Birthday's to share this week : 19th - 25th November 2017.

Do you celebrate your Birthday this week?

Adam Driver does on 19th November - check out my tribute to this Actor Birthday Boy turning 34, 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 19th November

• Ted Turner - Born 1938, turns 79 - Producer | Writer | Actor 
• Charlie Kaufman - Born 1958, turns 59 - Writer | Producer | Director | Songwriter
• Jason Scott Lee - Born 1966, turns 51 - Actor
• Adam Driver - Born 1983, turns 34 - Actor
• Kathleen Quinlan - Born 1954, turns 63 - Actress | Producer 
• Allison Janney - Born 1959, turns 58 - Actress | Singer
• Meg Ryan - Born 1961, turns 56 - Actress | Producer | Director
• Jodie Foster - Born 1962, turns 55 - Actress | Director | Producer  

Monday 20th November

• Bo Derek - Born 1956, turns 61 - Actress | Producer
• Sean Young - Born 1959, turns 58 - Actress 
• Andrea Riseborough - Born 1981, turns 36 - Actress | Producer  

Tuesday 21st November

• Goldie Hawn - Born 1945, turns 72 - Actress | Producer | Singer | Director
• Jena Malone - Born 1984, turns 33 - Actress | Producer  

Wednesday 22nd November

• Jamie Lee Curtis - Born 1958, turns 59 - Actress | Director | Producer
• Scarlett Johansson - Born 1984, turns 33 - Actress | Singer | Writer | Producer | Director 
• Terry Gilliam - Born 1940, turns 77 - Writer | Director | Producer | Actor | Animator
• Tom Conti - Born 1941, turns 76 - Actor 
• Mads Mikkelsen - Born 1965, turns 52 - Actor 
• Michael Kenneth Williams - Born 1966, turns 51- Actor | Producer
• Mark Ruffalo - Born 1967, turns 50 - Actor | Producer | Writer | Director 
• Alden Ehrenreich - Born 1989, turns 28 - Actor  

Thursday 23rd November

• Robert Towne - Born 1934, turns 83 - Writer | Director | Producer | Actor
• Franco Nero - Born 1941, turns 76 - Actor | Producer | Director | Writer
• Vincent Cassel - Born 1966, turns 51 - Actor | Producer | Writer | Director 
• Miley Cyrus - Born 1992, turns 25 - Singer | Songwriter | Composer | Actress | Director | Writer | Producer

Friday 24th November

• Katherine Heigl - Born 1978, turns 39 - Actress | Producer
• Billy Connolly - Born 1942, turns 75 - Actor | Writer | Singer | Songwriter | Producer | Comedian | Television Personality
• Garret Dillahunt - Born 1964, turns 53 - Actor | Singer
• Aaron Pedersen - Born 1970, turns 47 - Actor | Producer
• Stephen Merchant - Born 1974, turns 43 - Actor | Writer | Producer | Director 
• Colin Hanks - Born 1977, turns 40 - Actor | Director | Producer  

Saturday 25th November

• Dougray Scott - Born 1965, turns 52 - Actor | Producer
• Joel Kinnaman - Born 1979, turns 38 - Actor 
• Christina Applegate - Born 1971, turns 46 - Actress | Producer | Singer

Adam Douglas Driver was born in Fontana, San Bernardino County, California, USA to mother Nancy Needham, a paralegal, and father Joe Douglas Driver. His stepfather, Rodney Wright, is a Baptist Church Minister. When the young Adam was seven years of age, he moved with his mother and older sister to Mishawaka, Indiana where he was raised and attended the local Mishawaka High School. He sang in the local Church choir as a young lad, but also got up to all manner of antics as a teenager including scaling tall radio towers, setting objects alight, and forming a fight club. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he joined the military service enlisting in the US Marine Corps, where he served for thirty two months as an 81mm mortar man, before being medically discharged as a result of a mountain biking accident during which he broke his sternum. Because of this he never saw active duty. After his discharge, he attended the University of Indianapolis for a year and then moved to The Juilliard School in New York City to study drama, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 2009. 

After graduating, Driver began acting in stage plays in both Broadway and off-Broadway productions, during which time he also appeared in a number of television shows, made for television movies and short films, including 'The Unusuals', 'Law & Order', 'You Don't Know Jack', and 'The Wonderful Maladys'. His feature film debut came in the Clint Eastwood Directed, 'J. Edgar' in 2011. In 2012 Driver was cast as the lead character's unstable boyfriend Adam Sackler in the HBO comedy drama TV series 'Girls', in which he has appeared in 49 episodes across six seasons, with the final season wrapping up in April of this year. For the part he played, Driver was nominated three times for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. 

In 2012 Driver appeared in the Romantic Comedy Drama 'Gayby', in the drama 'Not Waving But Drowning', and the in two critically lauded films of that same year - Steven Spielberg's 'Lincoln' with an all star cast including Daniel Day Lewis as the 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, and Noah Baumbach's 'Frances Ha' opposite Greta Gerwig in the title role.







2013 kicked off with short film 'The River', then drama 'Bluebird', followed by the Coen Brothers Written and Directed 'Inside Llewyn Davis' with Oscar Isaac in the title role and also starring Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman and Garrett Hedlund. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, three Golden Globes, three BAFTA's, and one AACTA amongst its total haul of 47 wins and 171 nominations. The adventure BioPic of Robyn Davidson's trek across the Western Australian desert with four camels and her trusted dog in tow, 'Tracks' came next with Mia Wasikowska playing adventurer Robyn, and Driver as the National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan charting her epic journey. 'What If' closed out 2013 with Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, and Rafe Spall.

Drama thriller 'Hungry Hearts' opened 2014 and then another outing with Writer and Director Noah Baumbach in 'While We're Young' opposite Naomi Watts, Ben Stiller and Amanda Seyfried. Shawn Levy's comedy drama of a dysfunctional family 'This Is Where I Leave You' with Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll and Timothy Olyphant saw out the year.







2015 saw an episode on 'The Simpson's' followed up by his critically praised role as Kylo Ren - the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, trained in the ways of the Jedi by his Uncle Luke Skywalker, and tempted over to the Dark Side by Supreme Leader Snoke, aspiring ultimately to be as powerful and fearless as his Grandfather Darth Vader, in the epic 'Star Wars : The Force Awakens' - Episode VII in the hugely popular, long running franchise. The film made $2.07B at the global Box Office making it the third highest grossing film of all time, and picked up a swag of awards including five Academy Award nominations, three BAFTA nods and one win amongst a total 57 wins and 128 nominations. Driver reprises his Kylo Ren character in the soon to be released Episode VIII - 'Star Wars : The Last Jedi' and the yet to be titled Episode IX due in late 2019.

2016 saw three new film offerings beginning with the excellent 'Midnight Special' for Writer and Director Jeff Nichols and also starring Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Sam Shepard, Jaeden Lieberher and Kirsten Dunst. This was followed up by The Directed and Co-Written Jim Jarmusch film 'Paterson' and next the Martin Scorsese Directed and Co-Written 17th Century historical adventure drama 'Silence' opposite Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson and Ciaran Hinds. The film was nominated for the Best Cinematography Academy Award amongst its collection of six wins and 48 further nominations.

This year saw the release of another Written and Directed Noah Baumbach offering with the comedy drama 'The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)' also starring Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Dustin Hoffman, Candice Bergen, Sigourney Weaver, Emma Thompson and Grace Van Patten. This was followed up by Steven Soderbergh's North Carolina NASCAR heist comedy crime drama 'Logan Lucky' starring alonsgside Daniel Craig, Channing Tatum, Katie Holmes and Riley Keough.



Next up for Driver is the aforementioned 'Star Wars - Episode VIII : The Last Jedi' due for release in December this year and eagerly awaited by legions of loyal fans worldwide. Currently filming for a later 2018 release is the biographical true crime drama 'Black Klansman' for Writer and Director Spike Lee, about an African American police officer who rises through the ranks of his local Ku Klux Klan chapter. In Post-Production is Terry Gilliam's on again off again passion project 'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote' also starring Olga Kurylenko, Stellan Skarsgard and Jonathan Pryce and also due in 2018. In Pre-Production is 'Annette' a drama musical for Director Leos Carax with Michelle Williams about a stand up comic whose opera singing wife has died leaving him to care for their two years old daughter, whom he discovers has a surprising talent. And finally, and recently announced is the Sylvester Stallone Directed and starring biographical drama 'Tough as They Come' about an American soldier in Afghanistan who loses both arms and and legs four days short of his 25th birthday, and the effects this has on his life when he returns home with four prosthetic limbs.

All up Driver has thirty-six Acting credits to his name, and he has garnered ten award wins and 29 nominations from around the circuit including three Primetime Emmy Award nods for 'Girls'. He has been in a steady relationship with his 'Gayby' Co-Star Joanne Tucker since mid-2013. He also founded 'Arts In The Armed Forces' (AITAF) - a not-for-profit organisation that stages theatre productions across all branches of the military service both in the US and overseas.

Adam Driver - joined the Marines because he was not doing anything honourable with his life; has been described by one Critic as being 'an understated star with a great, non-movie star face'; refuses to watch himself on screen, or listen to himself in radio interviews; is terrified of not having somewhere to put his voice; admits to having a really big face and is therefore in no danger of securing leading man roles; but despite these misgivings has created quite a following in just a few short years, is increasingly in demand, and is carving out a successful career in spite of himself. Keep it up Adam, and Happy Birthday to you from Odeon Online.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 22nd December 2016.

As another year draws to a close I take this opportunity to wish my loyal and ever expanding Blog readership a very Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for 2017 to you all. Thank-you for your support of Odeon Online in the past twelve months - it makes the writing, the research, the time and countless hours spent in a dark place with a bunch of strangers worthwhile and all the more fulfilling. It's been a big year at the movies, and 2017 promises more of the same and as long as you keep reading, I'll keep watching and writing. Thanks again, and may your festive season he fun, relaxing, safe and cinematic in some way.

This week there are three new release films ahead of the Boxing Day rush, and all three are character studies centering around everyday couples living their everyday lives but challenged in some way. The first sees an aspiring prolific poet who loses his complete works, only to be given some sort of salvation by a Japanese mystery man when he least expected it. Then a true life drama bio-pic of inter-racial marriage when it was truly frowned up on by family, Governments and the laws of the land, and then next is a French film of a random encounter of two people that has far reaching and unexpected consequences for them both as they get to know each other.

Three films then to tempt you out to your local movie theatre in the lead up to Christmas, together with a haul of other great cinema content still out of general release and as Reviewed and Previewed between these pages. Remember too that your constructive, relevant, pertinent feedback is always warmly welcomed when you have sat through your film of choice in the week ahead. Simply leave a Comment below this or any other Post - we'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, enjoy your movie.

'PATERSON' (Rated M) - Written and Directed by Jim Jarmusch, this film competed for the Palme D'Or at this years Cannes Film Festival and it walked away with the Palm Dog Award for the performance of the dog, Marvin, who plays an important role in the film's story. Here we have Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver living in the city of Paterson, New Jersey, and the film charts a week in the life of the man who drives his bus and writes poetry in between shifts, or when inspiration takes him. He records his poetic thoughts in a notebook, based on his observations of life as he passes it by, and the idle chatter of his passengers. Each day after work he takes his dog Marvin for a walk around the block stopping off at his favoured jazz bar for a beer and to observe the conversations and the comings & goings of the other patrons to the bar with the owner Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley).

His wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) is his biggest fan of his poetry and she urges him to get his work published or at least copy his material. He finally relents and agrees to copy his work, but returning home one evening later in the week after the couple have shared a evening out together, they discover that Marvin has ripped to shreds Paterson's note book, destroying all of his poetry. The next day a forlorn Paterson takes solace at his favourite beauty spot overlooking The Great Falls of the Passaic River where he encounters a mysterious Japanese man who is reading the works of his own favourite Poet William Carlos Williams, and the mystery man hands him an empty notebook as a gift. Hailed as Driver's best performance to date, and one of Jarmusch's finest works also, this is a slow burn movie where very little happens, but it is an intense character study that is restrained, thoughtful and a celebration of a simple life.

'A UNITED KINGDOM' (Rated PG) - Directed by Amma Asante and based on the real life story of the inter-racial romance that developed in 1948 between Sir Seretse Khama who was born into one of the more powerful of the royal families of the then British Protectorate of Bechuanaland, and educated in South Africa and in the United Kingdom, he returned, with a popular but controversial bride, Ruth Williams, a Lloyds of London clerk, to lead his country's race for independence. He founded the Botswana Democratic Party in 1962 and became Prime Minister in 1965. In 1966, Botswana gained independence and Seretse Khama became its first President. This is that story of Seretse (David Oyelowo) and Ruth (Rosmaund Pike) and how their love for each other was frowned upon by their respective families, and the Governments of South Africa and Great Britain at the time. Defying their families, apartheid and the British Empire the pair move from their exile back to their African Kingdom to take on the mantle of power following Botswana's independence. The film also stars Tom Felton, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Jessica Oyelowo. The film Premiered at TIFF in September, saw its UK release in November and is released Stateside in February 2017. The film has so far received generally positive reviews.

'ROSALIE BLUM' (Rated M) - this French foreign language film was released in late March this year in France and has been touring around the festival circuit ever since gaining much critical praise in the process. Although released officially this week, it has been showing for some weeks already at selected cinemas around the country. Based on the trilogy of graphic novels by Camille Jourdy and written for the big screen and also Directed in his debut by Julien Rappeneau this comedy/drama tells the story in three chapters of Vincent Machot (Kyan Khojandi) a 30+ year old hairdresser whose life revolves around his work, his overbearing mother and a cousin who is trying to set up Vincent with the prefect date. One day when running an errand for his mother, he happens on Rosalie Blum (Noemie Lvovsky) a grocery store worker and their eyes meet. Vincent is convinced they have met before, but knows not when, where or how. He becomes intrigued by Rosalie and starts obsessing about her, to a point where he begins following her. What ensues are a series of dramatic, adventurous and funny coincidences that ultimately bring the pair together and change their lives thereafter.

With three films taking us up to Christmas, and a slew of new releases coming your way on Boxing Day too. Keep watching for more Previews, Reviews and updates, and in the meantime, I'll see you sometime in the coming week, at the Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-