The Fake Life - Love movies? We do too!

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Geek Pin-Up #19: Helen Mirren

So who would be the best choice for the last Geek Pin-Up? We could have gone for something 'funny' like Dakota Fanning, or a more tragic choice like Lindsey Lohan, a 'not quite enough movies to justify it yet' Eva Green, or a choice more suited to the sexuality of most of our readers like Christian Bale or MODOK. Instead we've gone for the most terrifyingly sexy lady on the planet - Her Royal Highness Helen Mirren.

Helen Mirren could rip your head off and shit down your neck hole. Then she'd steal your cigarettes and drink a bottle of whiskey before playing Lady Macbeth starkers in front of Wembley stadium. Helen Mirren is an alpha-female and she is hard.

Helen was very much one of those massively ambitious, deeply serious, English actors whom were dead set on marking out the entire legacy of English acting as their own. And with that much determination, ruthlessness and flat out competitiveness, not to mention being hot and being able to act, nothing was going to stop Helen Mirren making it. While others were talking about doing their best, Helen was already fucking the prom queen.

She was in Caligula, that doomed mix of high and low brow tastes, written by Gore Vidal and funded by smut merchants, starring the cream of British acting talent and lots and lots of titty. It's a terrible film to be honest and not even worth the attentions of randy 15 year olds (possibly worth the attentions of randy post-ironic cineastes in their 30's though), but it does have the best IMDB keywords page in the world. I checked out pages for The Devil's Rejects, Salo and Cannibal Holocaust and even they don't compare to this endless list of filth. Dead woman, dead man, voyueristic, penis, peverse, moral corruption, sex orgy, bloody, infamous, incestuous desire, mutilation - the fun never ends! If I was an English teacher, this is the creative writing assignment I would give the little fuckers. Caligula is not really a high point (the plot page, hilariously, is 'empty'), but she does look like Jane Seymour with a brain, which is fairly hot.

Far better was her role as the evil Morgana in John Boorman's Excalibur. I'm not much of a fan of this film, mostly as any Arthurian movie automatically falls prey to Monty Python And The Holy Grail, especially when lots of mid-shots of generic British woodland are used to keep the budget down. Plus the bloke who played Arthur always seemed a bit wimpy to me.

Helen's Morgana however, was blisteringly hot. Obviously evil and still irresistible, you would have let her birth an illegitimate son who would go on to bring down your empire too.

Now, Helen has a slightly long, possibly even equine, face and of course that ferocious intelligence and focus behind the eyes. Though she played a few, she was not entirely suited to the pretty-but-vacant 'characters' of Hollywood leading lady roles. It was when she got old enough to play mothers that she got really interesting. Other pretties have nothing to offer once their smooth skins give way to lines and sag. Helen grew into her age, and just got more awesome.

She was strong yet supportive opposite Harrison Ford in The Mosquito Coast. She was monstrous in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. She was heartbreaking in The Madness Of King George ('goodnight Mr King'). Dammit, she managed to mix military efficiency and human compassion with a perfect Russian accent in 2010, a film which really isn't as bad as comparisons with 2001 can not help but make it look.

She even played, essentially, God, as the voice of Deep Thought in 2006's Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

And what could be bigger than God? The Queen, of course. She made Lizzy cold, tradition-bound, often utterly contemptuous of the normal folk, but still hugely warm, compassionate and principled. She made a country to whom the royal family was mostly a joke fall in love with their queen all over again. When she was taking the piss out of Tony Blair we were on her side, and considering there are amoebas on Mars dead millions of years who have more in common with the average Brit than we do with the queen, that is quite some feat of acting.

Plus that spark is still in her eyes - the mischievousness, the competitiveness, and the comfort with her own sexuality - so giving the world a queen we would also, if we were honest, quite like to shag.

Now The Queen and its attendant Oscar have given her a higher Hollywood profile than ever before we can look forwards to seeing her in more films, though it remains to be seen whether the usually age-averse industry will know what to do with her mature charms. Look for her to be way too good for the upcoming sequel to National Treasure.