One major award down. How many more to go? Helen Mirren fulfilled media expectations to win the Emmy Award for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I this past weekend. One month from now (Sept 29th) she arrives in theaters as yet another Queen Elizabeth (II this time) in a Miramax film called The Queen. They're keeping it simple, people. Can the sexiest sexegenarian on the planet (give or take Charlotte Rampling) pull off a Liza Minelli and win both Emmy & Oscar for the same calendar year's worth of entertainments? She'll certainly have tough competition but Mirren has never been an easily intimidated actor.
The Queen, as you'll see to your left here, is being sold as a one woman show. Its Oscar fate rests entirely on how her performance is received. If she's genius, Oscar voters will undoubtedly give the whole movie a close look. There is reason to be hopeful. Stephen Frears knows his way around grand actresses. He's previously directed Judi Dench, Annette Bening, Anjelica Huston, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Glenn Close to Oscar nominations in Mrs. Henderson Presents, The Grifters, and Dangerous Liaisons respectively. I love the latter two films in that list. I love them this much. You can't see my arms right now but trust me that they strain and stretch to equal the love. Those two films aside, and however uneven Frears filmography has been, he'll always be close to my heart for bringing My Beautiful Laundrette into the world. So I'm crossing my fingers that he and Mirren have concocted a brilliant duet here. We'll find out soon.
