Mirren Takes Over Venice

It's time to celebrate Helen Mirren's win for best actress over at the Venice Film festival for her latest role as the title character in Steven Frears' The Queen. She has long been one my top five favorite actresses for her ingenious work in roles like The Queen and The Madness of King George, for which she was nominated, and overlooked, for the best supporting actress Academy Award. I also loved her playing opposite Fionnula Flannagan in the IRA political drama Some Mother's Son. She flashed her comedy chops (and so much more than that) as Chris Harper in Calendar Girls. Oh, and you best believe I own and revere the entire Prime Suspect library.

But I think my favorite role of hers has to be as Mrs. Wilson in the brilliant, yet underappreciated Robert Altman masterpiece (and utter Britfest) Gosford Park. She plays a very on-task head-servant in this old-fashioned murder mystery, wearing little to no makeup, and facial expressions varying only slightly from determined concentration throughout the entire movie. Also one cannot ignore the mysterious inner depths she manages to channel (and so subtly reveal) while doing so little. Folks, this is what makes an actress great.

Her successes over the last decade have not made her a diva -- she gives a cool, down to earth and honest interview -- and is the kind of person who makes a joke about almost falling on her way up to the podium at the Emmys using, um, the language of the common man. She got her start in Shakespearean roles in the late 60's/early 70's, updating Shakes' female roles in such a way as to give them incredibly complex, rich, sexual incarnations -- this earned her the nickname 'The Sex-Queen of Stratford.' Not surprisingly, her sex-appeal has not dimmed with age, as the Brits are always having these polls about which over-the-hill celebrities their young male population finds irresistibly sexy. Yeah, and Mirren always places pretty high on these lists. She is frequently dubbed 'the thinking man's sex symbol' in these articles. Such polls bring hope to young literate chicks like myself that the brains will enhance the looks.

She is presently resting atop my TV set in the form of Victoria, in-control girlfriend of Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday, which I shall watch after the completion of my umpteenth viewing of Layer Cake. Yes, It's British gangster flick weekend at the homestead.