Alternative Film Guide

Dennis Weaver, best known for his roles in the television series Gunsmoke and McCloud, and for his driver-in-distress in Steven Spielberg’s made-for-TV thriller Duel, died of cancer on Feb. 24 at his home in the southwestern Colorado town of Ridgway. He was 81.
Born in Joplin, Mo., on June 4, 1924, Weaver studied at New York’s [...]

Unless otherwise noted, all Crash awards and nominations are for the year 2005.
Academy Awards: 3 wins (best film; best original screenplay, Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco; best editing, Hughes Winborne);

3 additional nominations (best director, Paul Haggis; best supporting actor, Matt Dillon; best song, "In the Deep," music by Kathleen “Bird” York and Michael Becker, [...]

Dion Beebe was the big winner at the 20th Annual American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Awards ceremony, held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Beebe won the top honor in the feature film category for Memoirs of a Geisha.
Also that evening, Nicole Kidman (The Hours) paid tribute to director [...]

I’ve just added the list of winners of the 2005 Bavarian Film Awards. Sophie Scholl - die letzten Tage / Sophie Scholl - The Final Days won the Best Production award, while Andreas Dresen was chosen Best Director for Sommer vorm Balkon. Other winners include Ulrich Mühe, Best Actor for Das Leben der Anderen, and [...]

The curious but uninvolving psychological drama De battre, mon coeur s’est arrêté / The Beat That My Heart Skipped won eight awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay for producer-director-co-writer (with Tonino Benacquista) Jacques Audiard at the 31st edition of the César Awards.

© Mars Distribution
[...]

Deepa Mehta’s controversial Indo-Canadian production Water, which depicts the plight of Indian widows during the Gandhi era, has won the Golden Kinnaree for Best Film at the 2006 Bangkok International Film Festival. In 2000, while making the film in India Mehta received death threats from Hindu radicals, and was thus forced to abandon production for [...]

São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole

Via 6d: “Now in its 36th year, the Tampere International Short Film Festival continues its open-minded exploration of Planet Earth. This year’s Festival had a record number of entries. ‘More and more short films are produced around the world. Filmmaking is much cheaper and easier than it used to be. [...]

Kimberly French / Focus Films
From Radio Jamaica: "Opposition is mounting to the decision of the Palace Amusement Company to show the controversial movie Brokeback Mountain.
"The movie opened at the Palace Cineplex and Palace Multiplex in Montego Bay, St. James earlier this week after it was given an adult only rating by the local authorities.
"But church [...]

Via Xinhuanet: An Zhanjun’s new film, Dingjun Mountain, revolves around the making of the first Chinese film. The original Dingjun Mountain, released in 1905, depicts a Peking opera routine played by star Tan Xinpei.
The new Dingjun Mountain opens on Thursday, Feb. 23, in China.

2006 Academy Award nominees
List of the British Academy of Film 2006 [...]

"China’s greatest film-maker outraged by ’steamed bun’ parody on internet." Via The Independent - "A young, unemployed film-maker’s 20-minute internet parody of Chen Kaige’s latest movie The Promise has delighted China’s online audiences and raised the hackles of the country’s most prestigious - and pompous - film director.
"Hu Ge, 31, a multimedia editor from [...]

Lining up the talent: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced many of the presenters at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. Among them, are Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, Will Smith, Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood, Jennifer Aniston, Naomi Watts, Morgan Freeman, and Hilary Swank.
© A.M.P.A.S.
Thus far, the only real old-timer - [...]

Via the BBC: "The Bafta film awards attracted its lowest TV audience since returning to BBC One in 2003, despite the attendance of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars."
Only 3 million British viewers watched the Bafta Awards on Sunday night. Top Bafta winners include Brokeback Mountain for Best Film and Best Director (Ang Lee), Best Actress [...]

49th Ariel Awards - 2006
The Mexican Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 49th Ariel nominations were announced on February 21, 2007.
The 49th Ariel winners were announced at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City on March 20, 2007.
Ariel Awards 2006 Winners - Article
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

 
Best Film / Mejor película [...]

The winners of the French equivalent to the Oscars, the Prix César 2006, will be announced on Feb. 25 at a ceremony held at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Best Actress Nominee Valérie Lemercier (Palais royal!) will act as Master of Ceremony.
The nominees for Best French Film at the 31st edition of the [...]

Baha Güngör in the Deutsche Welle: "The most expensive Turkish movie of all time, [Kurtlar vadisi - Irak] Valley of the Wolves, does nothing to contribute to an inter-cultural dialogue. It can neither be interpreted as pro-European nor deemed to promote the integration of Turks and Muslims in Germany or other EU countries. But that [...]

Via the BBC - "French comedy film offends Hindus": "A French comedy film showing the Hindu god Lord Shiva being torn up has drawn criticism from a UK Hindu group.
"Ramesh Kallidai of the Hindu Forum of Britain said Les Bronzés 3: amis pour la vie ["The Tanned Ones 3: Friends for Life"] showed a [...]

Recommended viewing: At a time when so many - and I’m not referring only to Fundamentalist Muslims - would like the world to revert back to the Middle Ages, and considering that the latest religious furor involves cartoons published in Denmark, I would like to recommend Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vredens dag / Day [...]

Via New Kerala.com: Iranian director Jamil Rostami, whose Iranian-Iraqi Marsiyeh Barf / Requiem of Snow recently became Iraq’s first film to be submitted for a Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award, has withdrawn his coming-of-age drama from a Copenhagen film festival as a protest against the publication in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten of cartoons portraying [...]

8th Costume Designers Guild Awards - 2005
The 8th Costume Designers Guild award winners were announced at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills on February 25, 2006.
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

 
Excellence in Contemporary Film
Michael Kaplan, Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Paul Simmons, Hustle & Flow
Nancy Steiner, Shop Girl
* Danny Glicker, [...]

56th American Cinema Editors Awards - ACE Eddie Awards 2005
The 56th American Cinema Editors Award winners were announced at the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills on February 19, 2006.
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

 
BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (DRAMATIC):
Brokeback Mountain, Geraldine Peroni & Dylan Tichenor, A.C.E., Focus Features
The Constant [...]

Krittivas Mukherjee in Reuters: "A Bollywood film about a single mother and her young son’s struggle to live with HIV/AIDS opened in cinemas across India last week, marking the first foray by the Indian Catholic church into commercial cinema.
"The Hindi-language Aisa Kyun Hota Hai (Why Does This Happen?) is made with church money and it [...]

Kimberly French / Focus Films
Brokeback Mountain was the big winner at the Orange British Academy of Film 2006 Awards. This tale of the doomed love affair between two Wyoming ranch hands won a total of four awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Ang Lee), Best Adapted Screenplay (Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana), and surprisingly Best Supporting [...]

There weren’t many surprises at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival awards. One of this year’s favorites, Jasmila Zbanic’s Grbavica, the story of a 12-year-old girl who discovers that she is the end result of a Bosnian war crime - namely, rape - was awarded the Golden Bear for best film.
Also on the political side, [...]

At European Films, Boyd van Hoeij gives his take on the films screened at the Berlin Film Festival, including Jasmila žbanic’s Grbavica, the Icelandic gay soccer comedy Strákarnir Okkar, Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross’s The Road to Guantanamo, and Michele Placido’s Romanzo criminale / Crime Novel.
A brief excerpt: "The much anticipated adaptation of the [...]

Danish-born actress Osa Massen, a femme fatale in Hollywood films of the 1940s, died Jan. 2 at a convalescent home in Santa Monica while recovering from surgery. According to the Los Angeles Times obit, Massen was 91. (She was born in Copenhagen on Jan. 13, 1914.)
Massen was allegedly trained as a newspaper photographer (this info, [...]