The penultimate of the Mohicans: Jackie Chan and Rafe Fiennes are still going strong.

Rafe Fans got the role of an elderly Odysseus who needs to free Ithaca. Jackie Chan plays himself, only in the company of a computer-drawn panda. The future manager of the Beatles meets the Liverpool Four right before our eyes and signs a contract with them. "The Last Jew" with a slight gesture of the hand turns into a "good boy", although the movie from this exactly nothing gains. "Izvestia" analyzed the novelties of the weekend and chose what you definitely need to go to the cinema.

"The Return of Odysseus" 16+

Directed by Uberto Pasolini. Starring: Rafe Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Charlie Plummer, Marwan Kenzari

Rafe Fiennes has played Hades once before, but this time he has a different role from the world of Greek myths. A role that has been dreamed of by thousands of artists, but it was delivered to whoever it was extremely rare. Because who would dare to screen "The Odyssey"? To do this, you have to be at least Konchalovsky, and Jean-Luc Godard in "Contempt" entrusted it only to Fritz Lang himself.

In this case, the director is not that great, but still Uberto Pasolini is a born Count and Visconti's nephew, which justifies him to some extent. But it's clear that Fiennes would have agreed without it. First, he has the opportunity to demonstrate excellent physical form. We remember that according to Homer's description of Odysseus, although he was long-suffering, is described as a bogatyr. His height is lower than spatronovlachny king Agamemnon, but his torso is wider, and in strength he was not inferior to the formidable Atrid. Fiennes plays just such an Odysseus, the lord of Ithaca, who returned to his homeland and found that it no longer belongs to him, it must be fought for. What happened next, we know very well, but thanks to Fiennes, we will see once again in our own eyes.

"Operation Panda" 12+

Directed by: Zhang Luan. Starring: Jackie Chan, Wei Xiang, Han Yanbo, Shi Qie.

There's nothing new about playing yourself in a movie. For example, Takeshi Kitano in "Takeshiz" turned this technique into an arthouse phantasmagoria that most fans didn't embrace, but for a minority it became a new level of dialog with the Japanese genius. Kim Ki-duk in "Ariran" was like going on a total downward spiral, and you'd believe it was a documentary if the director didn't commit suicide in the finale. Jackie Chan as himself is certainly a simpler piece, but it's interesting too.

So, let's try to imagine that Jackie Chan, the star of kung fu movies, gets a panda, and with it a lot of problems including fights, chases, falls, jumps and all the things that Jackie Chan usually does in movies. And let's even imagine that an elderly and respectable multimillionaire actually pulls off all these stunts to save his furry friend. Yes, it will require a little more imagination than we are used to, but the charisma of old Jackie Chan as always will help to cope with it. And most importantly - that the artist has enough self-irony to be both funny and noble at the same time.

"The Fifth Beatle" 18+

Directed by: Joe Stephenson. Starring Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Emily Watson, Ed Speliers, Eddie Marsan

We've already recently seen the story of Elvis through the eyes of his manager. Now it's the same, only about the Beatles. Brian Epstein is credited with making the Beatles what we still remember them for today, and then he suddenly died very young - and the band fell apart. How the latter two events are related can be argued vehemently, but that only makes it more interesting to see an ironic interpretation of this legend.

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Our guide in the amazingly noisy and joyous world of the sixties is Epstein himself, played by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (D'Artagnan from the last Three Musketeers, star of The Queen's Walk). We see him as a young successful businessman, owner of a large vinyl record store. Why he suddenly believed in four Liverpool hooligans, who played guitars badly and sang not the most interesting songs at the time, a mystery that the authors avoid, finishing with a joke. They say, listen to the girls screaming, such a band should be taken. But we know what happened next, and together with Epstein we look for the stamp of genius in the young tomboys, trying not to notice rudeness, carelessness and self-centeredness. It is noteworthy that all the songs the actors sang themselves, because the money to buy the rights was not enough for the creators.

"Wrap Daddy to Mommy" 6+

This weekend is full of domestic comedies. Simultaneously released are "Uralochka" with Valeria Astapova and Alexander Gorbatov, "Stars in Siberia" with Dmitry Malikov and Klava Koka, "My Dog's Business" with Maxim Lagashkin and Irina Pegova, "Operation Cold" with Igor Khripunov and Valentina Mazunina... Are you still here? To tell you how many Russian comedies are coming out next weekend?

Whatever the case, "Papa to Mama Wrap" will operate in a truly competitive environment, and the movie will have to compete with other pictures of Dmitry Nagiyev, which are going to the movies right now. This is "New Year in Berezovka" and "Son-in-law", and soon to be released more "Christmas Trees 11", also with him. This is so unusual that it is even interesting, and to unravel what is the producer's calculation, what is the logic of distributors and cinemas, it will be possible only on the basis of data from the EAIS. There in real time uploaded information about box office receipts, and on Monday we will get the moment of truth.

"Good Boy" 18+

Directed by Noé Debret. Starring: Mikael Zindel, Agnès Jaoui.

Who and why decided to translate the title of "The Last Jew" into Russian as "Good Boy" is hard to say. Especially considering that the domestic film with the same title is still well remembered, it won at Kinotavr in 2016 and marked the fashion for author's cinema in the mode of light, today it can be considered almost a classic.

"The Last Jew", of course, is also a dramedy with elements of the grotesque and also at the center of the narrative is a young man with difficult circumstances, but it is still a very different movie. In it we get acquainted with a charming French young man Ruben, who lives in the suburbs of Paris with his sick mother. Ruben is Jewish, but it is increasingly difficult to observe the traditions of faith in their neighborhood. The synagogue has closed, the last kosher grocery store has closed, and it is unclear what to do next - whether to leave the country, or to find a neighborhood where there are more Jews, or something else. Ruben lives freely and easily - as the hero of Otar Iosseliani's movie "The Songbird Lived" once did. He has a job or not, relations with people are easy and not obligatory, but all the time there are some adventures, and Ruben just tries to manage to get everywhere, not to offend anyone and still remain a Jew. This seemingly modest, chamber picture gives such a precise intonation that it makes the walls of intolerance crumble like the fortress of Jericho, and today few things are more important than that.