The Five Best Hollywood Movie "Queens"

Big box office, fan clubs and Oscar gold crowns Hollywood royalty. Thespians who've touched us in such a way, deserve more than wealth and fame which boosts a Hollywood career. Iconic movie figures like John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo, Jimmy Stewart, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman and Harrison Ford are a few who can justly be called Hollywood royalty.

When a good actress portrays a royal on film, there can indeed be regal magic. A queen - no matter fantasy or real - conjures a singularly seductive movie spell. Here are five of the best Hollywood Movie Queens.

Aliens - Queen Mother Alien (Stan Winston FX) 1986

"Get away from her, you bitch!"

Sigourney Weaver (Avatar) fought the first bug like creature in Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi thriller Alien. In director James Cameron's adrenaline pumped sequel, she fights dozens more, but the final battle royale features one royal opponent.

Stan Winston's creature shop brought this incredibly realistic, and humongous alien creature to vivid life. At a staggering fourteen feet tall, it screeched chillingly and spat acid venom at Ripley. We knew this was a fighting match unlike anything ever seen before. The nifty forklift like power-loader suit Ripley uses gives her a chance at saving herself and little girl Newt, but also gives us hope this enraged alien bug won't squash Ripley. James Cameron actually designed the basic concept of the Queen himself. He painted it for Stan Winston to bring to unforgettable life.

Star Trek: First Contact - Borg Queen (Alice Krige) 1996

"I am the beginning... the end. I am the one who is many. I am the Borg."

South African actress Alice Krige delivers these creepy cryptic lines, made up in full Borg attire, while being lowered down from Starship Enterprise's rafters. It's one of the most eye popping entrances of any character in any movie. Her royal costume consists of lavishly haunting face makeup, and hypnotically busy prosthetics. Topping it all off is a skin tight, black bodysuit, giving this scary sexy monarch a truly other worldly vibe.

Special FX wizard Todd Masters was a primary architect of this fantastic scene, introducing android Data to the Borg ruler. What's most fascinating about this royal alien is her 'plug n play' existence. Apparently, most of the time, her head and spine remain independent of a body. Once her presence is required to interact with other lifeforms, she's simply plugged into a cybernetic body. Alice Krige's electric performance elevates the whole movie to such a high point, that you miss her freaky intriguing character whenever she's not on screen. The film's crack make-up team, led by Michael Westmore, earned an Oscar nomination for helping to create one of the most compelling Hollywood Queens ever.

The Queen - Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) 2006

Helen Mirren won both an Oscar and a BAFTA - British Academy Of Film and Television - for Best Actress in a film for her touching portrayal of the United Kingdom's monarch.

As seems to be the rule for any royal - no matter time, place or even if they're genuine - Queen Elizabeth had always been a picture of calm, cool restraint. This may have been expected from her in her youth, coming from a more traditional and even repressed time, however when Princess Diana of Wales was killed in a tragic car accident, the British people wanted her to reach out to them - even show some emotion. Mirren balances a role which could quickly have devolved into a kind of caricature, and delivers a wonderfully human portrait. She's no stranger to playing Queens on film. In 1994, Mirren played a Queen Consort in The Madness Of King George, and earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination.

Elizabeth - Queen Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett) 1998

Indian director Shekhar Kapur's films Elizabeth and its lavish sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age, see Blanchett turn in supremely royal performances, as one of the greatest Tudor monarchs to rule England.

In 1998's first outing as Queen Elizabeth I, newcomer Blanchett was graced with an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and Kapur earned an Academy Award nod for director. Blanchett plays legendary Good Queen Bess or the Virgin Queen with such a naturally fiery confidence, that we forget the actress wasn't even born in England, but in Australia. Shekhar Kapur has said he wants to make a third Elizabeth film starring Cate Blanchett when the actress is older. He wishes to explore her as being mortal and divine at the same time. Despite what some critics call a loose interpretation of history in the films, Blanchett's brilliant acting combined with Kapur's compelling cinematic vision, propel these movies into more than mere historical docudramas.

Alice In Wonderland - Red Queen Of Hearts (Helena Bonham Carter) 2010

With the release of his live action version, Tim Burton has finally tackled one of literature's most popular tales, Alice In Wonderland. It seems a marriage made in a Lewis Carroll heaven, as this king of wildly visual fairy tales interprets the story. To keep it in the family, Burton cast his wife, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen.

Not one to be cuddly and kind to animals, the Red Queen shows her distaste for them by using animals as furniture. The royal lady is a combination of the Red Queen and Queen Of Hearts, and Bonham Carter played her like a toddler - bossy with a big head - who only cares about herself.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_%282010_film%29

http://www.screenindia.com/news/for-a-few-drops-more/586341/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_%28film%29

www.imdb.com