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"The Queen," "Bobby" lead race for Venice awards
2006-09-08
Stephen Frears' "The Queen" is the critics' favorite to take the best picture award at the Venice Film Festival this year, with Emilio Estevez's star-packed "Bobby" leading a strong chasing pack. Queen Elizabeth is brilliantly played by Helen Mirren, also a frontrunner for the best actress category when the world's oldest film festival hands out the prizes late on Saturday. Hers is a sensitive portrayal of a monarch out of touch with her people, struggling to cope with demands for a public display of grief after the death of Princess Diana in 1997. "In terms of the possible favorites, I think Frears' The Queen was liked by a lot of people," said Lee Marshall, film critic for trade publication Screen International. "I think Helen Mirren is a very strong contender for best actress for her portrayal of the queen in that film," he added. Also in the frame for the top Golden Lion award is Estevez's Bobby, about a dozen or so characters who are at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night Robert Kennedy was shot in 1968. Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Anthony Hopkins and Lindsay Lohan all appear in a touching story that works real news footage from the day of the assassination into the movie. Also among the contenders for the top prize on the glamorous Lido beach front is French veteran Alain Resnais' "Private Fears in Public Places," an intimate account of ordinary people searching for happiness in a snow-covered Paris. Alfonso Cuaron has won fans for his terrifying vision of London in 2027 in "Children of Men"; Chad's first entry into the main competition, "Daratt," is seen as an outside bet and two Asian movies are also on shortlists. "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" by Tsai Ming-Liang explores the lives of migrant workers in Malaysia after economic collapse, while China's "Still Life" by Jia Zhang-Ke is about how the giant Three Gorges Dam project affects ordinary people. GOOD, NOT VINTAGE, YEAR Critics were generally impressed with the standard of the 21 films in the main competition lineup, although 2006 lacked the defining moment of the previous year that was Ang Lee's gay cowboy classic "Brokeback Mountain." "I don't think it matched last year, but if you get four or five good movies then that is pretty good going for a festival," Stephen Schaefer, film reviewer for the Boston Herald newspaper, said in Venice. "I would say it wasn't disappointing." Outside the main competition, he highlighted "Infamous" as a strong film and potential contender for Oscar acting awards. The film covers the same events as last year's "Capote," which won Philip Seymour Hoffman a best actor Academy Award for his portrayal if author Truman Capote and his experience in writing the crime classic "In Cold Blood." The same part was played in Infamous by British unknown Toby Jones, starring alongside Sandra Bullock. "Jones I think is better than Hoffman," said Schaefer. Also out of the main lineup but singled out for praise was Kenneth Branagh's "The Magic Flute," a $27 million adaptation of Mozart's opera set in the trenches of World War One.
China's "Still Life" surprise winner in Venice (2006-09-09)Chinese movie wins top prize in Venice (2006-09-09)"The Queen," "Bobby" lead race for Venice awards (2006-09-08)Chinese film added to Venice line-up (2006-09-04)16 (11285)
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