1957, turns 58 - Actress | Producer
• McG - Born 1968, turns 47 - Director | Producer
• Sam Elliott - Born 1944, turns 71 - Actor | Producer
• Eric Bana - Born 1968, turns 47 - Actor | Producer | Director

Monday 10th August

• Antonio Banderas - Born 1960, turns 55 - Actor | Producer | Director
• Brenton Thwaites - Born 1989, turns 26 - Actor
• Rosanna Arquette - Born 1959, turns 56 - Actress | Producer | Director

Tuesday 11th August

• Viola Davis - Born 1965m turns 50 - Actress | Producer
• Chris Hemsworth - Born 1983, turns 32 - Actor
• Ian McDiarmid - Born 1944, turns 71 - Actor
• Hulk Hogan - Born 1953, turns 62 - Actor | Wrestler

Wednesday 12th August

• George Hamilton - Born 1939, turns 76 - Actor | Producer
• Casey Affleck - Born 1975, turns 40 - Actor | Producer | Writer

Thursday 13th August

• Paul Greengrass - Born 1955, turns 60 - Director | Producer | Wreiter

 Friday 14th August

• Steve Martin - Born 1945, turns 70 - Actor | Producer | Writer
• James Horner - Born 1953, turns 62 - Composer | Songwriter
• Wim Wenders - born 1945, turns 70 - Actor | Producer | Writer
• Mila Kunis - Born 1983, turns 32 - Actress
• Halle Berry - Born 1966, turns 49 - Actress | Producer
• Marcia Gay Harden - Born 1959, turns 56 - Actor

Saturday 15th August

• Jennifer Lawrence - Born 1990, turns 25 - Actress
• Debra Messing - Born 1968, turns 47 - Actress | Producer
• Natasha Hentsridge - Born 1974, turns 41 - Actress
• Nicolas Roeg - Born 1928, turns 87 - Director | Cinematographer
• Ben Affleck - Born 1972, turns 43 - Actor | Producer | Director | Writer
• Alejandro Gonzales Inaritu - Born 1963, turns 52 - Procucer | Director | Writer.

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born and grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, USA to mother Karen Koch - the manager and owner of a children's camp, and construction worker father Gary Lawrence. She has two older brothers - Ben and Blaine. Lawrence attended Kammerer Middle School in her home town and graduated two years ahead of time wanting to pursue a career in acting. Whilst at school she participated in softball, modelling, hockey and cheer leading, and having grown up just 15 minutes from a horse stud too she became proficient in horse riding, but none of these really interested her above her desire to act. She convinced her parents to take her to New York to locate a talent agent, which they did and with relative ease given the prowess for the craft that the young Lawrence was able to demonstrate.

Having been spotted by an acting agency her first television role came in an episode of 'Monk' in 2006, and then 'Cold Case' in 2007, with two on 'Medium' in 2007/08, with a minor role that same year in 'Garden Party' which was her big screen debut. From 2007-2009 she appeared in 'The Bill Engvall Show' over multiple episodes. During this time there was a meatier role in 'The Poker House', Directed by Lori Petty in 2008, which was her first starring role and for which she won an LA Film Festival Award. 'The Burning Plain' came next also in 2008 with Charlize Theron and Kim Bassinger which received mild critical reviews but failed commercially, and despite this she won an award at the Venice Film Festival for Best Emerging Actress.

What is often described as her breakout role came next in 2010 with 'Winter's Bone' which picked up the Best Picture Award at Sundance, and for her role she gained an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. 2011 delivered 'Like Crazy', a romantic drama; 'The Beaver' with Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster; and then 'X-Men : First Class' in her first outing as Raven/Mystique.






2012 was however, the game changer, as Lawrence snagged the lead role as Katniss Everdeen in the first of 'The Hunger Games' series which she was initially reluctant to take on given the enormity of the role, the physical requirements, and the expectations behind the film adaptation of the successful books. The extensive training regime she had to undertake paid off with a worldwide gross Box Office take of US$691M.

That same year also saw 'Silver Linings Playbook' with Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro in David O'Russell's acclaimed film. At just 22, Lawrence won both the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress and was the second youngest actress to do so. Also that year came the psychological thriller 'The House at the End of the Street' and a year later she reprised her Katniss Everdeen role in 'The Hunger Games : Catching Fire' which outstripped the opening film with a Box Office haul of US$865M.

'American Hustle' followed in 2013 with Christian Bale, Jeremy Renner, Bradley Cooper and Amy Adams which garnered further acclaim with Best Supporting Actress nominations at The Golden Globes, Academy Awards and BAFTA's. 2014 saw a reprisal for her Raven/Mystique character in Bryan Singer's US$748M blockbuster 'X-Men : Days of Future Past', and then Katniss Everdeen in the first of the final 'The Hunger Games' films 'Mockingjay - Part 1' which cashed in at US$752M.


Next up is the final instalment of 'The Hunger Games' franchise with 'Mockingjay - Part 2', with 'Joy' also due for release later in 2015 and starring with Bradley Cooper for the fourth time. 'X-Men : Apocalypse' is filming currently for a 2016 release, with 'The Rose Project' and 'Passengers' in pre-production and 'It's What I Do' recently announced.






So far Lawrence has 28 acting credits to her name, one Academy Award win and two other nominations; two Golden Globe wins and another nomination; one BAFTA win and a nomination plus 114 other award wins and 113 other nominations from around the traps, and, she's still only 25! When Lawrence is not acting, she actively supports the 'World Food Programme', 'The Thirst Project', 'Feeding America'; is an ambassador for the Special Olympics and has launched the Jennifer Lawrence Foundation. Earlier this year she was ranked by the Guinness World Records as the highest grossing action heroine too for her role in 'The Hunger Games'. She was romantically linked to Actor Nicholas Hoult for a time and for a brief period more recently to Coldplay front man Chris Martin.

Jennifer Lawrence - husky voiced, immense acting range, Hollywood power player, sultry, beautiful, talented, in demand, a rising star, influential and inspirational - Happy Birthday to you from Odeon Online.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE HUNGER GAMES : MOCKINGJAY Pt. 1 - Tuesday 25th November 2014.

On Tuesday night this week I ventured to my local Multiplex with a couple of movies buddies to see the next instalment in this franchise - the beginning of the end as the final book in the series is split into two movies (a la 'Harry Potter' and 'Twilight'). And so the third film in the series and the first half of the concluding episode - 'THE HUNGER GAMES : MOCKINGJAY Pt. 1' left me feeling underwhelmed I have to say. This film is the meat in the sandwich well & truly, sitting between the spectacle and the bravura of 'Catching Fire' and what will undoubtedly be a climactic all guns blazing epic conclusion that is 'Mockingjay Pt. 2' . . . one year from now with its release on 19th November 2015.

Directed once again by Francis Lawrence, we have all the characters we have got to know over the first two films assembled once more, with a couple of new ones thrown in as the action takes us to someplace else. Following on directly from where the last film left us, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) awakens in a hospital bed with vague memories of how she got there and who she left behind . . . the believed dead Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). Recovering she learns that she is in District 13 which it had previously been thought was destroyed long ago, but not so apparently. District 13 is overseen by President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and is occupied by former military personnel and is housed deep underground. As a result it is relatively safe, secure, and out of sight hidden beneath a dense forest but houses a mass of military weapons, aircraft, and a large community with the necessary infrastructure to support it.

When the Hunger Games Arena was destroyed and the Quarter Quell overturned at the end of 'Catching Fire' our protagonists were carted off in opposite directions - Katniss to District 13 with Gale Hawthorn (Liam Hemsworth), Sam Claflin (Finnick Odair), Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour-Hoffman), and Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) - the latter 'drying out a mile underground'! Heading off to The Capitol captured by President Coriolanus Snow were Mellark and Johanna Mason (Jena Malone) and Annie Cresta (Stef Dawson) wife of Finnick Odair.

President Coin aided by Heavensbee want to use Katniss as their mascot for the uprising against The Capitol and everything that President Snow (Donald Sutherland) stands for. As a symbol of hope, strength, unity and power to spearhead the rebellion, Katniss is crowned 'The Mockingjay' and so a propaganda campaign is launched and broadcast to all other Districts to consolidate the rebellion efforts against The Capitol. Meanwhile The Capitol with its military strength and its own propaganda campaign has outlawed the Mockingjay, and anyone seen or heard supporting it will be punished by death. President Snow has also trashed all other Districts, killed many of their citizens and nearly razed those former dystopian communities to the ground - not much is left.

When Katniss learns via the TV propaganda campaign launched by The Capitol that Peeta and Co. are in fact still alive, a plan is hatched to break them out of there and engineer a cunning escape - if only it were that easy of course! With live pictures beamed frequently over the TV with Peeta on screen being interviewed by Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), Katniss soon realises that her love, Peeta, must have taken leave of his senses, given the anti-rebellion drivel coming out of his mouth! How can this be, horror of horrors! But within no time as Peeta loses weight before our very eyes on the TV screen and has an increasingly gaunt appearance, conclusions are drawn that he has been tortured and forced into submission. Katniss can't believe her eyes or ears, and nor can the rest of the populace!

And so Katniss becomes the poster girl for the rebellion and with Peeta languishing in The Capitol undergoing all manner of psychological torture, her attention becomes somewhat distracted by Gale Hawthorn and the increasingly obvious path of death and destruction that President Snow seems hell bent on. All of this seems to amble along with rousing speeches delivered by Alma Coin intermittently, discoveries of more fractured District communities, snippets of televised propaganda from both sides, and a few moments of action. One of the most 'gripping' scenes comes when The Capitol is bombing District 13 and all are nestled deep below ground in their bunker when Katniss has to go rescue her sister Primrose Everdeen (Willow Shields) who has gone searching for the family cat with bombs raining down and the time counting down to the automatic closure of the meter thick bomb proof bunker doors - will they all die because of a pesky flea bitten cat . . . probably not!

And that is about as exciting and as tense as it gets! Despite that, I understand completely that this film is setting the scene for the final instalment that is to follow, and that all this posturing lays the foundation for the grand finale and the big conclusion . . . but this lumbers along, it labours, it's pedestrian and it left me wanting more that just setting the framework for a film that I have to wait another 12 months for. Even the late great Philip Seymour-Hoffman to whom this film is dedicated, seemed at odds with some of the dialogue he had to deliver and almost had a constant smirk and cheesy grin on his face that says WTF am I doing here . . . but I guess the pay cheque is good, or maybe, this is what was intended for his character - you can decide!

There is no doubt that this film will be successful. With a budget of about US$125M (a reported US$250M for the two 'Mockingjay' films combined) it has already earned a global box office haul of just a nudge under US$300M at the time of writing this, and saw the biggest opening weekend of any film so far in 2014.



-Steve, at Odeon Online-