Pomona for Facebook

Looking back on it,  'Tiger King'  really lucked out when it was released last year. As the world retreated following the emergence of Covid-19 and governments confined their citizens to their homes, many of us desperately needed a diversion. 'Tiger King' fitted the bill. A show focusing on eccentric, very dodgy real life big cat owners in the US seemed like the perfect escape from the grim news of mounting death tolls in China, Italy, the UK and around the world. At its heart was the flamboyant Joe Exotic - a gay, self-styled country music star and zoo owner who had, prior to the documentary, built up a following with his own reality TV show on the Internet. His nemesis was Carole Baskin, another big cat reserve owner in Florida who accused him of maltreating his animals. Baskin also had an air of mystery around her. Her first husband Don mysteriously vanished either in Florida or Costa Rica. Such was the grudge Joe harboured that he ended up behind bars, accused of pl...

  On the day Disney+ made a whole palaver on social media about its own special hashtag day, Netflix was always going to counter. So while Disney+ gave us 'Jungle Cruise,' 'Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,' 'Dopesick' and a  'Luca'  short film, Netflix responded with 'Red Notice' - a big budget heist adventure with blockbuster stars that you would normally expect to be ripping up the box office. Starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, the film, however, had a troubled production history. Initially the subject of a major studio bidding war, the project was being hawked around by Johnson and writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber who had previously whipped up a box office storm together with the action comedy 'Central Intelligence' and the action thriller 'Skyscraper'. Universal and Legendary Pictures won the bidding war in 2018, with the film due to go into production in 2020. Johnson and Gadot used their s...

In the Dublin gangster drama 'Kin,' everybody's talking about Jamie. The Jamie in question, however, doesn't dream of being a drag queen . Jamie Kinsella, as played by Cian Fitzsimmons in the eight part RTE and AMC drama, is a bright teenager who is being badgered by his mum, Clare Dunne's Amanda about university. She wants him to declare what course he would like to do and which university he wants to attend. He's waivering about whether he actually wants to go. Jamie is a member of the Kinsella family - a small scale southside of Dublin crime family that peddles drugs. At its helm is Aidan Gillen's sharp suited Frank and his trusted lieutenants and nephews, Emmett J Scanlan's Jimmy and Charlie Cox's Michael, his hotheaded son Sam Keeley's Erik "the Viking" and Maria Doyle Kennedy's Brigid 'Birdie' Goggins. A family run enterprise, Amanda launders money through her car dealership while her husband Jimmy, Erik and Frank keep...

From Hollywood child star to indie maverick, Dean Stockwell didn't quite follow the career arc that many would have predicted. Born in Los Angeles in 1936, as a child he worked with Raoul Walsh, Gene Kelly,  Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, Elia Kazan, Gregory Peck, Joseph Losey, Pat O'Brien, Richard Widmark and Lionel Barrymore. However later on life, he would become a favourite of the indie set - working with Hollywood rebels like David Lynch, Jonathan Demme, Francis Coppola, Dennis Hopper, Wim Wenders, William Friedkin and Robert Altman. Born in North Hollywood, he came from a showbiz family and divided much of his childhood between Los Angeles and New York.  His father Harry was an actor and baritone who was in the Broadway casts for 'Oklahoma!' and 'Carousel' and was the voice of Prince Charming in Disney's 'Snow White'. Guy, his older brother, also forged a career as an actor and his stepmother Nina Olivette was a burlesque performer, actress an...