Gore, gunplay, girls, and galimoney

Something violent this way comes…

Deadly Cuts is a black comedy with Angelina Ball and Victoria Smurfit playing two hair stylists who swap their scissors for knives as they take on local Dublin hoods.

You can also expect tomato ketchup in The Many Saints of Newark, a prequel to The Sopranos. Michael Gandolfini (real life son of late lamented James) plays his dad as a young man.

No Time to Die is the latest James Bond movie. You’ll be shaken if not stirred to learn that Daniel Craig is getting out of ‘Bondage’ after 15 years. There are lots of Bond girls here as per usual but not as scantily clad as of yore. Political correctness has infiltrated the franchise.

Political correctness

Undoubtedly it’s a good thing that Bond women aren’t being treated as sex objects anymore but are we bringing political correctness too far in calls to have the new 007 female? And/or African-American?

As Craig points out, “Why should a woman or a man of colour play Bond? There should be parts just as good for them in other films.”

Reputed to be worth $160 million, he says he doesn’t plan to leave his money to his daughters in his will. He finds the idea of inheritance “distasteful”. That’s fine if not much fun for the daughters.

It’s a pity a middle-of-the-road actor like Craig gets to be so wealthy. Or indeed Dwayne (‘The Rock’) Johnson. Johnson is reputed to be the richest actor in the world. For what, one wonders? His success is more mysterious than cot death.

Robert De Niro, meanwhile, scavenges for work as he zones in on his 80th birthday. The reason? He has to keep his ex-wife, Grace Hightower, “in Stella McCartney outfits”, to use his lawyer’s phrase. She’s currently fighting Hightower’s bid to make De Niro increase his alimony from $100,000 a month to $375,000.

How can someone need $375,000 a month to live? (Actually I know how. She recently bought a diamond for $1.2 million.) Time was that De Niro made no more than a film a year. For many moons now he’s been over-working. The quality has suffered.

Richest

Reese Witherspoon is the richest actress in America. (Am I allowed say ‘actress’? The PC brigade regard this as a sexist term now. You’re supposed to say ‘actor’ for both sexes. Does that mean duchesses will soon be called dukes?)

If Dwayne Johnson is no Robert de Niro, she’s no Meryl Streep. But of course it isn’t about talent, is it? It’s about the lowest common denominator. Which isn’t to say Reese can’t act. But when the history books come to be written, will she be remembered?

She turns up as a breakfast TV presenter in The Morning Show (Apple TV+). Jennifer Aniston co-stars. Aniston is another obscenely rich actress, largely on the strength of Friends. Yes, it’s a funny show but not, as the viewing figures might suggest, the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Reality check, please?