The Globe Weekly News     WORLD OF ENTERTAINMENT, TV & CINEMA THIS YEAR     International Edition

référencement  référencement  référencement  référencement  référencementréférencement  référencement  référencement  référencement  référencement

Front Page I  Political & Social Analyses I Breaking News: USA, World, Europe, Middle East I PoliticsLast Minute International News I Issues of the Hour I Entertainment Cinema I World of Cinema & Entertainment this Year I Music: CDs I World of Music this Year I ArtsTelevision I People I People with an Attitude I Society Lifestyle Culture I Books Travel I Commentaries I Articles Gossips Personal HistoryNewsmakers Consumers I Work I Business Family I Parenting I Health I Around the world I Woman's world I Beauty I Fashion I Style I The Grapevine I Opinions I Viewpoints I Stars. Celebrities I Spotlight I Unusual & Strange World I Studies: Islam I History. Civilization: Iraq I Societies. Social Systems I In-Depth Articles I Contact I Liens inclus I Liens de valeur I

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Continued from previous page. Part 1

WORLD OF ENTERTAINMENT TV AND CINEMA THIS YEAR

By Maximillien de Lafayette Continues on the next page

PART ONE: Part 1

1-A GLANCE AT THE MOVIES OF THE YEAR                                                 2-THE FULL LENGTH ANIMATED        3-MOVIE REVIVAL OF DYING GENRES 4-FILM TOP 10 AND TURKEY OF THE YEAR                                                 5-COMEDY OF THE YEAR                   6-THE MOST TALKED TV FILM PROGRAMS                                       7-COMEDY TOP 10  AND TURKEY OF THE YEAR                                          8-TELEVISION FILMS OF THE YEAR  9-DOCUMENTARIES BEAT DRAMA IN THE RATING                                    10-TV Top 10  MOVIE SHOWS          11-Favorite Winners and Turkeys of the Year. What Peers and Critics Think?                                             12-REVIEWS OF MAJOR RELEASES OF THE YEAR                                   13-BETWEEN FICTION, NONFICTION AND POLITICS                                 14-THE WORST AND GROSSEST FILMS OF THE YEAR                        15-SECOND RATE MOVIES OF THE YEAR                                                16-FILMS OF SUBSTANCE OF THE YEAR

PART TWO: Part 2

1-THE BOX OFFICE TOP FILMS         2-BOX OFFICE TOP RECORDS

PART THREE  Part 3

1-CINEMA HEADLINERS OF THE YEARSpider-Man 2 - definetly not made in Britain

PART FOUR : CANNES FILM FESTIVAL Part 4

1-WORLD'S MAJOR FILM FESTIVALS 2-Feature Films In Competition         3-Feature Films Out of Competition  4-Short Films                                     5-Caméra d'Or                                   6-Un Certain Regard                         7-Cinéfondati                                    8-The Winners                                   9-Top prize reflects clash of French vs. foreign sensibilities                    10-HIERARCHY AMONG RED-CARPET GUESTS                                           11-IN GENERAL, FILMS WITH COMIC ELEMENTS DO NOT WIN PRIZES 12-THE GLAMOUR AND STARS OF CANNES 13- CANNES JURY 14-CANNES HEADACHES AND CONTROVERSIES 15-POLITICS AT CANNES FESTIVAL 16-MADE IN BRITAIN FOR CANNES

 

PART FIVE  Part 5

1-GOLDEN GLOBES                          2-RETURN OF THE KING WINS BEST PICTURE                                          3-MURRAY DRYLY MOCKS HOLLYWOOD AWARD SPEECHES    4-MERYL STREEP AND AL PACINO GET BEST TV MOVIE LEAD PERFORMERS HONORS

PART SIX: THE GOLDEN GLOBES & THE OSCARS Part 6

1-MICHAEL DOUGLAS RECEIVES THE HONORARY CECIL B. DeVille AWARD                                             2-Stars Play it Safe With Blooming Spring Colors                                   3-Mystic River, Cold Mountain, Lost In Translation among top nominees                                                                                                                         4-FIVE NOMINATIONS WENT TO MYSTIC RIVER                                                                                                                                                              5-THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS LOST TO AFGHANISTAN'S FILM "OSAMA"                                                                                                                      6-LORENZO SORIA, PRESIDENT OF THE HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION: "CANADIANS AND AUSTRALIANS CONTRIBUTED GREATLY TO FILM AND TELEVISION"                                                                                                                                                                                              7-GOSSIPS, SURPRISES AND DRAMA                                                                                                                                                                             8-"IT COULD BE A MONTY PYTHON SKETCH"                                                                                                                                                                  9-THE NOMINATIONS, NOMINEES AND EXPECTATIONS                                                                                                                                                 10-THE NOMINEES LIST                                                                                                                                                                                                 11-NOMINATED FILMS                                                                                                                                                                                                    12-FULL LIST OF WINNERS 12-THE HOTTEST GOSSIPS AT THE OSCARS                                                                                                                      13-OSCAR FOLKS GO HUSH-HUSH ABOUT GIFT BAGS

 

PART SEVEN  Part 7

1-SAGS 2-THERON AND DEPP TAKE THE SCREEN ACTOR GUILD AWARDS 3-TIM ROBBINS WON SUPPORTING ACTOR AWARD 4-ZELLWEGER WON THE LEAD ACTRESS AWARD 5-GUILD'S TV AWARDS 6-INSIDE THE SAGS

PART EIGHT  Part 8

1-TELEVISION: EMMY AWARD                                                                                                                                                                                         2-Ellen DeGeneres captures the Daytime Emmy for talk show                                                                                                                                        3-BRADY: BEST TALK SHOW HOST

PART NINE: BRITAIN'S SOAP OPERA AWARDS Part 9

PART TEN: CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES AND HEATED DEBATES  OF THE YEAR Part 10

PART ELEVEN: THE MOTION PICTURES GRAPEVINE Part 11

PART TWELVE: BOX OFFICE TOP EARNINGS Part 12

PART THIRTEEN: HOT TALKS OF THE YEAR Part 13

PART FOURTEEN

1-THE INDIVIDUAL WORKS 2-Roman Polanski: Film's dark prince  Part 14                                                                                                                      3-GODDARD: THE SUBLIME KINETIC EXPERIENCE  Part 14

PART FIFTEEN: THE HOLLYWOOD FILE: THE MEGA DOLLAR WOMEN. THE MOST EXPENSIVE STARS IN HOLLYWOOD Part 15

 

 

 

PART THREE

CINEMA HEADLINERS OF THE YEAR

ITALIA’S NEW SOPHIA LOREN

Valeria Golino is Italian cinema's dream come true - a star with the allure of the young Sophia Loren.

Now this is what you call a star entrance. Italian actress Valeria Golino strides through the door of a London hotel suite and bears down on me with a purposeful if amused look in her cobalt blue eyes. As she walks, her mane of wavy, reddish-brown hair flies every which way, and her hips swing meaningfully. Tall and slim, she is swathed in grey; her sweater and tailored slacks do little to dispel hints of curves beneath. Informed that Golino is suffering from a cold, I murmur sympathy as I extend a greeting. She clasps both hands around mine and ostentatiously shrugs. "Day-veed," she says, fixing me with her gaze. "Thees cold . . . eet is nothing. I can think. I can talk. But today, Day-veed, I cannot look beautiful for you."

Memorable role: Valeria Golino rebels against small-town life in Respiro

She looks ravishing, so all this is preposterous. Still, full marks to her for getting this Italian diva business down pat; it's as if she learned it at the knee of such compatriots as Loren, Lollobrigida and Cardinale in their pomp. In terms of prerequisites for stardom, Golino, 36, has it all: the walk, the talk, the look, the attitude. Everything, that is, except the career. For 15 years she has alternated between Hollywood movies and films in her native Italy, amassing en route a remarkably eccentric CV.

 

 

 

 

 

How eccentric? Start with her American debut in Big Top Pee-Wee, playing a circus trapeze artist who becomes Pee-Wee Herman's main squeeze. Her next Hollywood outing, as Tom Cruise's girl-friend in Rain Man, could hardly have been more different. She has reveled in the wild variety of roles offered her, telling me with relish she went straight from Sean Penn's sombre 1991 mood piece Indian Runner to the wacky Top Gun-spoof Hot Shots! opposite Charlie Sheen. "People said to me, how can you do a drama, then Hot Shots!?" Golino recalls, rolling her eyes in disgust. "I adore Sean Penn, but I liked the Hot Shots! people too. If a movie is what it sets out to be, what's wrong with that?" In fact she liked it so much, she signed on for Hot Shots Part Deux. She has enjoyed a busy, lucrative career, making decent films in Italy, at times reduced to playing sinister, vaguely foreign characters in America. Recently several people thought her the best thing in Frida, Long ago, her Italian accent lost her the Pretty Woman role that made Julia Roberts a star. That one great defining role has always eluded her. Until now, that is. Golino is the undisputed lead in Respiro, a charming, strikingly beautiful Italian film. She plays Grazia, an affectionate young mother of three children. A notably free spirit, she swims topless in the sea with them, sings along lustily with pop tunes on the radio and generally acts rebellious. They all live with her husband Pietro on Lampedusa, a remote island so far off the Sicilian coast that Libya is nearer than Italy. In this low-income backwater, men go to sea to fish and their wives work in a sardine-packing plant (a job Grazia hates passionately). But the sun always shines, the sea is the exquisite cobalt of Golino's eyes, and people ride three to a moped and eat meals at long tables in big, sociable, noisy groups. Yet beneath its languid charm Lampedusa is an intolerant place, and curtain-twitching gossips start a whispering campaign against Grazia. Is she just a rebel, or unstable and in need of psychiatric treatment? "This was a wonderful script," says Golino. "Emmanuele Crialese, the director, lived in New York for years, so he sees Italy fresh. He wanted to evoke something familiar to him that he had left behind. It's great to have a story with that distance."  Crialese badly wanted her for the role, and sent his producer to meet her: "He just said: 'Here's a script. It's not much money.” Despite this unpromising start, Respiro has given Golino the role of her career. It opened last year in Italy and did substantial business; but then in January it also became a surprising top 10 hit in France. Now re-released in Italy, it has featured on the box-office charts for almost a year. What gave Golino the hunch this little film could have such an impact? "It was a wonderful story about this woman," she says simply.  "I really liked the relationship between Grazia and her three kids. It's volatile, sensual, with a lot of touching, which I find completely natural in a mother-son relationship - even though I don't have kids myself." Valeria was born in Naples; her father is a scholar, her Greek mother a painter, and her uncle Enzo a celebrated Italian journalist. When her bohemian parents split, she grew up in both Rome and Athens, and was a glamour model by age 16 - albeit one who had already read Proust. Currently single, she does not discuss her private life. Intriguingly, Respiro is set in what could be termed the recent present. It looks faintly contemporary, though there's not a mobile phone, video game or wide-screen TV in sight. Yet it could also be set back in the 1950s, the heyday of Italian cinema neo-realism; Golino, in a cheap cotton print frock, playing fierce and assertive as well as playful and sensual, recalls such Italian screen icons as Anna Magnani, Silvana Mangano and the young Loren. She might be a heroine in an old classic by de Sica or Rossellini.

It's no accident, she insists, that she looks this way on screen. "I feel Respiro is hyper-realistic," she muses. "Superficially it looks like a neo-realist film. Pasolini and de Sica are Emmanuele's masters. Italian cinema has gone through a bad period.  "Everyone's been afraid for a long time. Our young directors have lacked confidence. Our cinema was so strong in the 1950s, they were like sons who suffered from dominating father figures. Now it's finally time to revisit that era to make it even more vivid.   "There's no big splashy renaissance in Italian films. We have good young actors and directors. What we lack are screenwriters. It's hard to write about Italy. At the moment, it's uninspiring." She finds the Berlusconi era materialistic and dull: "It's such an unpoetic time. We aren't even having difficulties. It's a wealthy, middle-class era. When I think of Italy now, I think of accessories, possessions, bad TV, fake boobs, BMWs." Ironically, Golino's big break has come now she has left Hollywood, after commuting between there and Rome for 12 years: "I had a house high up on Mulholland Drive. The Hollywood dream wasn't mine as much as the people who represented me.  "They wanted me to behave like a film star. I was working to maintain a certain amount of luxury, which wasn't why I went to America. I just respected certain American film-makers." She worked with good ones: Penn, Quentin Tarantino (Four Rooms), Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) and John Frankenheimer (Year of the Gun), as well as Barry Levinson in Rain Man. "I had hoped to work with people like that, not be a star. There was this dichotomy between what I wanted and what was happening. Finally I sold my house. I didn't want any more managers, business managers or publicists. At a certain point I said 'enough'. Not because individually they weren't nice people. I just felt I was supporting them all." Now she returns to Hollywood for two months a year, rooms with friends and takes small but satisfying roles, as she did in Frida. "I'm proud of that work," she says.  "I work less, but as I don't live in LA and spend $20,000 a month I can make little films I think are good. And I don't have to play an exotic Italian spy!" Nor, now she's in her mid-thirties, does she compete for Hollywood glamour roles: "It's easier when you're younger to get parts that if I got them now, I'd do better. I know I'm better looking now than I was but . . ." She shrugs.  "You know how it is with youth in cinema. Still, there are so many pretty girls, young girls, they'll be using them for that kind of thing." She throws back her head and laughs. "Thank God for that!" claimed the Art Telegraph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PART FOUR

WORLD'S MAJOR FILM FESTIVALS:

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL: CANNES ALWAYS LOVES A GOOD SCANDAL, AND THE FIRST FILM A PROPOS "YOUNG ADAM" ARRIVES ON TIME

The opening night film is cracker. David Mackenzie's adaptation of Alexander Trocchi's cult novel is subtle, sexy and superbly played by Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton and Peter Mullan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo: Ewan MacGregor shines in the first word-of-mouth hit of the festival. Sukhdev Sandhu reports.

Cannes always loves a good scandal and the first one of the year arrived on the weekend in the form of Scottish director David Mackenzie’s Young Adam. A funny, scabrous, brilliantly acted and photographed film, it's the first word-of-mouth hit of the festival. That it's not competing in the main competition this fortnight has already led to outrage among critics. Based on a novel by Alexander Trocchi - smack addict, wife-pimper, friend of William Burroughs, and together with BS Johnson one of the finest post-war British novelists yet to be fully honored - Young Adam is an intellectual rake's progress, an existential barge movie. Ewan MacGregor gives his best performance in ages as Joe, a would-be novelist who goes to work on a canal boat in 1950s Glasgow. He's young and good-looking and speaks sentences (superficially) more poetic than the curt syllables spat out by his boss (Peter Mullan), with whose tough-talking but lonely wife Ella (Tilda Swinton) he begins a cramped and below-deck affair. This secret is intercut with another: his part in the death of a student (Emily Mortimer). Mackenzie splices horror, black humor, dreamy sensuality and social observation into a consistently rich and unpredictable narrative. Nothing prepares viewers for a savage sex scene that is somewhere between American Pie and Last Tango in Paris. Thanks to cinematographer Giles Nuttgens, we also see the beauty of Scottish industrial landscapes: the glistening of gasworks after rainfall; the effect of sunlight on the rusting hulls of boats. His debut, The Last Great Wilderness, was promising, but Young Adam confirms Mackenzie as the most excitingly errant young director in Britain. Also showing out of the main competition is Rithy Panh's astonishing documentary, S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine. A Cambodian Shoah, the painfulness of watching it is almost as great as the importance of doing so. Panh brings together Vann Nath, a village painter, with some of his former torturers at the Security Bureau in Phhom Penh. Of the 17,000 prisoners held captive there from 1975 to 1979, he is one of only three to have survived. The film narrates a dark, dark narrative of methodical starvation, beatings and rape. What's worse, though, is to hear the guards speak of themselves as victims, hapless observers of state ideology, but showing no remorse to the real victims of their violence. They re-enact their daily patrols and we get an awful feeling that three decades later they're still the same murderous bastards. S21 is as much concerned with trying to get Cambodians not to forget their pasts, as it is with rekindling the facts of specific barbarisms. It is by some way the most important film of this festival.

Feature Films In Competition:

1-2046 directed by WONG Kar-wai

2-CLEAN directed by Olivier ASSAYAS

3-CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE directed by Paolo SORRENTINO

4-EXILS directed by Tony GATLIF

5-FAHRENHEIT 911 directed by Michael MOORE

6-GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE directed by OSHII Mamoru

7-LIFE IS A MIRACLE 
directed by Emir KUSTURICA

8-LOOK AT ME directed by Agnès JAOUI

9-MONDOVINO directed by Jonathan NOSSITER

10-NOBODY KNOWS directed by KORE-EDA Hirokazu

11-OLD BOY directed by PARK Chan-wook

12-SHREK 2 directed by Andrew ADAMSONKelly 13-ASBURYConrad VERNON

13-SUD PRALAD directed by Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL

14-THE EDUKATORS directed by Hans WEINGARTNER

15-THE HOLY GIRL directed by Lucrecia MARTEL

16-THE LADYKILLERS directed by Ethan COENJoel COEN

17-THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS
 directed by Stephen HOPKINS

18-THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES directed by Walter SALLES

19-WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN directed by HONG Sangsoo

Feature Films Out of Competition:

1-BAD EDUCATION directed by Pedro ALMODOVAR

2-BAD SANTA directed by Terry ZWIGOFF

3-BORN TO FILM directed by Frédéric SOJCHER

4-BREAKING NEWS directed by Johnnie TO

5-DAWN OF THE DEAD directed by Zack SNYDER

6-DE-LOVELY directed by Irwin WINKLER

7-EPREUVES D'ARTISTES directed by Gilles JACOB

8-FIVE directed by Abbas KIAROSTAMI

9-HENRI LANGLOIS THE PHANTOM OF THE 10-10-CINEMATHEQUE directed by Jacques RICHARD

10-HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS directed by ZHANG Yimou

11-I DIED IN CHILDHOOD  directed by Georgiy PARADJANOV

12-KILL BILL VOL.2 directed by Quentin TARANTINO

13-LABYRINTH GLAUBER, THE BRAZILIAN MOVIE directed by Silvio TENDLER

14-NOTRE MUSIQUE directed by Jean-Luc GODARD

SALVADOR ALLENDE directed by Patricio GUZMAN

15-THE 10 TH DISTRICT COURTS  directed by Raymond DEPARDON

16-THE GATE OF THE SUN directed by Yousry NASRALLAH

17-TROY directed by Wolfgang PETERSEN

18-Z CHANNEL: A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION directed by 
Xan CASSAVETES

Short Films

1-THE GOSPEL OF THE CREOLE PIG directed by Michelange QUAY

2-ACCORDION directed by Michèle COURNOYER

3-CLOSER directed by David RITTEY

4-FLATLIFE directed by Jonas GEIRNAERT

5-QUIMERA directed by Eryk ROCHA

6-THE LAST MINUT directed by Nicolas SALIS

7-THE SWIMMER directed by Klaus HUETTMANN

8-THINING THE HERD directed by Rie RASMUSSEN

9-TRAFIC directed by Catalin MITULESCU

Caméra d'Or

1-BIENVENUE EN SUISSE directed by Léa FAZER

2-DAWN OF THE DEAD directed by Zack SNYDER

3-EARTH AND ASHES directed by Atiq RAHIMI

4-KONTROLL directed by Nimród ANTAL

5-LU CHENG directed by YANG Chao

6-NELLY directed by Laure DUTHILLEUL

7-SCHIZO directed by Guka OMAROVA

8-SOMERSAULT directed by Cate SHORTLAND

9-THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON directed by Niels MUELLER

Un Certain Regard

1-10 ON TEN directed by Abbas KIAROSTAMI

2-A TOUT DE SUITE directed by Benoît JACQUOT

3-ALEXANDRIE... NEW YORK directed by Youssef CHAHINE

4-BIENVENUE EN SUISSE directed by Léa FAZER

5-CRONICAS directed by Sebastián CORDERO

6-DEAR FRANKIE directed by Shona AUERBACH

7-DON'T MOVE directed by Sergio CASTELLITTO

8-EARTH AND ASHES directed by Atiq RAHIMI

9-HOTEL directed by Jessica HAUSNER

10-KONTROLL directed by Nimród ANTAL

11-LU CHENG directed by YANG Chao

12-MARSEILLE directed by Angela SCHANELEC

13-MOOLAADE directed by Ousmane SEMBENE

14-NELLY directed by Laure DUTHILLEUL

15-NOITE ESCURA directed by João CANIJO

16-POIDS LEGER directed by Jean-Pierre AMERIS

17-SCHIZO directed by Guka OMAROVA

18-SOMERSAULT directed by Cate SHORTLAND

19-SWORD IN THE MOON directed by Eui-Suk KIM

20-THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON directed by Niels MUELLER

21-WHISKY directed by Juan Pablo REBELLAPablo STOLL

Cinéfondati

1-99 YEARS OF MY LIFE directed by Marja MIKKONEN

2-A TRIP TO THE CITY directed by Corneliu PORUMBOIU

3-BORDER PROJECT directed by Nadav LAPIDDani ROSENBERGRima ESSAAdi HALFINTamar SINGER

4-FOOTNOTE directed by Pia BORG

5-GAIA directed by Amarante ABRAMOVICI

6-HAPPY NOW directed by Frederikke ASPÖCK

7-LITTLE APOCRYPHA N°2 directed by Kornel MUNDRUCZO

8-NEBRASKA directed by Olga ZURAWSKA

9-NICE TO SEE YOU directed by Jan KOMASA

10-PLAYING DEAD directed by David HUNT

11-PROPHETIES DU PASSE directed by Fabien GREENBERG

12-SON OF SATAN directed by Jj VILLARD

13-THE CONTACT directed by Martin DUDA

14-THE HAPPINESS THIEF directed by Derek BOYES

15-THE POET'S HOME directed by Haim TABAKMAN

16-THE RICK directed by Tim MCCARTHY

17-THE WINGS directed by SEO Hae-young

18-WONDERFUL HARUSAME directed by AOYAMA Ayumi

 Cannes Film Tackles Armenian 'Genocide'

 The film is meant to 'heal old wounds': The director of a controversial film about the Armenian diaspora that has angered Turkey has said it was not meant to demonize present-day Turks. Atom Egoyan's film Ararat - which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday - is a tale of how Armenians in North America deal with their past history and how they struggle to come to terms with their identity. The film had already stirred fierce reactions before its screening at the festival, causing an outcry in Turkey. There are reports the Turkish Government wants to ban it and several groups have petitioned and threatened to boycott Miramax, the company which released the film, and parent company Walt Disney.

A Seed a Day

"This is not a film that is trying in any way to demonize a present-day Turk," Armenian-Canadian director Egoyan told a post-screening press conference. "In fact it's the opposite." “What I am trying to do is ask the viewer to consider what it means to pass judgment on somebody who is alive today for things that were done - for good or for evil - by people who are no longer around." The film by the Armenian-Canadian director is described as a film within a film and features French actor and crooner Charles Aznavour - himself of Armenian origin - playing a director making a film about the killings of Armenians by Turks. Aznavour's character eats one seed of a pomegranate a day to remind him of his mother's flight from Ottoman Turkey when that was all she had to survive on. In real life, the parents of the actor-singer - whose real name is Chahnour Varinag Aznavourian - fled Turkey for France to escape the killings. "I have been asked what is the difference between the Armenian and the French [in me]. I always said I was 100% French and 100% Armenian. "You mustn't show hate on either one side or the other. You must try to understand," he said. Painful history: Armenians say about 1.5 million people were slaughtered by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923. Turkey rejects the term genocide and says the figure was closer to 300,000 Armenians killed among other numerous victims of a partisan war raging in World War I as the Ottoman Empire collapsed. Turkey has fought hard to block international attempts to raise the issue, while Armenia - with its seven-million strong diaspora - has pressed for international recognition of the killing. Relations between Ankara and Paris have been strained since last year when the French National Assembly passed a law to recognize the killings as genocide.

Arcand Film a Winner at Cannes Les Invasion Barbares Gets Nod for Best Screenplay, Actress

No one shows grace in the face of loss quite like a Canadian, and so it was that Denys Arcand was all smiles and warmth in the wake of winning two prizes for Les invasions barbares -- but not the almighty Palme d'or. In what was largely considered to be a festival upset, considering Arcand's film about a father's deathbed bonding session with his son was by far an audience and critical favorite here on the Croisette, Les Invasions barbares lost out to Gus Van Sant's earnest take on American high school shootings, Elephant. Content to take home the prize for best screenplay, as well as accept the best actress award for Marie-Josée Croze (who could not attend, as she was back home in Montreal for a TV show), Arcand said the majority of festival goers may have expected him to win the prize -- but he never once let himself get sucked into the vortex of expectation. "When I was here with Jesus of Montreal, The exact same thing happened. Everyone said we would win, but we ended up getting the Jury Prize instead. So this time, it was the result I expected," said Arcand, sitting next to his wife and producer, Denise Robert, as well as actors Rémy Girard and Stéphane Rousseau. Arcand said he had a theory about why his incredibly touching film did not win the coveted Chopard-crafted gold twig. "Comedy does not win prizes. We are here celebrating the work of Charlie Chaplin (whose restored version of Modern Times closed the festival), but Chaplin worked his whole life and never won a single prize, no Oscar either, in his lifetime," said Arcand in French.

IN GENERAL, FILMS WITH COMIC ELEMENTS DO NOT WIN PRIZES

"Films with comic elements in them, in general, do not win prizes. Not Oscars, not here, not in any festival," he said. " I think it's because the people who sit on a jury take their role terribly seriously. They are so penetrated by a compunction to recognize films that are very grave... very sad... that those are the kinds of films that win," he said. "And that's also the kind of film I tried to make," he said, with an unmistakable comic tone that set the press conference off into a chorus of giggles. Arcand said he was also happy for Croze, who won for her performance as a heroin user who helps alleviate the physical pain of Girard's terminally ill cancer patient. "She's probably under sedation now," he said. Croze -- who is now the second Canadian to win an acting prize at Cannes (Monique Mercure won before for J.A. Martin Photograph) -- had clearly caused a sensation on the Croisette, but she wasn't the only one. Girard said the night of the gala screening, the audience reaction was tremendous and every time he and other cast members walked through the streets of Cannes, there was an overwhelming reception. "The film seemed to have found a way to transcend and hit the universal. And the reception it received from the people. For what it's worth, Arcand at least has a few pieces of paper and a trophy to take home, which is more than can be said for Danish bad-boy, Lars Von Trier, whose film Dogville was shut out completely. The dark, ascetic take on American xenophobia and witch-burning mentality was perceived as a top contender for some Cannes honors, but by the evening's end, Von Trier and company were left with as much hardware as the empty Dogville set. Some journalists theorized about Van Sant's win as a two-pronged political statement. First, Elephant was an anti-American statement, but also, given the political tensions in Cannes vis-a-vis the U.S., it was also a way of reaching out to the American contingent to make people happy. For Van Sant, Elephant was more a statement about certain elements of American society than anything specifically "Anti-American." After all, the director lives in the U.S. Van Sant has never won, nor been in Cannes competition before, but his film To Die For was shown out of competition and picked up a best actress prize for Nicole Kidman in 1995. Either way, as jury president Patrice Chereau noted at the beginning of the feature film prize ceremonies, the results were unanimous -- and they clearly liked the film so much, they asked the festival chair if they could bend the rules and grant two major awards -- best direction, and best film, to the same film. Usually, the same movie can only win two awards if one of the awards is for best performance. Considering the other major prizes were awarded to an Iranian film about an Afghan woman who wants to be president (Samira Makhmalbaf's Five in the Afternoon), and Turkish film-maker Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Uzak -- a film whose main cast member, and cousin of the director, died in a traffic accident the day after learning the film was heading to Cannes -- Arcand's theory about comedy coming up short seems bang on. This year's jury members included Chereau, Meg Ryan, Bosnian director Danis Tanovic (No Man's Land), Chinese director Jiang Wen, Indian actress Aishwarya Rai, French actor Jean Rochefort, French actress Karin Viard, Italian writer Erri de Luca, and U.S. director Steven Soderbergh. Cannes -- it was so warm and generous, it's a memory I'll take with me back to Montreal," said Girard as reported by  Katherinne Mounk.

Top prize reflects clash of French vs. foreign sensibilities

The Cannes festival, so venerable, so vain, wears ambition on its sleeve - love me, love my films. This year, there were few films to love, and, instead, another kind of drama took over at the Palais: friction between old friends and allies. The French and their foreign guests had a war of nerves and clashing sensibilities. The Palme d'Or awarded by Patrice Chereau and his jury to Gus Van Sant for "Elephant," which also won him the best director prize, simply fanned the flames. The film was far from a favorite with many Americans, who would have preferred awarding the top prize to Clint Eastwood's masterful "Mystic River." The Columbine High School shootings in Colorado - which Michael Moore dealt with last year in his documentary "Bowling for Columbine" - are a sore subject, and Van Sant's subdued approach to violence in American society rubbed some people the wrong way. A top critic at Variety, Todd McCarthy, called "Elephant" an art film exercise, saying: "To make a film about something like the Columbine student shootings incident and provide no insight or enlightenment would seem to be pointless at best and irresponsible at worst, and that is what Gus Van Sant has done." As for the French and their Palme predictions, they got it all wrong: no prize for Lars von Trier's provocative "Dogville," and nothing for classic French cinema - neither Francois Ozon's "Swimming Pool" nor Claude Miller's "La Petite Lili." Denys Arcand's "Les Invasions Barbares" (The Barbarian Invasions), a France-Canada co-production, won awards for Marie-Josee Croze as best actress an