Helen Mirren Archives -

2016 JUST GOT WORSE: WILL SMITH HAS NEW MOVIE

HOLLYWOOD – New Will Smith movie is crap cherry on the turd cake of 2016.

As if it weren’t bad enough already – David Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickman all dead, Trump elected! – Will Smith had to go and release a fucking movie. It has a name: Collateral Beauty. It has cast: Helen Mirren, Ed Norton, Keira Knightley, Michael Pena and Kate Winslet all cash in. It has a story: grief stricken (dead daughter) executive writes angry letters to Death, Love and Time so his business partners hire actors to play the abstractions in real life and… Oh Jesus God! Why am I even bothering? The only benefit this stringy follow through fart of emotional sludge can possibly contribute to our culture is making the prospect of Trump/Putin inspired nuclear holocaust seem appealing by contrast.

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5 FACTS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT HELEN MIRREN

HOLLYWOOD – Who knows who Helen Mirren actually is? No one that’s who.

Here comes another storm of fact blizzards, freezing the wavering of doubt and making snowmen of the falsehood and gossip buckets of Hollywood. Dame Helen Mirren, fact off!

While making the revolutionary film O Lucky Man with Malcolm McDowell, Dame Mirren accidentally hit her leading man so hard in the testicles one of them popped into his head and he has had to use it as an eye ever since.
Dame Mirren openly criticised the Tinto Brass film Caligula because it wasn’t sexy or violent enough, even though many criticised it for the hardcore pornography and sadism in the film. ‘They’re all namby-pamby,’ said Dame Mirren. ‘What’s wrong with a bit of old murder and randy doings?’
Helen Mirren’s real name is Helen Lydia Constantinople Mironoff. Her mother was English but her father was a famous Russian trapeze anarchist whose speciality was throwing bombs into the audience as he swung above their heads. His career came to the end when he decided that safety nets and trapezes were actually ideological constraints to artistic expression and plunged to his death on the next performance.
Despite her fame in the television drama Prime Suspect, Dame Helen Mirren has never been the Prime Suspect of a murder investigation, nor has she ever been party to the investigation of one. Her friends say she has never been a prime suspect because she is very good at choosing her victims and covering her tracks. Fellow murderer Charles Dance said that ‘Of all of us, Helen was the most brutally efficient murderer. She beat Hugh Grant into a cocked hat.’
When playing the Queen in the film The Queen, Dame Helen Mirren insisted on meeting the Queen and walking behind her very very close, so that she was almost touching her, for an entire week. The Queen let it be known that she didn’t mind and even found Dame Helen Mirren’s proximity ‘strangely soothing.’

For more FACTS on everything from this to that click HERE!

THE QUEEN’S SPEECH – REVIEW

THE QUEEN’S SPEECH – REVIEW – Yesterday saw the release in streaming of the sequel to Tom Hooper’s Oscar winning The King’s Speech, entitled The Queen’s Speech and starring Elizabeth Windsor.

The King’s Speech was a hugely successful film, both commercially and critically and many had high hopes for the sequel The Queen’s Speech, but unfortunately this pedestrian drama is plagued by an uninspiring screenplay, a wooden central performance and an embarrassingly short running time. So where to start? First of all the decision to cast Elizabeth Windsor as ‘herself’ has to be seen now as a huge error. Obviously one that the producers were forced to make after Dame Helen Mirren proved more expensive than simply getting the real thing but as good a monarch as Elizabeth is, she is not a great actress. her line readings were without any kind of emotional warmth and her eyes took on a shark like sheen as she spoke about light and darkness. Gone was Colin Firth’s fragility as the stuttering King George and in was the icy self-confidence of a ruler who has not once doubted her own right or capacity to reign. The script was a jumble of cliches without a single hint at tension, interiority or drama. What might have saved this woeful one note drama would have been the introduction of a Geoffrey Rush kind of character – perhaps played by Ray Winstone – someone called Ralph or Dennis, someone whose everyday normality would contrast and humanize the regal and give us a renewed sense of respect and obedience to the Crown. As it is, The Queen’s Speech feels thin and under-written, emotionally torpid and woefully simplistic. One can only hope that the third projected film in the trilogy Charles in Charged will produce something more stimulating or at least funny.

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GAME OF THRONES SEASON 5 FIRST LOOK

WESTEROS – The paint is still fresh on the finale of Game of Thrones Season 4, but HBO are already giving us a glimpse of a new character for Game of Thrones Season 5: Queen Ilesibiff of Angerland to be played by Helen Mirren.

Continue reading “GAME OF THRONES SEASON 5 FIRST LOOK”

JASON REITMAN TO DIRECT MUMBLECORE STAR WARS PREQUEL

SAN FRANCISCO – Kathleen Kennedy announced today that Young Adult director Jason Reitman will direct a stand-alone Star Wars film entitled Star Wars: Going into Tosche Station, the first mumblecore Star Wars.

The Up in the Air and Juno director said that it had long been an ambition of his to make a Star Wars film, but one that was skewed towards his interest in character and dialogue.

My idea was really simple. What happened the day before Luke Skywalker bought C3P0 and R2D2? I wanted to see Luke arguing with Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, hanging out with Biggs and his friends, tooling about in their landspeeders, listing to the latest hit song by the cantina band and picking up gals. It’s like American Graffiti but on Tattoine.

Kathleen Kennedy was quick to reassure nervous fans.

There’s going to be the core Star Wars movies which will carry on the story that J.J. is developing, but Lucas Film are planning as many as three releases a year and so there will be room for these other versions and offshoots, and when I heard Jason talking about his idea, I thought yeah, I’d like to see that too.

Secrecy surrounds the search to find an actor to play the young Luke Skywalker, although some of the cast is already in place. Stellan Skarsgard will play Uncle Owen and Helen Mirren will play Aunt Beru.

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ANTHONY HOPKINS RULES HIMSELF OUT OF JUSTIN BIEBER BIO-PIC

CARDIFF – Welsh actor and human chameleon Sir Anthony Hopkins has today formally withdrawn his hat from the ring and ended speculation that he was to star in Bieber, the new Gasper Noè directed biopic of the post-pubescent singer.

‘I’m just a little bit too old,’ said the former Hannibal Lecter.

I sat down with Gasper and he tried to persuade me and we spoke for some time, but in the end I had to say look at me, I can’t play a teenager,’ said Hopkins, who is famed for his transformations as Hannibal Lecter, C.S. Lewis, Nixon, Hannibal Lecter, Methuselah, Hannibal Lecter and most recently Alfred Hitchcock. It would have been nice to add to the gallery of portraits, but alas, not to be.

The film – a prequel to Justin Bieber: Never Say Never – was to chart the rise of the teen sensation from his lowly humble origins as a ‘Canadian’. Schlock French director Noè – famous for his twenty minute rape scenes – said:

Initially, I had no interested in this disgusting little twerper. Who is he? A no one. But then I saw him vomit on stage and I though a-ha! This is art. This is L’Avant Garde!

It isn’t all bad news though. Helen Mirren has agreed to play Selena Gomez, Mr. Bieber’s paramour.

Bieber will be released in 2016.

AL PACINO WINS L’OREAL CONTRACT

HOLLYWOOD – Al Pacino is the new face of beauty product company L’Oréal. He will be appearing in a series of adverts in their famous ‘Because I’m worth it’ campaign. Previous luminaries include Patrick Dempsey, Gerard Butler and Hugh Laurie (?), as well as some girls.

Pacino said he was delighted to receive lots of money and not have to do much:

I’ve always loved the theater and making films is good as well, but I never truly saw myself as a model. It’s ridiculous. Who am I? I was never comfortable as a sex symbol. But now I’m stripping off for playboy and showing Mister Bojangles to the world. And now L’Oréal want to put my mush on their shampoo advert? Why the hell not!

How Much do you think your recent appearance in the HBO TV movie Phil Spector influenced the French cosmetic giant?

Oh without a doubt. And I have to say this is all David [Mamet]’s doing. When I turned up and he showed me the various wigs, I was like woah, David. What the fuck! But then he explained that Phil Spector’s dream was to one with the music and what is more one with the music than the microphone, ergo he wanted to become a microphone and that’s what the hair was for. And I was there, dumbass that I am, thinking it just made me look like a complete asshole.

For more on Al Pacino’s Playboy photo shoot CLICK HERE.

BREAKFAST WITH ASSHOLES: 17. DANNY BOYLE

Danny Boyle – director of such an eclectic range of films as Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, Sunshine, 28 Days Later and A Life Less Ordinary – is chopping bananas, kiwis, apples, crushing cranberries and dropping them all into a blender. ‘I’m making you one of my famous smoothies,’ he says, scratching himself with a free hand. ‘You have one of these and you can run a mile, chum!’

Once it’s done I taste it and say it’s very nice. Danny runs around the kitchen, punching the air in a victory dance. ‘I’m simply the best,’ he sings at the top of his little lungs.

So Danny what’s all this about Trainspotting 2?

I’m done thinking up new shit. I’m all out of ideas. Think about it. I’ve worked in every genre: science fiction with Sunshine, horror with 28 Days Later, straight drama, Bollywood. I’ve even worked in the shit Cameron Diaz film genre with A Life Less Ordinary. Well, that’s it I can’t do it any more. From now on, I’m just making sequels. Do you want some more?

Yes please. So what do you have planned?

After Trainspotting 2, I’m going to do Sunshine 2, Slumdog Billionaire and 254 Hours. Then I’m going to direct the Olympics 2.

But the Olympics will be in …

Yeah, whatever. I haven’t thought that far ahead. There you go. I put a little of my secret stuff in there. What people don’t understand about the Olympics is I really wanted the Queen to be in it, I mean the actual Queen, but they just gave me some hammy old stand in, not even my second choice Helen Mirren.

No, that was the actual Queen.

Bloody Nora. I made a pass at her.

What are your plans for Trainspotting?

Ewan MacGregor has given me a lot of input, but he’s a catholic priest now (for more on that story CLICK HERE) so he’s asking we clean it up a lot and cast younger male leads. Other than that I have pressure from Irvine Welsh that he be given a larger acting role. And the Americans want the characters to go to the States. Some have suggested that our heroes accidentally buy a zoo, rather than use heroin. As long as we’re true to the spirit of the original, I’ll do anything.

Abruptly, I need to get to the bathroom and when I emerge Danny is gone and I have lost two stone.

For all the Breakfasts CLICK HERE.

DANNY BOYLE’S ‘REGICIDE’ IN PRE-PRODUCTION

HOLLYWOOD – Following the news that director Danny Boyle turned down the offer of a Knighthood; we talked to the Mancunian director about his latest project ‘Regicide’ and why he chose to omit his name from the new years honours list.

Danny. You’re one of few individuals to turn down the offer of a Knighthood. What led you to make such a monumental decision?

Well it’s bollocks isn’t it.

What is?

Everything. The title, the calling people Sir. Some over privileged pensioner wearing a priceless crown bothering you with a sword. It’s absolute bollocks.

But some people regard it as being the ultimate accolade.

Yeah. People who talk bollocks who don’t have any bollocks.

You’re renown for your Marxist politics and yet some other notable left-wingers such as Salman Rushdie and Helen Mirren gladly accepted the honour.

Rushdie’s all mouth and no bollocks and Mirren used to have the bollocks but all she has these days is a lovely pair of top bollocks. She played the Queen I mean, what a load of old bollocks that was.

Moving on. Your new film Regicide is due to start shooting in February. What can we expect?

It’s about a robot from the future who goes back in time to assassinate every monarch in British history.

Interesting. Who is playing the lead?

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Why Arnie?

He’s the bollocks.

Regicide is due for release in 2012.

DARYL HANNAH’S AMAZON ARMY ‘READY TO ATTACK’

NEW YORK – News came in earlier today that Daryl Hannah – star of such films as Kill Bill Volume 2 and Splash! – has been amassing a private army of Amazonian warriors ready to attack America, overturn the government and implement a Fem-Ocracy. As is almost always the case with stories of this nature, Anne Hathaway has been named as one of her most prized Lieutenants.
Uma Thurman first reported Hannah’s plans to disbelieving reporters during a junket for the concluding Volume of the Kill Bill saga:

I was telling them that Hannah had recruited some of the most famous actress in her army. Jolie was already on board and Megan Fox. Helen Mirren had her own private army for years, but they were considered too radical and anyway her and Dame Judi Dench were British and so had their own agenda.

Thurman’s warnings were met with scepticism even by Four Rooms director Quentin Tarantino.

Sure, she talked to me about it. But I thought she was pitching a film, a film I’d still be interested in doing, by the way, should Daryl still fancy it after the revolution.

Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus are all thought to hold key positions. Some have speculated that Hannah’s Amazon army might move first on Russia to free the Pussy Riot group. Others have argued that the whole story comes from a misread email about a Daryl Hannah Box Set ordered from Amazon.