El laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Godzilla 1954 competitors included the giant black ants seen in Them!. ‘Godzilla’ 1954 & giant black ants + Fascists & Mickey Rooney: Eclectic Packard movies Godzilla 1954, Mickey Rooney, military fascists, deadly giant black ants, racing car drivers, and The Mishaps of Musty Suffer, a super-rare…

Sergi López in Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth “If you expect to get laid after this screening,” Guillermo del Toro told the midnight (actually, closer to 1 a.m.) audience at the AFI FEST Los Angeles 2007 premiere of Pan’s Labyrinth, “it ain’t gonna happen.” Indeed,…

Volver with Penélope Cruz and Carmen Maura. Pedro Almodóvar mother-daughters comedy-drama Volver – literally, “To Return” – marks the filmmaker’s Goya Awards comeback, topping five categories, including Best Picture and Best Director. Almodóvar had been at odds with the Spanish Academy after two of his…

Pan’s Labyrinth with Doug Jones as the Faun. Whereas Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver received on single Academy Award nomination – Penélope Cruz is up for Best Actress – Guillermo del Toro’s Spanish-Mexican dark fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth / El Laberinto del fauno has been shortlisted for a…

Water with Lisa Ray. Set in the late 1930s, during the British occupation of India, Deepa Mehta’s Water created quite a stir during its production in that country. Spoken in Hindi, the film stars Canadian actress Lisa Ray as a young widow living with several…

Pan’s Labyrinth: The Pale Man (Doug Jones) in underground, dark fantasy. Guillermo del Toro’s post-Spanish-Civil-War-set Pan’s Labyrinth / El laberinto del fauno was the National Society of Film Critics’ surprise Best Film winner. Perhaps even more surprising, its two runners-up were both movies featuring non-English-language…

Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. Set in the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death, Stephen Frears’ The Queen, written by Peter Morgan, goes out of its way to present Queen Elizabeth II as a kind-hearted heroine determined to save both the British…

Captain Alatriste with Viggo Mortensen. The Spanish Academy’s Goya Awards’ top nominee, Agustín Díaz Yanes’ Captain Alatriste received a total of 15 nods, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay (Díaz Yanes), and Best Actor (Viggo Mortensen). Spanish-speaking U.S. performer Mortensen (The Lords of…

The Dixie Chicks vs. U.S. President George W. Bush: Shut Up and Sing. Curiously, the Southeast Film Critics Association selected Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck’s political documentary Shut Up and Sing as the recipient of this year’s Wyatt Award, which is given to “the film…

Romanian actress Luminita Gheorghiu in The Death of Mr. Lazarescu with Ion Fiscuteanu. The Los Angeles Film Critics Awards’ most surprising winner was veteran Romanian actress Luminita Gheorghiu, selected as the year’s Best Supporting Actress for her work in Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr.…