XENA MEDIA REVIEW #28 (10/11/97) Borg 3 of 6 ================ CUT HERE ================== [463] 09-01-96 MAD. No. 349. September 1996. Page 33. --- words. "Jerkules & Zima" By Angelo Torres and Dick Debartolo. COMMENTARY: Had I read this before the Cracked Monster Party parody "Eczema: Wearisome Princess" (XMR311, XMR #22), I would have accused MAD of being puerile and insipid. However, since "Jerkules & Zina" appeared afterwards, the MAD parody came off rather erudite and subtle. The piece was chockfull of jokes such as "I am Zima, the mighty princess warrior who uses all of my power and courage to really stuff a bra! Like Jerkules, I'm strong, quick to fight and slow to register any sort of emotion or acting talent! But who really cares? My Amazon legs are famous for letting me flip in the air and getting horny viewers to flip to whatever channel I'm flashing on!"; and "I'm Zima's side-kick, Grabby! I help her battle the demons from the dark and deep depths and take on the armies of evildoers! But my most important job is to help her handle sentences of more than five words." The parody continued in the same vein, until a high point was reached: the gang, while looking for Mazola, the husband of Jergens, Queen of Moisturizers, located Crisco and Pam first. The low point was no doubt where Zima smote a highly appreciative warrior with her breasts. The parody ends when the gang is transported magically into Baywatch. Interestingly enough, all the gay jokes (and there were quite a few of them) were aimed at Hercules and Iolaus and not Xena and Gabrielle. [KT] TRANSCRIPTION: [transcription needed; any volunteers?] [464] 09-01-96 FEMME FATALES. September 1996. Vol. 5 No. 3. "The Luscious Ladies of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction." COMMENTARY: Lawless makes #24. Hope she makes higher next time.[KT] This is one of what seems to be a never-ending succession of stories and polls ranking the stars. How important is it that Pamela Lee ranks higher than Lucy Lawless? Not very. I guess I'm just grumpy, but this is getting boring. [DS] REPRINT: And here's the ranking... 01.Teri Hatcher 02. Pamela Lee 03. Salma Hayek 04. Famke Janssen 05. Angela Basset 06. Terry Farrell 07. Tia Carrere 08. Nana Visitor 09. Kristen Cloke 10. Madchen Amick 11. Diane Lane 12. Elizabeth Hurley 13. Julie Strain 14. Jodie Foster 15. Cameron Diaz 16. Uma Thurman 17. Jennifer Connelly 18. Sharon Stone 19. Natasha Henstridge 20. Mia Sara 21. Jeanne Tripplehorn 22. Gillian Anderson 23. Marina Sirtis 24. LUCY LAWLESS 25. Izabella Scorupco 26. Sandra Bullock 27. Penelope Ann Miller 28. Claudia Christian 29. Alicia Silverstone 30. Nicole Eggert 31. Tracy Scoggins 32. Sherilyn Fenn 33. Victoria Rowell 34. Kimberly Patton 35. Kristy Swanson 36. Mili Avital 37. Alyssa Milano 38. Megan Ward 39. Lisa Dean Ryan 40. Roxann Biggs-Dawson 41. Jennifer Lien 42. Shannon Tweed 43. Sean Young 44. Juliette Lewis 45. Michelle Forbes 46. Kari Wuhrer 47. Dina Meyer 48. Talisa Soto 49. Cameron 50. Pamela Grier [465] 09-01-96 DETAILS. Comic strip. Page 272. "Jake and Jeannie (The Magic Cat)" by Kaz Contributed by James Fadden (jspf@pop.erols.com) COMMENTARY: Yet another entry into the already bulging category of media portraying Xena as the Hulk. These portrayals have little to do with the show, but perhaps that's not the point. Could it be that we're desperate for a character to use to portray our inner furies? [DS] EXCERPT: PANEL 1 Jake: Jeannie, my wish today is to have any TV character as my date with a click of the remote. Jeannie: Typical. All right. Your wish is my command. PANEL 1b TV remote clicking PANEL 2 (In a restaurant) Jake: Xena, please calm down! This is a respectable restaurant! Xena(Swinging her sword): INNKEEPER! More hot grog NOW!! Or by the gods, I'll circumcise your HEAD! [466] 09-01-96 CLEO. Kevin Smith Interview. Contributed by: susanm COMMENTARY: This detailed interview with Kevin Smith contains lots of previously unknown bits of information about the man who plays Ares, God of War. We learn that he was considered for the lead in the movie, THE PHANTOM, and auditioned for two short-living TV shows, AMERICAN GOTHIC and NOWHERE MAN. We learn that he played a gay part for one episode in a television show that sounds like it was a New Zealand show, and hear what it's like to play a love scene with a woman or a man. [DS] Lots of colorful non-American English words used here that I did not censor, SO ENJOY!!! [KT] EXCERPT: Q. Do you collect anything? A. No. I used to be fanatical about watching a TV series. If I missed an episode I'd just never watch it again, it would be like spoiled goods, deflowered. It's all or nothing; if I couldn't have everything of something it would gut me. Q. So you're a completist A. Yeah. I'm a f***-head. Q. So what's with your TV watching, once you start you've got to see everything? Is that right? A. If I start watching a series I like claim ownership of it. I first started with Mary Tyler Moore back when she was in the office with Lou Grant. I was a kid, and it was the last thing I was allowed up to see. I used to go to bed early. Q. You didn't last long on "City Life." A. No. Blaze of glory stuff. Q. Why was that? Did they only want you for the first one, or what happened? A. I'm pretty good mates with James Griffen who wrote the thing, and he rang up and asked me about it. But I had just been over in Aussie and shot this telemovie, MCLEOD'S DAUGHTER, which is one of these sprawling horse and cattle epics that they like to do over there. I didn't audition for the show, and they wondered why. I said, "Well, I'd have to bail at some stage, I've got a regular gig on `Xena: Warrior Seamstress.'" Then they said, "Well Smithy, how's the idea of coming in, having a bit of a pash and being killed sound to you?" I said, "Jimmy, that's me." It was a nice couple of weeks. Q. Then they said you had to pash another guy? A. Yeah, he was pretty upfront about that. Although I have to say, I got a call from Mum. She said, "Why didn't you tell me? I had to watch it on my own." It was good to rattle the cage a bit. I think it was safe for me because over the years, the stuff I've done, you know. Q. You've been pretty hetro, haven't you? A. Very hetro! I'm bloke-man, bloke-boy! You forget how many women you might have pashed on stage and on TV over the years -- a lot. So it was safe for me. I first met the guy I had to do it with at the fashion awards. He was sitting there and turned around and said, "So, you follow the tooty, do yah?" It was this whole big man thing. Q. You were both trying to make out you weren't going to get carried away in the heat of the moment? A. Yeah, not lose it and get into a bit of tonsil hockey. Q. So it was quite obvious that this sort of thing was going to be part of your job description? A. Yeah, as it is with women, too. There's a lot of people, sort of mates, who aren't actors and see anything like that as an opportunity to get a free one. And I say, "No mate, it's a gig." And quite often the women are friends and you know their partners or whatever, and they know your wife and kids and that, so it's a bit like kissing your sister or something. Q. Not that you would know what it's like to kiss you sister. A. No, no, no, no, no! Q. Were you surprised they let that go on at 7:30 p.m. on a Monday, that sort of behaviour? Or is it a good thing? A. Yeah, well, why not? They'd done it on "Shortland Street" with two lesbians. Somehow it's easier for us to see two women kissing. In fact, there's a lot of regular guys who would pay big money to see it. Q. Big money! A. At the gym this guy I've known for years says "Smithy!" and starts to you know... Q. They're spending all day at the gym in front of mirrors and they're giving YOU fun? A. It's a funny thing that, aye. Q. How many days have you worked in the last year? A. Oh s***, I don't know. There's always something. Some weeks you work a day and other weeks you'll work every day, you know? But things have been good. It might be a voice-over for invariably a beer commercial, and then you might have some corporate gigs to do, you know, a bit of stand-up. Q. So you're an Aussie stockman in MCLEOD'S DAUGHTER?" A. Yeah. And I've never got s*** about being a Kiwi once. Q. Did you do the horse riding yourself? A. They let me have a crack at a couple of my own stunts, so that was groovy. I used to ride when I was a kid in the South Island. I had a horse. Q. Have you thought of buying the farm with the horse over here? A. It was an idea, when I moved to Auckland the plan was always to give it five years and then be back home in Christchurch. But it has been five years now, and the kids were born here, and the mortgage and s****, so we're going to be here for a while. Everyone I know is talking about getting a place a little bit out of town. But I know me ... it would go to rack and ruin. Q. I reckon it would go down hill pretty quick for me. I'd go into town one day for a beer and not come back! A. That's how it happens, man! It would cost me more than normal people because I'd have to bring people in to do things. And then you'd have to come up with some story so the locals wouldn't call you a soft townie or something. Q. Were you considered for the lead role in HERCULES?" A. They rang me up to audition, but I was a serious actor boy in those days. I thought, "F*** that man, I'm not going to be running around in a f***ing loin cloth and a piece of meat. I'm a f***ing actor!" Ironically, I'm doing most of my work on it now _ on "Xena" as the evil god of war. I'm dressed like the biker from The Village People, which is cool. Q. So you're full on with Xena in the show? A. Yeah, he's like her main baddie. Once very six weeks or so he turns up. It's nice to come back and play a character. And it gives you an outlet for all that cowboys and Indians stuff. Q. That's all you do, isn't it? A. Even when I do contemporary urban dramas, it's cowboys and Indians stuff. Q. Have you worked in Hollywood? A. No, I'd gone over to promote DESPERATE REMEDIES and while I was there I got a phone call from Paramount Studios who were casting for THE PHANTOM, and they said can you come in and do an audition? So I did the audition, and I was about to fly home when my manager phoned me up and says, "Hey, where are you going?" I said, "I'm going home, I've got a play to do." "Hey, we're talking the lead, the lead in THE PHANTOM. Oh Jesus. Q. And you were thinking like, this is a musical, is that right? A. I thought it was family opera! Q. It's Michael Crawford, isn't it _ "Some Mothers Do `Ave 'Em?" A. Exactly. That's what I thought was going on. Q. I'm with you. It's the masked guy! A. Yeah! The comic. And he says, "Look, they're tossing up between you and Billy Zane." So I have to come back and pull out of the play because they might "snap me up at any instant." Eventually more and more people got to hear about it, so it ended up being in a magazine. I did an interview about it. And of course when these things don't come off, nothing we like more as Kiwis is to see some b*st*rd fall off, you know? I also auditioned for AMERICAN GOTHIC, NOWHERE MAN and PARTNERS. And I got on pretty well, I got a few call-backs. Q. Is it true that you're too physically big for Hollywood? A. A couple of times they knocked me back because I was "too intimidating," but I went to auditions and there were huge guys. Jesus, they were monsters. Q. Does it matter to you, making it in Hollywood? A. No, it's just that I enjoyed my experience of making a feature film. But the stuff that's being made at the moment -- and I applaud -- is a lot of women's stories, Maori stories and some Pacific Island projects, and I'm just an unfashionable sort of thing. I'm this big WASP. Well, Mum's Tongan, but it's just I always come across as this big WASP. Q. Your mother is Tongan? A. Yeah, she's about a quarter Tongan or something like that. Not that it's got me a grant or anything like that! Q. You wouldn't want that? A. I've had a crack at it, don't you worry! Q. Are you still enjoying standup? A. Yeah, except now the guys that are doing it are full-time, you know, your Mike Kings. I can't not do it for six months and then come back. Q. Did you think you were over-the-hill on CITY LIFE because all the actors were so young. A. I said that to Jimmy, I said, "Mate, I sort of fall outside the brief, don't I?" And he says, "You can pass for 30, can't you?" Q. How old are you? A. Thirty three. [467] 09-01-96 THE SUNDAY STAR-TIMES (Auckland). Page 2. 413 words. "Papps taps into role with grace." By Stephen Papps COMMENTARY: This article promotes a play starring Stephen Papps, who played See'er in ORPHAN OF WAR. In the process, the writer provides us with background on the actor. Combined with Kevin Smith's interview in CLEO, this article gives us a detailed profile of the acting life in New Zealand. [DS] EXCERPT: IT WAS one of the defining roles in modern New Zealand cinema history: The "intellectually challenged" Firpo in The End of the GOLDEN WEATHER. With his spindly white legs tearing along Takapuna Beach, baggy shorts flapping madly in the sea breeze, actor Stephen Papps made Firpo's presence so real he took the Best Actor prize in the New Zealand Film Awards in 1992. But what of Papps since? He has been working intermittently -- as if there's any other way in the acting life -- in film: THE PIANO, BONJOUR TIMOTHY; television: XENA, HERCULES, SHORTLAND STREET; and stage: LOVELOCK'S DREAM RUN, EQUUS, OTHELLO. Two years on from his last stage role, in CITY OF HANDS at Wellington's Bats Theatre, Papps returns to the boards in Duncan Sarkies' new play, SAVING GRACE, winner of the 1995 Chapman Tripp best new play award. It's a two-hander, directed by David Coddington, with Papps (37) and newcomer Soraya Ruakere (19) as Gerald and Grace. "I play a guy in his 30s," says Papps, "who meets a woman in her late teens in the Social Welfare office. They're both unemployed and they develop a love affair. I would call it a tragedy with a strong comic vein." Papps -- an imposing presence at 1.9m tall -- notes that his physical appearance influences the kind of work he gets. "I tend to get the more character' parts but I'm quite happy with the variety of roles I've been playing." He has never had any formal training as an actor, although 10 years' work in the Wellington pay office of NZ Railways should have provided ample research material. In 1989 Papps decided to take the plunge, chucked the job, and set out to act. "It was something I needed to do, rather than wanted to do. Sometimes it's satisfying, sometimes you look back and pick yourself to pieces." SAVING GRACE, which ran for a season at Bats last year, is into its fifth rewrite, apparently upping the intensity factor in this version as the two players sweep towards a "surprise revelation". "The play is about the development of their relationship and the surprises they spring on each other," says Papps. "It's the sort of play people will puzzle over at the end, a certain amount will be left up to the audience's imagination and not all the facts are completed. It is a very passionate play." Saving Grace, by Duncan Sarkies, Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland, September 4 to October 5. GRAPHIC: DOUBLE ACT. Papps and Ruakere star in Saving Grace [468] 09-01-96 THE SUNDAY NEWS (AUCKLAND). Page 24. 611 words. "Kia almost Kiwi fare". By Liz Dobson COMMENTARY: Another instance of the XENA character insinuating herself into our times. The reviewer of the automobile refers to "having the strength of Xena" to manipulate some of the car's parts. [LW] Again, Xena equals strength. [DS] REPRINT: Motoring writer LIZ DOBSON squires a new Korean four-wheel drive about town WHEN I bought my house recently, the neighbours were fascinated with the regular arrival and departure of new cars in my driveway. They couldn't understand why someone who could afford to buy a new car every week would choose to live in a not-so-exclusive area. So to stop any vicious rumours I may be on the "game", stealing cars or running a car yard from my driveway, I told them about my job to explain the regular arrivals. The neighbours haven't since looked twice at the new vehicles parked at my place, except when I recently road tested a newly-launched four-wheel drive.... My neighbour Belinda stopped me when I pulled up in the five-door recreational vehicle. "Hey, I saw the badge on the back of the car. Is that from a new Kiwi car company?" she asked. She made that assumption because the vehicle was a Kia Sportage. No, I explained, the car company was not a New Zealand one or named after the cheeky native bird of almost the same name. Instead, it was from the latest Korean car manufacturer to show its wares here. Kia launched the 4WD Sportage, the five-door Mentor sedan and the range of Ceres trucks. The Sportage has two models - the DLX with the knock-down, hard-to-believe price of $ 34,995 and the higher specification but still cheapo Squire, costing $ 39,995.... ...I would have preferred the steering to offer some resistance - but not so much that I needed to have the strength of Xena to manoeuvre it.... ================ CUT HERE ================== XENA MEDIA REVIEW #28 (10/11/97) Borg 3 of 6