| From The New Zealand Hearld |
| Chatterbox: The power of the ring 11.05.2002 He may have made a film full of short people, but Peter Jackson is standing tall in Hollywood rankings. The annual list compiled by Premiere Magazine of the "100 hundred most powerful people in movies" gives Jackson 41st ranking - one below Denzel Washington, one above Eddie Murphy - in his appearance in the list. The only directors ranked above him are James Cameron (37), Robert Zemeckis (36), Steven Soderbergh (38), Ridley Scott (36), Ron Howard (29), George Lucas (14) and Steven Spielberg (6). Premiere estimates that Jackson's share of the multimedia revenues from the Lord of the Rings trilogy should come to US$150 million ($334 million). Others with New Zealand connections in the list include Russell Crowe at 28th - one below George Clooney but one above his A Beautiful Mind director Howard - with the magazine saying that Crowe is to join the US$20 million ($45 million) club with his next role in Master and Commander. Expatriate New Zealander now London-based producer Tim Bevan and his partner Eric Fellner are ranked at 51. The performance of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring had other spin-offs, too, helping to bump New Line co-chairmen and CEOs Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne up to 25 from their 32nd position last year. And at No 1 are Richard Parsons and Robert Pittman, the bosses of AOL Time Warner. LUCY DELIVERS: It's been a big week for Lucy Lawless - not only has there been the birth of her third child but her first post-Xena movie has lit up the American box office. Well, kind of ... blink and you'll miss her, but Lawless makes a fleeting appearance as "punk rock girl" in director Sam Raimi's recordbusting Spider-Man. Lawless, in full goth makeup and wig, has just one line, gushing about the webbed one's coolness as he sets about busting New York's crims. Her appearance, we presume, has something to do with the friendship between former college buddies Raimi and Lawless' husband, Rob Tapert. Their first collaboration was on the horror classic The Evil Dead in 1983, and they're both partners in Renaissance Pictures, the parent company of Renaissance Pacific, the makers of Xena and Hercules. SO THERE: Other than the writer of this column who thinks they're fabulous, we've found one other near-pensioner who likes the Brunettes - the Auckland pop band who got booed at by "sedate blue rinsers" when they supported Gene Pitney in Auckland last week. He's veteran English DJ Jon Peel who played a track he'd picked up during his recent New Zealand visit on his influential BBC show- and he even sent the band a postcard to say he had. STITCHED UP: A British women's knitting circle is being given the needle by fans of the famously mask-wearing, badly behaved American thrash metal group Slipknot. The Knitting & Crochet Guild's website is being bombarded by fans of the band, who are angry that the guild's quarterly journal shares the same name as their idols. Slipknot, the knitting journal, is a sedate read, giving advice on patterns, wool mixes and weaves. Slipknot fans are sending abusive e-mails to the guild. Rita Taylor, who chairs the Knitting & Crochet Guild, said: "The emails have been pretty unpleasant, telling us that we shouldn't be on the internet with the word 'Slipknot'. But we are not going to let it bother us. We are interested in preserving and nurturing the skills of knitting and crochet, not this band, who I had never heard of." WAITING FOR JANGO: For John Guth and Jeff Tweiten the wait is almost over. The pair have been standing in line for the new Star Wars film in downtown Seattle since the beginning of the year. They spent the first month on the footpath, waving a banner that read: "Waiting for Star Wars." But when that became uncomfortable and troublesome in light of Seattle's anti-vagrancy laws, they moved into a nearby carpark, renting a block of five spaces for their computer-equipped camper van. The experience has had its lows. The pair were hit in the face with cream pies by a team of anonymous jokers. And there was some unpleasant business with a homeless man and last week they were robbed - though during the getaway the thief tripped and smashed his head open on the pavement. "This is a silly thing to do. There is an extremity to it that defies understanding," Guth admits. "But it's not meant to be understood, just accepted." LOCK UP YOUR GREAT-AUNTS: Will the old crocks of rock'n'roll head back this way on their upcoming global jaunt? Well, maybe. Australian promoters have been putting out the feelers for a Rolling Stones show next February at Western Springs. The Stones last played a two night-stand there in 1995, back when they were mere pups. |
