The man likely to be the biggest international box office star of 2002 will celebrate his 80th birthday this May. Christopher Lee is the lead villain in both LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS and STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES. If this winning combination doesn't blast him to the top of the list, leftover revenues from FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING surely will.
Okay so that statistic may owe more to fortuitous casting than to Lee's popularity with the film-going public, but he is a much admired performer within the cinematic industry, and his record proves that this year's successes are no fluke. Since finding fame with a trio of Hammer horror movies in the late 50s, including his signature title role in DRACULA, Lee has appeared in stacks of great and/or famous movies, including THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, THE WICKER MAN, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, GREMLINS 2 and THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE. He formed one of the most well-known screen partnerships with Peter Cushing that began proper with Hammer's CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, included genre classics such as HORROR EXPRESS and THE CREEPING FLESH and totalled over 20 films in 30 years, finishing with HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS in 1983. Furthermore, Lee has been in more films than any British actor ever, and is a strong contender for the world record on this.
So, clearly, the man is a giant of the silver screen. Inevitably for someone who's been around for over 50 years, Lee has gone in and out of style, and the 80s and
It's my theory that George Lucas wrote the part of Darth Vader with Christoper Lee in mind. My evidence is that Darth is basically a big evil aristocrat with a large black cape and deep booming voice, and that Lee's image of the time was not exactly a million miles away from this. If that wasn't proof enough, Peter Cushing was cast as Darth's equally sinister boss. The fact that the Green Cross Code Man eventually played Evil Anakin does kind of undermine my argument, until you realise that the Vader costume made a famous name uncastable. The final nail in the coffin of those who doubt me is Lee's appearance as Count Dooku in the next instalment of the space opera. By all accounts, this guy is a big evil aristocrat with a large black cape and deep booming voice BUT this time you get a clear view of his face. Trust me, he'll be fantastic.
Peter Jackson also wanted him for Star Wars's big rival in the fantasy trilogy blockbuster stakes, Lord of the Rings. Lee excels himself as Gandalf's boss turned loon, the head wizard Saruman. This performance stands out in the first instalment, and that a film full of remarkable attributes. Certainly Jackson must have thought so, as Saruman's role is considerably deepened and expanded from that of the character in the original book. We can expect more of the same in this year's sequel, as Dark Lord Sauron remains in the background and Saruman's Orc army marches on the goodly land of Rohan. It's hardly believable that an actor who only a few years ago had to accept a supporting role in POLICE ACADEMY 7 is finally getting the international recognition he's always deserved.
Now, I wouldn't want to pretend that Christopher Lee is some kind of saint. He has an uneasy relationship with his fans, and has been critical of them on occasion. What's more, he has done the odd video or book signing and has exhibited a strange phobia of writing personal greetings on them, confining himself to just a quick signature. There's also the usual actorly traits of hyperbole and exaggeration, such as his claim that "I taught Oliver Reed how to sword fight".
Still, these are minor flaws that may prevent canonisation by his Holiness the Pope but should surely not forestall a sword/shoulder combination from Her Majesty the Queen. So far, all he's got to show for dominating the multiplexes for the greater part of the last century is a miserly CBE! If there's any justice in the world he'll be receiving a knighthood at the very least before too many New Year's honours lists have passed.
Are there any more deserving nominees for the title of Britain's Greatest Ever Screen Actor?
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Johnny Depp's new movie, FROM HELL, is a fairly decent Jack the Ripper flick, that gets away with it's leading man's Michael Caine impression, not to mention the leading lady's equally uncreditable mockney (her character is Irish, but no one has told Heather Graham this!). In fact, the single most notable thing about the Hughes' brothers' film is that it's an adaptation of one of the greatest graphic novels ever published.
The humble comic has never had much of a profile, especially in the UK where 2000AD struggles on alone in the marketplace. It may be surprising to some, then, that the medium is actually dominated by British writers and artists, and that From Hell's author, Northampton-based scribe Alan Moore, is the reigning genius of world-wide comicdom.
Moore has not really translated into other mediums, a solitary, unloved novel apart, and his most famous work, Watchmen, is most well known in cine-circles as a Terry Gilliam project that never got off the ground. Yet, in his own field, there's no one like him. His short Batman story, The Killing Joke is arguably the best caped crusader adventure ever published and it's pretty indicative of a level
Unfortunately, his failure to dazzle the non-comic reading wider world has been shared by the two other most notable comic writers. Frank Miller, who is most famous for the Killing Joke's chief rival in the all time bat-stakes, The Dark Knight Returns, has a worse movie history than Moore, with the proposed Clint Eastwood version of Dark Knight refusing to become reality, and little but two execrable Robocop sequels to his co-credit.
The British born exile Neil Gaiman of Sandman fame, has written quite a lot of prose, and when it's good it's very good (read Stardust now!) but this is all too rarely. Furthermore, Gaiman was responsible for the very silly BBC TV series Neverwhere a few years back, that stretched a thin conceit about taking London place names literally (An Angel called Islington and so on) well past breaking point for most people.
The new Spiderman movie proves once again that the only way Hollywood can cope with comics is to nick their characters and make up a new narrative. This is how X-MEN, BATMAN and SUPERMAN all became studio mainstays. However, until someone manages to successfully bring a really decent comic story to the screen - Gaiman's Books of Magic, Miller's Sin City or Moore's Top Ten, for instance, the graphic novel will remain a medium on it's own.
Moral: Don't hold your breath waiting, start reading graphic novels.
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Now that Darius has been eliminated from Pop Idol, it is perhaps time to turn our thoughts away from TV, to its older sister, the cinema, and take stock of what has been in many ways a remarkable year. Any top ten of 2001's new releases is more than likely to include THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, and even the Number One slot is a shoe-in, providing Peter Jackson plays his considerable hand as we all think he will. However, there is little else due out that has much chance of making such a list, so we can already start to formulate it with some confidence.
The year's other blockbusters would mostly struggle to make it onto our list. PLANET OF THE APES might possibly squeeze in as Number Ten, as it was pretty good right up until that diabolically ludicrous ending. THE MUMMY RETURNS was no better than okay, and certainly a severe step down from the original. TOMB RAIDER disappointed as a story, although certainly not as poster material for teenage boys bedrooms. PEARL HARBOR leads the "why in God's name would anybody watch that?" contingent, although GCUK man Luke Watts did and he confirms our worst expectations. One big actioner that does make it onto our list is JURASSIC PARK 3, and this because the combination of decent actors with good action, if film studios would actually bother, does indeed come up trumps more often than not. Also, though, I am a sucker for dinosaur movies and rate the first two Parks just as highly.
There has been plenty of criticism for British movies this year, but I think some of this has been unwarranted. ENIGMA was worthwhile, although not quite good enough to chart, but MIKE BASSETT: ENGLAND MANAGER had enough laughs to get into the lower reaches, possibly figuring at 8 or 9. THE PAROLE OFFICER was even better, making it well into the mid-table with its engaging blend of comedy and romance. True, there were a few terrible movies emmanating from these shores over the last 12 months, but as Mariah Carey fans will tell you, the Americans have done a lot worse things to a trusting audience than we have.
A case in point would be AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS, supposedly a romantic comedy and starring the seemingly can't lose combination of Julia Roberts and John Cusack, it was in fact a can and does lose vanity project for the never that talented but often better than this Billy Crystal. Cusack, who we on these pages revere, stands a very real chance of not featuring on the list at all, unless a late run from not very promising looking rom-com SERENDIPIPITY restores our faith in this great man.
As for the rest of our places, these are not that difficult to fill. Alex raved about AMELIE and doubtless he is right. Similiarly, a Coen brothers thriller like THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE is as sure to make it's year's "Best of" chart as a Coen brother comedy like HUDSUCKER PROXY is to miss it. CROUCHING TIGER left me cold, but silly tree fights seem to have widespread appeal and I can foresee being outvoted into accepting that one. MOULIN ROUGE, similarily has a lot of admirers. For me, though, the two movies that really stand out are BRIDGET JONES and THE OTHERS.
BRIDGET JONES leads the British contingent in my mind, not to mention just about every other contingent it could be conceivably a member of. Warm and funny, with great showings from Zellweger and the much maligned Hugh Grant. Richard Curtis has indeed shaken off the TALL GUY to become one of the greatest screenwriters working today. THE OTHERS is very similar to THE SIXTH SENSE, but it works so well that this scarcely matters. A strong favourite for an Oscar, Nicole Kidman has never made a better move than to ditch erstwhile hubby Tom Cruise, and with him supporting roles in crap like FAR AND AWAY. THE OTHERS also features child actors that put the decent-enough Harry Potter kids to shame, and cinematic legend Eric Sykes back on the big screen where he belongs.
So, then, assuming that Drew Barrymore's little film about teenage pregnancy isn't an unlikely masterpiece, all we're waiting for is a certain adventure movie. FELLOWSHIP stars a range of talented thesps, but the one I'm most excited about is Christopher Lee, who after a dodgy couple of decades in the post-Hammer wilderness is most definitely back at the top. I'm convinced that his presence alone will ensure LORD OF THE RINGS part one is Film of the Year. Of course, for those people not convinced of the former Dracula star's greatness, I'm pretty sure there'll be other things to enjoy too.
Chris Denton.
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Though I failed to notice, or celebrate, it at the time, August 2001 marked the tenth anniversary of our household owning satellite television. Ten years of American imports, repeats and the very rare new piece of British television. But despite much mockery over the last decade, satellite, and now digital tv, has changed our viewing habits considerably.
For a long while, Sky One was easily the finest satellite channel available, and had little real competition in the viewing figures stake, and was the only satellite channel which regularly (as in nightly) showed hours of new television. So at times it has made serious misjudgements (Beverly Hills 90210, their first
Once the Paramount channel competed, with a mixture of original US fare and the odd low budget homegrown panel show, but it’s been clearly struggling to survive for the last few years now, as the programmes become older and repeated over and over again, and only the movie and sport channels ever really distracted me from Sky One’s nightly line up.
And whilst a few other channels have improved a little over the last decade, during the last two years the launch of both BBC Choice and E4 (and to a lesser extent, UK Play) has made Sky One look far weaker. E4 poached both E.R. and Friends from Sky, whilst showing The Soprano’s and a fair amount of original comedy and drama, and stole a huge amount of the digital audience with its 18 hour a day coverage of Big Brother. Not that the channel isn’t without it’s faults, but it’s already established itself as the premier entertainment channel on Sky Digital within a year of it’s launch. Whilst BBC Choice’s original programming is a little weaker (bar the wonderful Liquid News, of course), some of it’s been fairly fine viewing, and it’s repeats of (supposedly) the best programmes from BBC1 and 2 has helped it attract a healthy audience too.
The problem with Sky One nowadays is that it’s clearly struggling to find enough product to fill it’s airtime. Thus we get (at least) two showings of Star Trek and The Simpsons every day, old X-files and Friends episodes during the week, and the odd dodgy movie (usually about ten years old, and starring someone who’s star has all but faded now), which hardly makes for a decent night in.
To make matters worse, many of Sky’s most popular shows have either come to the end of their run (Star Trek’s Voyager and Deep Space Nine, Hercules), run out ideas (The X-files, South Park, The Simpsons) – or been reasonably terrible all along (Stargate SG1, Relic Hunter). And this year’s batch of new shows, mostly reflecting the current trend in the US for reality tv, have mostly been tedious exercises in revolting/shocking/arousing the audience and have failed disastrously – Have you ever met anyone who sat through the entire series of Boot Camp? Only Fear Factor, all too briefly, provided any real amusement. Alas many new drama’s and comedies in the US have struggled to establish an audience and make it to a second season, and those that have, and which Sky One have bought- Dark Angel, Andromeda, Malcolm in the Middle, V.I.P. - often haven’t deserved to, anyway.
Sky’s own productions, including Time Gentlemen Please, Baddiel’s Syndrome, The Strangerers et al have all seemed to misfire despite having a huge budget and a fair amount of talent behind them, and the tv movies and mini-series have tended to be utterly poor, mostly starring soap opera actors (or, if you’re lucky, someone from a hospital drama) and they just seem to be bizarre oddities in a schedule mixed with repeats of The Simpsons and Star Trek, and tedious not even soft porn sex documentaries.
Their reality tv shows (all of the variations of Ibiza uncut, The Villa and Temptation Island) have been at least vaguely entertaining, but nowhere near interesting viewing, and are only worth catching when there is simply nothing else on. And it should be noted that reality tv seems to be the only genre which is really, really difficult to screw up. So only Buffy and Angel, Family Guy and King of the Hill have really entertained in the last twelve months, and that’s just 78 hours of television in a whole year. Which makes for pretty depressing viewing the rest of the time.
So what can be done? Well, producing decent homegrown material seems like the first step & taking a leaf out of C4/E4’s book and employing up and coming talent might help, rather than overpaying rejects from other channels. And perhaps by producing material which is suitable for a more adult audience (but without the nudity), things could begin to change. Because relying on US imports and faded comedians has ultimately made the channel sadly unwatchable.
Alex Finch.
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According to the UK Equity website's strike page (at http://www.equity.org.uk/actors_strike/index.htm) the proposed industrial action against the British Film Industry will be going ahead from December of this year. Now, in a way it's a good sign that we have enough of a movie production enterprise in this country to warrant the attentions of the Luvvie-world's Arthur Scargills. After all, since the withdrawal of US cash in about 1974, the industry has been struggling for quarter of a century, largely only maintaining its existence at all with the occasional Merchant Ivory arthouse success and the odd Hugh Grant comedy or Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare extravaganza.
At the moment, though, business is good. The Yanks are being very forthcoming with their dollars and even good old British pounds are being invested in UK celluloid thanks to the "voluntary tax on the poor", otherwise known as the "National Lottery". Well, all this good news has obviously gone to the heads of Equity officials, who have now decided they deserve lucrative profit-sharing deals in line with their American counterparts. I have to say that I categorically agree that they do deserve to be rewarded for their contributions to various films. That's why they have agents.
These greedy thespians need to be very careful about making financially crippling demands for their services when the scale of the productions they appear in does not bear much resemblance to the Hollywood model they seem set on mirroring. In a free market, if they aren't offered the pay they feel they deserve, they can decline to appear in a film. There is no wage cap that prevents producers from offering stars a bumper cheque, providing that they feel this is justified. Remember that one of the most lucrative profit-sharing deals of all time was struck by our very own Sir Alec Guinness on the British-based Sci-Fi epic STAR WARS.
What is extremely worrying is that 1970s style union intimidation will cause the number of British-made movies to shrink enormously and the revival that has been so evident recently will die a swift and unnecessary death. Just look at those luminaries on the Equity website who support the current action. As well as people like Christopher Lee whom should be revered and respected as the legends they are (and of whom no criticism is implied here), there are less useful pledges of support from Hi-De-Hi's Su Pollard and simlilar of that calibre. If it becomes necessary for studio's to pay through the nose for any old muppet with an Equity card, the only actors who will really benefit are those from other countries such as Australia, where many projects will doubtless relocate.
Chris Denton.
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