News: Matt Damon

Damon’s been doing stupidly well of late, with only the disappointing The Brothers Grim and Ocean’s Twelve acting as blips on his career during his last few outings. Though this week’s The Good Shepherd may not be as great as could have been hoped, he nonetheless puts in a tip-top performance which suggests that it’s only a matter of time before he lands an acting Oscar to go with the one he got for writing Good Will Hunting with best buddy Ben Affleck back in 1998.

He’s already finished filming Margaret, revolving around Anna Paquin’s young girl who witnesses a bus crash, though it is not yet set for release, and has also wrapped Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Thirteen – promising that it’ll be much better than the last sequel to the fun Ocean’s Eleven when it’s released in June. Then, in August, we can expect to see him in another sequel, this time in his really rather superb Jason Bourne franchise, with The Bourne Ultimatum promising to answer all sorts of questions about his amnesiac assassin.

He’s also lined up to star aongside Tim Roth in Francis Ford Coppola’s inter-war period piece Youth Without Youth, and alongside his The Departed co-star Mark Wahlberg in 1980s-set boxing drama The Fighter, as well as providing the voiceover for the documentary Running the Sahara, following three men who want to be the first to run coast to coast across the Sahara desert.

News: Danny Glover

Still much-loved for his turns in the Lethal Weapons films, playing Barnyard’s Miles the Mule must have been a nice break for Danny glover, who’srarely away from the front of the camera these days. He’s already completed one other movie, while two others are in post-production, three more are currently filming, and yet another two are in pre-production. Quite how many see the light of day, however, we can but wait and see…

Most promising, from advance buzz at least, is likely Dream Girls, due out in the UK at the start of February 2007, where Glover will appear alongside Afro-American Hollywood bigwigs Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy and pop princess Beyonce Knowles, set around a ficitional 1960s black female three-piece singing group based heavily on Diana Ross and the Supremes. The stage version has been running since 1981 – and it’s just possible that Dream Girls could immitate Chicago‘s successful transition to the big screen.

Glover has also got a role in the next film from Michel “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” Gondry, the Jack Black-starring Be Kind Rewind, following the travails of two movie store clerks who accidentally wipe their entire stock, and so have to recreate famous flicks for their most loyal customer. It could be genius, it could be nonsense. hard to say this early.

He will also crop up in the Marky Mark Wahlberg-starring actioner Shooter for King Arthur director Antoine Fuqua (due May 2007 in the UK), with Glover playing the lengthily-named Colonel Isaac Fitzsimmons Johnson. That is almost certain to be mindless nonsense, but could nonetheless make a packet from those of us who like our action flicks big and mindless…

Review: The Departed

UK Release: 6th October 2006

After a run of solid, adventurous, but ultimately underwhelming efforts (Gangs of New York, The Aviator), The Departed finds director Martin Scorsese returning to more familiar form with a superior, Boston-set cops-and-gangsters story, based on the Hong Kong crime drama Infernal Affairs.

Rookie cop Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is assigned to go deep undercover to help catch local Mafia godfather Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Meanwhile, Costello has groomed Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) since puberty to be his spy on the force. The complex script (fluently adapted by William Monahan) rotates around these two moles, who orbit each other like twin suns for most of the movie, but only meet in the third act.

It all makes for extremely watchable entertainment. The leads are luminous (especially Nicholson, doing his best work in years here), but supporting players Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin and Ray Winstone all steal scenes with glee.

Radio Times rating:

****

UK cinema certificate 18
Running time 151mins

Review by Leslie Felperin

News: Mark Wahlberg

Though only taking a supporting role in Scorsese’s The Departed, Wahlberg will soon be back in the lead.

First up is We Own the Night, alongside Robert Duvall, Joaquin Phoenix and Eva Mendes, with Wahlberg playing a New York nightclub manager trying to save his family from hitmen from the Russian mafia. After that, Wahlberg will turn hitman himself for director Antoine Fuqua (King Arthur) as an assassin set up as the fall-guy for the attempted murder of the US Presdent US President in Shooter.

The less said about the announced sequel to the abysmal remake of the Italian Job, provisionally titled The Brazilian Job, the better, but Wahlberg will be returning to do yet more damage to the memory of the Michael Caine classic some time in 2008.