You could have knocked us over with our marabou feathers when we saw who was co-hosting Eurovision live over three nights culminating on Saturday with the incredible final! Stunning Swedish-American actress and singer Malin Akerman played a blinder alongside comedian Petre Mede and they delivered a witty script for this glorious campfest with style and guile. What a leadup to a birthday. There must be one hell of an afterparty going on today! Congratulations and Happy Birthday Malin Akerman!
What if I could be the sort of person who goes camping by myself? Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Forty-year old Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway) is a gallery owner and divorcee who plans a solo camping trip while her ex-husband Daniel (Reid Scott) takes their daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin) and her friends to Coachella. When he is called away on work assignment to Huston, she is left to accompany them. Daniel has arranged for a meet and greet with famous boy band August Moon, despite Izzy now dismissing them as so seventh grade. While waiting in the VIP area, Solène enters what she believes is a bathroom, only to discover that it is August Moon member Hayes Campbell’s (Nicholas Galitzine) trailer. The two are attracted to each other, although Solène, who is sixteen years older than Hayes, is uncomfortable. During August Moon’s performance, Hayes appears to change the show’s setlist, dedicating a song to her. Solène attends her birthday party where is fed up with prospective men her own age. Shortly after the festival, Hayes shows up unannounced at Solène’s gallery, interested in purchasing art. After he buys every piece at the gallery, Solène takes him to a friend’s warehouse studio, where they discuss life and art. After thinking that a restaurant would invite too much attention, the two go to Solène’s house to eat. They share a kiss, but Solène rebuffs him. Hayes leaves his watch behind, then, finding Solène’s phone number on the gallery invoice, texts her to join him in New York at the Essex Hotel. With Izzy away at summer camp, Solène meets him at his hotel where they have sex. Hayes persuades her to travel with him on August Moon’s European tour. Solène wishes to keep their relationship private and does not tell Izzy or anyone else. As the band takes a break at a villa in the south of France, Solène becomes uncomfortable about her age in relation to the other women travelling with them. Bandmate Olly (Raymond Cham Jr) tells her that Hayes’s dedicating a song to her is a tactic they use to impress women and that Hayes has previously pursued relationships with older women including a 35-year old Swedish film star he embarrassed. Solène feels misled and disillusioned and abruptly returns to Los Angeles … Is this your first time getting Mooned? Adapted by director Michael Showalter and co-writer Jennifer Westfeldt from actress Robinne Lee’s bestseller, this sees Hathaway getting into her groove in a seriously romantic drama. The ironic trigger for everything that now happens in her life is her ex’s need to prioritise himself and his business – just as his affair ended their marriage. When she meets a guy 16 years her junior and he reveals his own fear they find a kind of balance. He says: I think that’s my greatest fear in life – that I’m a joke. She counters with: What will people say? Galitzine at first seems like an overwhelmingly gallant white knight and Hathaway positively glows: being adored suits her. Watching her shrug off the mid-life nonsense purveyed by divorced men who insist on talking about themselves all the time is infectious – she is not in crisis. Naturally, once she goes on the road with the band Hayes’ alley cat past comes back to haunt him in a way that hers haunts her decision-making and the wheels come off when she can’t take the heat. The publicity leads her husband to gloat, I’m sure we can all agree that a relationship with a 24-year old pop star would be crazy on so many levels. Yet her daughter argues, Why would you break up with a talented kind feminist? And, for a while, it works, until the Moonfans get their way on social media. Tracy (Annie Mumolo) makes for a great BFF when she comforts Solène, People hate happy women. And that of course is the point. Women are supposed to suffer! Their cheating exes hate them except when they do what they’re told! Their kids don’t let them have a life if they’re not at the centre of everything! Other women hate them! Watching this lovely woman change her opinion of herself and her possibilities in the reflection of how a new guy sees her is wonderful. How the story beats are worked out might not be surprising but to say this is pleasurable and crowd-pleasing is an understatement: it’s a deeply sexy film. The leads are more than persuasive as the well met age-difference match, the scenario a delirium of groupiedom wish fulfilment (She’s with the boy band!!) and it’s all beautifully made with due diligence concerning the social media pile-on which is all too realistic as is the message that love at any age is a trial. A splendid soundtrack peppered with everyone from Fiona Apple to St Vincent as well as the songs from August Moon and Hayes as a singer-songwriter in his own right (with a score by Siddartha Khosla) makes this a total delight. Directed by Michael Showalter. We’re two people with trust issues who need to open up a little. What’s the worst that can happen?
Many happy returns to John Rhys-Davies who turns 80 today. That fine RADA-trained Welsh actor of the booming voice, formidable presence and prolific career on screens big and small is still in demand and working constantly. Some years ago we found ourselves waiting a very long time for a very long flight out of LAX. A baby began to cry and nerves were jangling among the hundred or so people hanging around for hours. Thankfully that creature was so exhausted by the time the flight was called it fell asleep. Yours truly on the other hand was completely enervated and enchanted by the fact that one of the other passengers in the lounge was our beloved Sallah, the man we first encountered in Raiders of the Lost Ark (the greatest film ever made – fact). Rhys-Davies – for it was he – was a picture of patience. We didn’t bother him, despite a desperate longing to get his signature on something vaguely cinematic – like the latest edition of Premiere. We exercised manful restraint, to be honest. Regrets? We have a few, perhaps, now and then, but the flight took off, nobody cried and actually we found ourselves chatting to someone who knew Natalie Wood’s babysitter, so you know, swings, etc. And Mr JR-D was unbothered and unruffled. Happy Birthday John Rhys-Davies! Long live Sallah! (And Gimli!)
More stars than there are in heaven! That catchphrase was the byword for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, the granddaddy of the big Hollywood studios, originally founded 17th April 1924 by Marcus Loew who joined forces with Louis B. Mayer Pictures together combining with Metro Pictures and Goldwyn Pictures to establish the most prestigious studio around. Here’s a reminder of some of their greatest productions from their first two decades when the talent roster included Garbo, Gable, Harlow, Crawford and The Marx Bros!
From her debut as a pulpy teenage temptress in Jamon Jamon (where she met future husband Javier Bardem), Penelope Cruz has delivered eye-popping performances of increasing dramatic control and excellence. The only Spanish actress to be rewarded with an Oscar – for Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona – as well as being given a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she has worked consistently between Spanish and English-language cinema, becoming a muse for auteur Pedro Almodovar and lately lending her sparkle to Ferrari but also bringing poignancy to the wonderful 70s-set melodrama L’Immensita. She won at Cannes for Volver and at Venice for Parallel Mothers. She has been nominated for 14 Goyas and won for The Girl of Your Dreams, Volver and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Her qualities of emotional intelligence, a strikingly starry presence and a lively commitment to roles whether high comedy or intense psychological drama make her an international star whose every performance is an event. Happy 50th Birthday Penelope Cruz!
Hollywood legend, Academy Award winner, gifted actress, brilliant comedienne, dancer, singer and all-round star, the irrepressible Shirley MacLaine is a magnificent 90 years old today. What a career she has had, from her debut with Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble With Harry, through an astonishing collaboration with Billy Wilder with The Apartment – one of the all-time great films – and the perversely charming Irma la Douce, a chance to return to her musical theatre roots in Sweet Charity and more than one alleged comeback in the 1970s with The Turning Point (another dance film) and later with Terms of Endearment and much more besides. That auburn pixie cut, those elfin features and the cunning impishness have always belied astonishing dramatic depths. Never mind those legs!! She was quite brilliant in Some Came Running and ran with the Sinatra crew for a spell. As well as being an author and spiritual seeker she and her younger brother Warren Beatty have always been immersed in Democrat politics, somewhere her commitment found a ready home. She has written autobiographies and directed too, a documentary and a feature, and has remained a vital part of the culture from her TV appearances in drama – her Downton Abbey role was an international incident – and in interviews: she made memorable appearances in the UK with Michael Parkinson on his chat show. Passionate, wickedly funny, smart and sensitive, she has crafted some of the most immaculate performances on screen. We salute you, Shirley! Many happy returns!
Many happy returns to the boy from New Jersey! The legendary Jack Nicholson turns 87 years old today!
Currently terrorising Tom Hollander’s Truman Capote in Ryan Murphy’s TV mini-series Feud: Capote Vs The Swans as his formidable mother Lillie Mae, the eternally youthful and gifted Jessica Lange turns 75 today! Happy Birthday!
Many happy returns to proud Yorkshireman Sean Bean, that versatile British actor who has been a star of screens both big and small for over three decades. Unusually, he persuades in both period and contemporary roles and was a hit with the ladies in TV series like Lady Chatterley and A Woman’s Guide to Adultery while impressing in Hollywood. From early films for auteur Derek Jarman, to action man parts in TV’s Sharpe then Patriot Games and GoldenEye – where he was a great nemesis for Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond – a classic romantic role in Anna Karenina to a sojourn in the Lord of the Rings films plus an early exit from Game of Thrones, he moves from adventure to romance with ease and latterly has earned plaudits for complex performances in TV series Broken, Time and Marriage, among others. He goes from strength to strength. Sean Bean is 65 today. Happy Birthday!
Legendary star, writer, producer, director, composer and all-round filmmaking genius, the iconic Charlie Chaplin was born on this day in 1889.
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