Findcate

“The Sex in the City girls made a real phenomenal weekend, ya know, no one can take that away from them but now it’s our time,” Black said. “Move over ladies, you’ve had your time in the sun. It’s time for the panda to play.”

Dressed in a gold puffer jacket, trackpants and a panda T-shirt, the star of Shallow Hal, The School Of Rock and comedic rock band Tenacious D indulged adoring fans by scribbling signatures and posing for photographs. He responded to cheers from the crowd with lightning reflexes, jumping on to the red carpet barrier to pose between interviews.

The US takings, collected over a three-day weekend, made Kung Fu Panda Dreamworks’ biggest non-sequel opener, and its third-biggest opening result after Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third.

The Australian premiere of the film, at Sydney’s State Theatre last night, included martial arts displays along the red carpet and a visit from a giant panda.

Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton made a surprise appearance on the red strip with their children Dashiell and Roman. Rove McManus and his girlfriend Tasma Walton also walked the carpet, Rove dressed in his own panda T-shirt.

Director John Stevenson said he was thrilled with the film’s reception in the US and hoped for a similar reaction from Australian audiences.

“People respond to Po because he’s just a sweet character and we can all feel a bit vulnerable at times,” Stevenson said.

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Veda Advantage holds the credit records of nearly everyone who applies for almost any form of lending.
Those records show that applications for hire purchase and personal loans are down by 52 per cent and 12 per cent respectively in the first three months of this year, compared with a year ago.
Veda Advantage country director John Roberts said the slowdown was because household expenses had increased by about a third in recent years, or $1000 a month.
This was as a result of rising fuel and food costs, coupled with high interest rates.
%26quot;It is not surprising to see applications for hire purchases and personal loans drop off to such an extent as household stresses kick in,%26quot; Mr Roberts said.
Interest-free and deferred-payment deals offered by appliance shops at the end of 2006 were also falling due for payment.
%26quot;There is always a day of reckoning,%26quot; Mr Roberts said.
Personal loan applications were down throughout all age groups, reflecting a growing trend for homeowners to borrow against the increased value of their homes to buy big-ticket items.
But with property prices falling, banks could also reduce access to this type of cheaper finance, Mr Roberts said.
However, the credit junky Generation Y age group, ranging from 14 years old to 27 years old, was helping to prop up steady applications for credit cards, which were superseding hire purchase and personal loans as the most popular form of credit, he said.
%26quot;Generation Y are used to taking on debt because of student loans, and simply consider cards another form of unsecured credit.%26quot;
Mr Roberts said that the economy was approaching the bottom of a %26quot;classic seven to eight-year cycle%26quot;, suggesting there could be a recovery in 2010.
Mortgage and personal credit applications peaked in 2005, and have fallen for the past two years.
Retail sales were likely to continue to slow this year before plateauing next year, he said.
%26quot;So while the immediate outlook for retailers isn%26#39;t great, the historical trend would indicate we are likely to see an upswing in 2010.%26quot;

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Naomi Watts has carved out a niche playing set-upon
blondes and struggling heroines. Kelsey Munro looks at why torment
on screen comes naturally to her.
Naomi Watts has become the directors’ choice to play pretty
women having an awful time. She was a grief-stricken widow in
21 Grams; a journalist tormented by a girl from beyond the
grave in both The Ring movies; a midwife who tangles with
the Russian mafia in last year’s Eastern Promises; and the
mother in a family tortured by psychopaths in the coming Funny
Games. If that weren’t bad enough, she’s soon to be brutalised
by malevolent seagulls, reprising the Tippi Hedren role in a remake
of Hitchcock classic The Birds.
The British-born, Australian-raised actress has made anguish her
trademark, with a disturbing, lived-in intensity. Yet her torments
on screen bear little resemblance to the happy place where she is
in real life. The 39-year-old, whose success came famously late,
has an eight-month-old son with her partner, US actor Liev
Schreiber, and the creative clout and star power to make the movies
she chooses. So why does she keep taking these roles?
“It’s fun to play fear, the unknown,” she says. “There’s a lot
of emotion that comes within fear and that genre. I guess everyone
has their niche - and that seems to be mine.”
“I wouldn’t call her a technique actress,” says her friend, film
director John Curran. “She’s got really great instincts in the
moment and knows how to put herself out there and tap into the
emotion when she’s sort of free falling. She’s very brave in that
regard. She’s happiest when she feels like she’s a little bit out
of control.”
Lacking the aristocratic hauteur of Cate Blanchett or the
statuesque primness of friend Nicole Kidman, Watts has doggedly
carved out a screen persona that’s girlier and yet more disturbed.
But it was playing a bisexual blonde ingenue who has a breakdown in
David Lynch’s opaque Mulholland Drive that really made her
name in Hollywood.
“I guess some (of my films) are strange,” Watts says. “They’re
off, they’re not mainstream. But that’s not ever what I set out to
do - to appeal to the masses. I was just trying to do something
that would appeal to me. Maybe my mind is strange, I don’t know,”
she laughs a little.
In person, Watts doesn’t seem dark, strange or tormented.
Perched on a hotel armchair, wearing a silk turquoise top close to
the colour of her eyes, she is in Australia to promote her new
movie, The Painted Veil, directed by Curran. Her manner,
though polite, is reserved. Perhaps recent experiences have made
her wary of the media: since giving birth she has become more of a
paparazzi target, and lately everyone wants to know how she feels
about the untimely death of Heath Ledger, a former boyfriend. She
began dating the late actor, who was 11 years her junior, on the
set of Ned Kelly. She has been credited with encouraging him to
take the artistic risk of his role in Brokeback Mountain
role, although they broke up before filming started in 2004.
However, under her publicist’s threat of immediate interview
termination, I can’t ask Watts about any of this: Ledger is
off-limits. She’s happy, though, to talk about Schreiber, her
partner of three years. The couple are in Sydney for three months
while Schreiber works on X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
The Painted Veil, which finished shooting in late 2005,
was Watts and Schreiber’s first movie together. Watts and Edward
Norton star as a mismatched British couple caught in a cholera
epidemic in 1920s regional China, in the film based on W. Somerset
Maugham’s 1925 novel of the same name.
Watts finds dimension and humanity in the unsympathetic
character of Kitty Fane, a spirited, frivolous London socialite
turned adulterous wife who has an affair with Schreiber’s
character.
She admits she was worried about working with her new lover. “We
were very early in our relationship, probably only four or five
months in,” she says. “So we were both a bit edgy and nervous.
Particularly me - I’d already seen him live on stage so he had the
upper hand. (I was) still at that stage in the relationship when
you’re very intent on impressing that person…So I’m desperately
trying to impress Liev and I’m completely forgetting about how
Kitty should be moving and operating within this moment.”
The film was shot on location in the beautiful Guangxi province,
in a Chinese co-production that had its share of logistical
challenges.
“It was one of those films that have life-changing memories,”
Watts says. “It was incredible, the locations. We were really
there, living it as the locals were in these very remote parts of
the southern provinces.”
Curran says that Watts - who produced the film with Norton -
required minimal direction.
“I always liken her to a classic silent-screen actress,” Curran
says. “She’s really a master at conveying a lot by doing very
little. It’s a rare gift. Her script notes are generally about what
to take out, not what to add. She can play it: she doesn’t have to
say it with words.”
The Painted Veil’s remote locations and cultural
clashes sound like a picnic compared with Watts’s next role in
Funny Games, an R-rated film pitched as a bleak
deconstruction of violence as entertainment. It had a limited
release in the US this month.
“It was definitely difficult,” she says. “It’s a harrowing film
and subject and the way we shot the film was very close to reality.
(Director) Michael Haneke is not a believer in cheating much. When
I say that, I mean just in the way he ties your hands or…” - she
mimes tying a rope around her neck. “It was all very full on. But I
have to say I felt good making it. I conceived my son when I was
making that movie so I couldn’t have been in that much of a
state.”
After Mulholland Drive, Watts took every interesting
role she could fit in, with a strong sense of making up for lost
time. But with the birth of Alexander Pete Schreiber last July, she
applied the brakes.
“I don’t think I’d stop completely just because I’m a mum now,”
she says. “But even before my son came into the picture, I was
slowing down because I was worn out and also because of meeting
Liev and finding the balance of how we spend enough time together
and juggle work as well. But (motherhood) is fantastic. It’s
everything I wanted.”
Watts won’t discourage her son from going into the family
business, but child stardom is out. “If (acting) is his dream, then
so be it,” she says, “but certainly, that’s a long way off. No
child acting, that’s for sure.”
Watts was born in England and lived there until she was 14. (Her
father, Peter Watts, Pink Floyd’s sound engineer, died when she was
seven.) Her mother Myfanwy moved Naomi and her brother Ben to
Sydney in the early ’80s, then Watts moved to LA in the mid-’90s.
She has spent more time in the US than anywhere, but homesickness
for Australia has begun creeping back.
“I came back this time with my son, and it felt so much like
home,” she says. “I hadn’t had that feeling in a long time. It was
something about the sound of the voices, the food, the smells, the
light . . . I have a lot of nostalgia.” Still, a more permanent
homecoming is unlikely, to her regret. “Not right now. Liev is such
a New Yorker: he’s so connected to that city.”
Watts, too, seems to be leaving LA behind and moving into her
Manhattan period. She plays a Manhattan district attorney with
Clive Owen in The International, out later this year.
Intriguingly, in next year’s Need, she will play a wealthy
Manhattan therapist who learns that a suicidal patient, played by
Kidman, is having an affair with her husband. It will be the first
time the two old friends have co-starred, though their careers have
often been unkindly compared with each other.
Hollywood success came a lot quicker to Kidman. Watts was 31
when she made Mulholland Drive, after at least six years
of rejection and roles in bad movies (Children of the Corn IV,
Gross Misconduct, Tank Girl), which Watts satirised with
breathtakingly close-to-the-bone humour in the low-budget film
Ellie Parker, a minor Sundance hit.
It’s hard to imagine Kidman sending herself up as brutally as
Watts does in that film -a flawed but funny flick on digital video
about a talentless, perpetually out-of-work Australian actress in
Hollywood.
Indeed, that is Watts’s other major screen type, the struggling
actress (see King Kong and, memorably, Mulholland
Drive). It’s a role that looks a lot closer to her real life
than the tormented victim.
For a time, Watts considered turning Ellie Parker into
a TV series, but, at the last minute, pulled the plug in favour of
pursuing her big-screen dreams. In a perfect piece of cinematic
irony, it was on the last day of shooting - playing Ellie as a
B-grade blonde in a bathrobe who is doing a bad job of acting dead
- that Watts took the call cementing her success.
“We were stealing shots in very illegal places, just under the
Hollywood sign,” she says, “and I was negotiating my King
Kong contract on the phone.
“I just want to be involved with other good artists, great
filmmakers and great writers. The material has to speak to
you…because if you’re doing it for some other reason,
like…you’re going to make a lot of money; that’s just not enough
of a reason.”
Still now, with the ability to pick and choose her roles, Watts
returns to characters struggling with awful fears or torments.
“I’ve never set out to end up in that genre,” she says, then
smiles. “Having said that, I’ve always been a fan of
Hitchcock.”
The Painted Veil screens from April
24.

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Naomi Watts has become the directors’ choice to play pretty
women having an awful time. She was a grief-stricken widow in
21 Grams; a journalist tormented by a ghost girl from
beyond the grave in both The Ring movies; a midwife who
tangles with the Russian mafia in last year’s Eastern
Promises; and the mother in a family tortured by psychopaths
in the coming Funny Games. If that wasn’t bad enough,
she’s soon to be brutalised by malevolent seagulls, reprising the
Tippi Hedren role in a remake of Hitchcock classic The
Birds.

The British-born, Australian-raised actress has made anguish her
trademark, with a disturbing, lived-in intensity. Yet pleasantly,
her torments on screen bear little resemblance to the happy place
where she is in real life. The 39-year-old, whose success came
famously late, has an eight-month-old son with her partner, US
actor Liev Schreiber; and - these days - the creative clout and
star power to make the movies she chooses.

So why does she keep taking these roles? “It’s fun to play fear,
the unknown,” she says. “There’s a lot of emotion that comes within
fear and that genre. I guess everyone has their niche - and that
seems to be mine.”
“I wouldn’t call her a technique actress,” says her friend, film
director John Curran. “She’s got really great instincts in the
moment and knows how to put herself out there and tap into the
emotion when she’s sort of free-falling. She’s very brave in that
regard. She’s happiest when she feels like she’s a little bit out
of control.”

Lacking the aristocratic hauteur of Cate Blanchett or the
statuesque primness of friend Nicole Kidman, Watts has doggedly
carved out a screen persona that’s girlier and yet more disturbed
than those peers. But it was playing a bisexual blonde ingenue who
has a breakdown in David Lynch’s opaque Mulholland Drive
that really made her name in Hollywood.

“I guess some [of my films] are strange,” Watts says. “They’re off,
they’re not mainstream. But that’s not ever what I set out to do,
to appeal to the masses. I was just trying to do something that
would appeal to me. Maybe my mind is strange, I don’t know,” she
laughs a little.

In person, Watts doesn’t seem dark, strange or tormented. Perched
in a hotel armchair, wearing a silk turquoise top close to the
colour of her eyes, she is here to promote her new movie, The
Painted Veil, directed by Curran. Her manner, though polite,
is reserved. Perhaps recent experiences have made her wary of the
media: since giving birth to her son she has become more of a
paparazzi target, and lately everyone wants to know how she feels
about the untimely death of Heath Ledger, a former boyfriend.

She began dating the late actor, who was 11 years her junior, on
the set of Ned Kelly. She has been credited with
encouraging him to take the artistic risk that was his
legacy-defining Brokeback Mountain role, although they
broke up before filming started in 2004. However, under her
publicist’s threat of immediate interview termination, I can’t ask
Watts about any of this: Ledger is off-limits.

She’s happy, though, to talk about Schreiber, her partner of three
years.
The couple are in Sydney for three months while Schreiber works on
X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The Painted Veil, which finished
shooting in late 2005, was Watts and Schreiber’s first movie
together. Watts and Edward Norton star as a mismatched British
couple stuck in a cholera epidemic in 1920s regional China, in the
film based on W. Somerset Maugham’s 1925 novel. Watts finds
dimension and humanity in the unsympathetic character of Kitty
Fane, a spirited, frivolous London socialite turned adulterous wife
who has an affair with Schreiber’s character. Watts admits she was
worried about working with her new lover.

“We were very early in our relationship, probably only four or five
months in,” she says. “So we were both a bit edgy and nervous.
Particularly me - I’d already seen him live on stage so he had the
upper hand. [I was] still at that stage in the relationship when
you’re very intent on impressing that person … So I’m desperately
trying to impress Liev and I’m completely forgetting about how
Kitty should be moving and operating within this moment.”

The film was shot on location in the beautiful Guangxi province, in
a Chinese co-production that had its share of logistical
challenges.
“It was one of those films that have life-changing memories,” Watts
says. “It was incredible, the locations. We were really there,
living it as the locals were in these very remote parts of the
southern provinces.”

Curran says that Watts - who also produced the film with Norton -
required minimal direction.
“I always liken her to a classic silent screen actress,” Curran
says. “She’s really a master at conveying a lot by doing very
little. It’s a rare gift. Her script notes are generally about what
to take out, not what to add. She can play it, she doesn’t have to
say it with words.”

The Painted Veil’s remote locations and cultural clashes
sound like a picnic compared to Watts’s next role in Funny
Games, an R-rated film pitched as a bleak deconstruction of
violence as entertainment. It had a limited release in the US this
month.

“It was definitely difficult,” she says. “It’s a harrowing film and
subject and the way we shot the film was very close to reality.
[Director] Michael Haneke is not a believer in cheating much. When
I say that I mean just in the way he ties your hands or …” - she
mimes tying a rope around her neck.

“It was all very full on. But I have to say I felt good making it,
I conceived my son when I was making that movie so I couldn’t have
been in that much of a state.”

After Mulholland Drive, Watts took every interesting role
she could fit in, with a strong sense of making up for lost time.
But with the birth of Alexander Pete Schreiber last July, she has
applied the brakes.

“I don’t think I’d stop completely just because I’m a mum now,” she
says. “But even before my son came into the picture I was slowing
down, because I was worn out and also because of meeting Liev and
finding the balance of how we spend enough time together and juggle
work as well.
“But [motherhood] is fantastic, it’s everything I wanted.”

She won’t discourage her son from going into the family business
but prepubescent stardom is out.

“If [acting] is his dream then so be it,” she says. “But certainly,
that’s a long way off. No child acting, that’s for sure.”

Watts was born and lived in England until she was 14 (father Peter
Watts, Pink Floyd’s sound engineer, died when she was seven). Her
mother Myfanwy moved Naomi and her brother Ben to Sydney in the
early ’80s, then Naomi moved to LA in the mid-’90s. She has spent
more time in the US than anywhere but homesickness for Australia
has begun creeping back.

“I came back this time with my son, and it felt so much like home,”
she says. “I hadn’t had that feeling in a long time. It was
something about the sound of the voices, the food, the smells, the
light … I have a lot of nostalgia.”

Still, a more permanent homecoming is unlikely, to her regret. “Not
right now - Liev is such a New Yorker, he’s so connected to that
city.”
Watts, too, seems to be leaving LA behind and moving into her
Manhattan period. She plays a Manhattan district attorney with
Clive Owen in The International, out later this year.
Intriguingly, in next year’s Need, she will play a wealthy
Manhattan therapist who learns that a suicidal patient, played by
Nicole Kidman, is having an affair with her husband. It will be the
first time the two old friends have co-starred, though their
careers have often been unkindly compared with each other.
Hollywood success came a lot quicker to Kidman.

Watts was 31 when she made Mulholland Drive. That was
after at least six years of rejection in Hollywood and roles in bad
movies (Children Of The Corn IV, Gross Misconduct, Tank
Girl), which Watts satirised with breathtakingly
close-to-the-bone humour in the low-budget film Ellie Parker, a
minor Sundance hit. It’s hard to imagine Kidman sending herself up
as brutally as Watts does in that film - a flawed but funny flick
on digital video about a talentless, perpetually out-of-work
Australian actress in Hollywood.

Indeed that is Watts’s other major screen type, the struggling
actress (see King Kong, Ellie Parker and, memorably,
Mulholland Drive). It’s a role that looks a lot closer to
her real life than the tormented victim. For a time, Watts was
considering turning Ellie Parker into a TV series but at
the last minute pulled the plug in favour of pursuing her big
screen dreams. In a perfect piece of cinematic irony, it was on the
last day of shooting - playing Ellie as a B-grade blonde in a
bathrobe who is doing a bad job of acting dead - that Watts took
the call cementing her success.

“We were stealing shots in very illegal places just under the
Hollywood sign,” she says, “and I was negotiating my King
Kong contract on the phone.

“I just want to be involved with other good artists, great
filmmakers and great writers. The material has to speak to you …
because if you’re doing it for some other reason, like … you’re
going to make a lot of money; that’s just not enough of a
reason.”

Still now, with the ability to pick and choose her roles, Watts
returns to characters struggling with awful fears or torments.

“I’ve never set out to end up in that genre,” she says, then
smiles. “Having said that, I’ve always been a fan of
Hitchcock.”
The Painted Veil opens on April 24.

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The pregnancy comedy Juno was chosen as the year’s best
independent film and won two other honours Saturday at the Spirit
Awards, including best actress for Ellen Page.
The ceremony, in which tributes were paid to Australian actor
Heath Ledger, was a warmup for Hollywood’s big show, Sunday’s
Academy Awards, where Juno and Page are in the running for
the same categories.
Page gushed thanks for Juno director Jason Reitman and
writer Diablo Cody.
“This is so, so special, but this is pretty much all Diablo
Cody’s fault,” said Page, who played a whipsmart pregnant teen
giving the baby up for adoption in “Juno.”
“She wrote one of the best screenplays I have ever read and
created a teenage female lead I feel like we’ve never seen
before.”
Moments of the ceremony were a tribute to Ledger, who died of an
accidental prescription drug overdose on January 22 at his
Manhattan apartment.
One of six actors playing incarnations of Bob Dylan in director
Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There, Ledger was remembered as
“probably one of the most beautiful independent spirits of all” by
Cate Blanchett, winner of the supporting-actress prize for
portraying Dylan in his transition from folk icon to electric
rocker, a role that also earned her an Oscar nomination.
“We all loved him so dearly,” Haynes said of Ledger, recalling
that the actor had started making music videos and intended to go
into directing himself. “I have no doubt he would have made an
astounding director.”
Ledger was a Spirit Award best-actor nominee two years ago for
Brokeback Mountain, the best picture winner.
Diablo Cody won the award for best first screenplay and is up
for original screenplay at the Oscars.
“This is the coolest award in the coolest category. There is
nothing like writing a first screenplay,” Cody said.
Reitman missed out on the directing award, which went to Julian
Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on
the memoir of French Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered
a paralysing stroke. The film also won the cinematography prize for
Janusz Kaminski.
Both Reitman and Schnabel are nominated for best director at the
Oscars. Most key Spirit Award recipients had Oscar nominations.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, who won best actor for the sibling drama
The Savages, is nominated for supporting actor at the
Oscars for Charlie Wilson’s War.
Co-star Laura Linney missed out on a Spirit Awards nomination
but is up for best actress at the Oscars for The Savages.
The film’s writer-director Tamara Jenkins won the screenplay award
for The Savages, which also earned her an Oscar slot.
Also nominated for best picture at the Spirit Awards, I’m
Not There received the first-ever Robert Altman Award
honouring Haynes, Ledger, Blanchett and co-stars including
Christian Bale and Richard Gere, who were among the performers
taking on personifications of Dylan.
The Altman award was created after the filmmaker’s death in
2006, the prize going to a filmmaker, casting director and acting
ensemble, a nod to Altman’s gift for big casts and overlapping
story lines. Altman was nominated a year ago as best director for
his final film, A Prairie Home Companion.
Chiwetel Ejiofor won supporting actor as a radio station manager
signing up an ex-con who becomes an outspoken on-air activist amid
the 1960s civil-rights movement in Talk to Me.
While most Spirit Award winners are unknown to general
audiences, Juno followed last year’s top winner,
Little Miss Sunshine, as an independent film that has
soared into the mainstream. Juno is closing in on $US130
million ($A141.6 million) at the domestic box office, the biggest
commercial hit among the best-picture contenders at the Oscars.
Spirit Awards host Rainn Wilson, who has a small role in
Juno, wisecracked that the film managed to avoid the fate
of obscurity “like every single other movie we’re honouring
today.”
The Irish music romance Once, whose stars Glen Hansard
and Marketa Irglova have a best-song Oscar nomination, was named
best foreign film.
“This is amazing to start making little films for a hundred
grand with your mates in Dublin and not have any permits,” said
Once writer-director John Carney. “I guess that’s
independent filmmaking.”
Other Spirit Award winners were:
Documentary: Crazy Love.
First feature: The Lookout,
directed by Scott Frank.
John Cassavetes Award, given to a film
made for less than $US500,000 ($A544,000: August
Evening.
Presented by the cinema group Film Independent, the Spirit
Awards honour movies that cost less than $US20 million ($A21.8
million) to make, with a significant part of their budget
originating from outside the Hollywood studio system.
Other criteria for nominations include films’ originality and
provocative subject matter.

AP

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The pregnancy comedy Juno was chosen as the year’s best
independent film and won two other honours Saturday at the Spirit
Awards, including best actress for Ellen Page.
The ceremony, in which tributes were paid to Australian actor
Heath Ledger, was a warmup for Hollywood’s big show, Sunday’s
Academy Awards, where Juno and Page are in the running for
the same categories.
Page gushed thanks for Juno director Jason Reitman and
writer Diablo Cody.
“This is so, so special, but this is pretty much all Diablo
Cody’s fault,” said Page, who played a whipsmart pregnant teen
giving the baby up for adoption in “Juno.”
“She wrote one of the best screenplays I have ever read and
created a teenage female lead I feel like we’ve never seen
before.”
Moments of the ceremony were a tribute to Ledger, who died of an
accidental prescription drug overdose on January 22 at his
Manhattan apartment.
One of six actors playing incarnations of Bob Dylan in director
Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There, Ledger was remembered as
“probably one of the most beautiful independent spirits of all” by
Cate Blanchett, winner of the supporting-actress prize for
portraying Dylan in his transition from folk icon to electric
rocker, a role that also earned her an Oscar nomination.
“We all loved him so dearly,” Haynes said of Ledger, recalling
that the actor had started making music videos and intended to go
into directing himself. “I have no doubt he would have made an
astounding director.”
Ledger was a Spirit Award best-actor nominee two years ago for
Brokeback Mountain, the best picture winner.
Diablo Cody won the award for best first screenplay and is up
for original screenplay at the Oscars.
“This is the coolest award in the coolest category. There is
nothing like writing a first screenplay,” Cody said.
Reitman missed out on the directing award, which went to Julian
Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on
the memoir of French Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered
a paralysing stroke. The film also won the cinematography prize for
Janusz Kaminski.
Both Reitman and Schnabel are nominated for best director at the
Oscars. Most key Spirit Award recipients had Oscar nominations.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, who won best actor for the sibling drama
The Savages, is nominated for supporting actor at the
Oscars for Charlie Wilson’s War.
Co-star Laura Linney missed out on a Spirit Awards nomination
but is up for best actress at the Oscars for The Savages.
The film’s writer-director Tamara Jenkins won the screenplay award
for The Savages, which also earned her an Oscar slot.
Also nominated for best picture at the Spirit Awards, I’m
Not There received the first-ever Robert Altman Award
honouring Haynes, Ledger, Blanchett and co-stars including
Christian Bale and Richard Gere, who were among the performers
taking on personifications of Dylan.
The Altman award was created after the filmmaker’s death in
2006, the prize going to a filmmaker, casting director and acting
ensemble, a nod to Altman’s gift for big casts and overlapping
story lines. Altman was nominated a year ago as best director for
his final film, A Prairie Home Companion.
Chiwetel Ejiofor won supporting actor as a radio station manager
signing up an ex-con who becomes an outspoken on-air activist amid
the 1960s civil-rights movement in Talk to Me.
While most Spirit Award winners are unknown to general
audiences, Juno followed last year’s top winner,
Little Miss Sunshine, as an independent film that has
soared into the mainstream. Juno is closing in on $US130
million ($A141.6 million) at the domestic box office, the biggest
commercial hit among the best-picture contenders at the Oscars.
Spirit Awards host Rainn Wilson, who has a small role in
Juno, wisecracked that the film managed to avoid the fate
of obscurity “like every single other movie we’re honouring
today.”
The Irish music romance Once, whose stars Glen Hansard
and Marketa Irglova have a best-song Oscar nomination, was named
best foreign film.
“This is amazing to start making little films for a hundred
grand with your mates in Dublin and not have any permits,” said
Once writer-director John Carney. “I guess that’s
independent filmmaking.”
Other Spirit Award winners were:
Documentary: Crazy Love.
First feature: The Lookout,
directed by Scott Frank.
John Cassavetes Award, given to a film
made for less than $US500,000 ($A544,000: August
Evening.
Presented by the cinema group Film Independent, the Spirit
Awards honour movies that cost less than $US20 million ($A21.8
million) to make, with a significant part of their budget
originating from outside the Hollywood studio system.
Other criteria for nominations include films’ originality and
provocative subject matter.

AP

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Australia’s entertainment community is reeling from the news of
the death of Heath Ledger at 28.
Geoffrey Rush, who starred with Ledger in the Australian film
Candy, said the actor’s death was a tragedy.
”This is such a sad event. I admired Heath enormously,” Rush
said in a statement this afternoon.
”He was such a sensitive and committed and daring actor. This
is truly a tragedy. I send my condolences to his family and
friends and colleagues.”
Blanchett ’shocked, saddened’
Cate Blanchett, who along with Ledger played Bob Dylan in the
biopic I’m Not There, said in a statement released by her
agent that she was “shocked and very saddened by the news.
“I deeply respect Heath’s work and always admired his continuing
development as an artist.
“My thoughts are with his family and close friends.”
Blanchett, who was nominated for two Academy Awards overnight
including for her portrayal of Dylan, was not commenting on the
nominations, her agent said.
‘Incredible shock’: Edgerton
Joel Edgerton, who co-starred
with Ledger in Ned Kelly said it was a
‘’sad day” and an ”incredible shock”.
”Heath was an exceptional human being with a massive heart -
always generous, adventurous and impressive,” Edgerton said
in a statement this afternoon.
”I always believed, as a young man, he was wise well beyond his
years. And as far as his work goes, I know I’m not alone in
thinking he was just getting started to realise an incredible
potential. My heart goes out to those who knew him best.”
Rose Byrne, a Hollywood contemporary of Ledger’s said she would
“never forget his spirit”.
“Heath was an enigmatic, wonderful and endlessly generous friend
and colleague,” she said.
“His passing is deeply tragic and my thoughts and love go out to
his friends and family in Perth and in New York.”
‘Kind and sensitive man’
Fellow actor Noni Hazlehurst described Ledger as “one of the
finest actors of his generation”.
In a statement issued through her agent, Hazlehurst said
the “remarkable characters he has left us in his extraordinarily
wide-ranging body of work will remain as a testament to his
talent.”
She said Ledger was “an artist, a kind and sensitive man, who
simply wanted to do good work of which he could be proud”.
He was respected and admired for his determination to be the
best actor he could rather than chasing celebrity, she said.
“He was uncomfortable with celebrity, which made him a target
for fools, preferring to focus on being the best actor he could
be.
“For that, he will always have the respect and admiration of
those who knew, understood and admired him.
“His early death is a terrible loss for all of us, but most
particularly for his family, and his adored daughter,
Matilda.”
Director John Polson was “incredibly shocked and saddened by the
news”, his statement said.
“Nothing can soften the blow from this kind of tragedy,
especially with someone so young.
“I have met Heath many times over the past decade and was always
struck by how warm, gentle and decent-hearted he was.
“I know people will remember him with great respect and my
thoughts are with his family.”
Sydney hip-hop artist N’fa, a close friend of Ledger’s, was too
devastated by the news to take calls or comment.
Ledger had been an active supporter of N’fa’s music and in 2006
directed a music video for N’fa’s band 1200 Techniques.
N’fa - who has appeared as a genie in a television
advertisement for Tim Tams - was ‘’simply too devastated to
comment right now”, a spokeswoman for his record label Rubber
Records told The Age.
“He’s deeply saddened by (Ledger’s) death and understandably
he’s too upset to take any calls or make any comments.”
Kidman laments ‘tragedy’
Nicole Kidman says her heart goes out to Heath Ledger’s family
after the Australian actor was found dead in New York this
morning.
”What a terrible tragedy,” Kidman said through her publicist
Wendy Day. ”My heart goes out to Heath’s family.”

One of Kidman’s closest friends is Australian actress Naomi Watts,
who dated Ledger for two years from 2002.
Mel Gibson has told of his grief at learning of fellow
Australian actor Heath Ledger’s death in New York.
”I had such great hope for him,” Gibson told the
Entertainment Tonight website.
”He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young
age is a tragic loss. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his
family.”
Pomeranz mourns ‘beautiful soul’
Film critic Margaret Pomeranz said she was shocked by the news
of the 28-year-old actor’s death.
“I am so upset, I just can’t tell you,” Pomeranz told ABC
radio.
“I mean he is such a talented boy and really, I think a
beautiful soul.
“And I think to choose the roles he chose shows such
intelligence.”
Australian director Neil Armfield, who directed Ledger in
Candy, said he was ”incredibly saddened” by the young
actor’s death.
”He made a decision about four years ago to stop being led by
producers and managers and to forge his own way,” Armfield told
ABC radio.
”He was so successful at breaking out of the teen idol
image.”
Politician pays tribute
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett joined Mr Rudd
in paying tribute to an actor he described as an ”instinctive and
powerful presence”.
Speaking in Parliament House this afternoon, Mr Garrett
said it was ”a terribly sad day for Australians - our hearts
are really strongly out there with his family and friends and
fans”.
Mr Garrett described Ledger as a ”a great actor, a
young talent” who ”took the difficult roles”.
”Australia’s lost a talent, a bloke that achieved a lot in a
short time and had so much more to give,” he said.

with AAP

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Australia’s entertainment community is reeling from the news of
the death of Heath Ledger at 28.
Geoffrey Rush, who starred with Ledger in the Australian film
Candy, said the actor’s death was a tragedy.
”This is such a sad event. I admired Heath enormously,” Rush
said in a statement this afternoon.
”He was such a sensitive and committed and daring actor. This
is truly a tragedy. I send my condolences to his family and
friends and colleagues.”
Blanchett ’shocked, saddened’
Cate Blanchett, who along with Ledger played Bob Dylan in the
biopic I’m Not There, said in a statement released by her
agent that she was “shocked and very saddened by the news.
“I deeply respect Heath’s work and always admired his continuing
development as an artist.
“My thoughts are with his family and close friends.”
Blanchett, who was nominated for two Academy Awards overnight
including for her portrayal of Dylan, was not commenting on the
nominations, her agent said.
‘Incredible shock’: Edgerton
Joel Edgerton, who co-starred
with Ledger in Ned Kelly said it was a
‘’sad day” and an ”incredible shock”.
”Heath was an exceptional human being with a massive heart -
always generous, adventurous and impressive,” Edgerton said
in a statement this afternoon.
”I always believed, as a young man, he was wise well beyond his
years. And as far as his work goes, I know I’m not alone in
thinking he was just getting started to realise an incredible
potential. My heart goes out to those who knew him best.”
Rose Byrne, a Hollywood contemporary of Ledger’s said she would
“never forget his spirit”.
“Heath was an enigmatic, wonderful and endlessly generous friend
and colleague,” she said.
“His passing is deeply tragic and my thoughts and love go out to
his friends and family in Perth and in New York.”
‘Kind and sensitive man’
Fellow actor Noni Hazlehurst described Ledger as “one of the
finest actors of his generation”.
In a statement issued through her agent, Hazlehurst said
the “remarkable characters he has left us in his extraordinarily
wide-ranging body of work will remain as a testament to his
talent.”
She said Ledger was “an artist, a kind and sensitive man, who
simply wanted to do good work of which he could be proud”.
He was respected and admired for his determination to be the
best actor he could rather than chasing celebrity, she said.
“He was uncomfortable with celebrity, which made him a target
for fools, preferring to focus on being the best actor he could
be.
“For that, he will always have the respect and admiration of
those who knew, understood and admired him.
“His early death is a terrible loss for all of us, but most
particularly for his family, and his adored daughter,
Matilda.”
Director John Polson was “incredibly shocked and saddened by the
news”, his statement said.
“Nothing can soften the blow from this kind of tragedy,
especially with someone so young.
“I have met Heath many times over the past decade and was always
struck by how warm, gentle and decent-hearted he was.
“I know people will remember him with great respect and my
thoughts are with his family.”
Sydney hip-hop artist N’fa, a close friend of Ledger’s, was too
devastated by the news to take calls or comment.
Ledger had been an active supporter of N’fa’s music and in 2006
directed a music video for N’fa’s band 1200 Techniques.
N’fa - who has appeared as a genie in a television
advertisement for Tim Tams - was ‘’simply too devastated to
comment right now”, a spokeswoman for his record label Rubber
Records told The Age.
“He’s deeply saddened by (Ledger’s) death and understandably
he’s too upset to take any calls or make any comments.”
Kidman laments ‘tragedy’
Nicole Kidman says her heart goes out to Heath Ledger’s family
after the Australian actor was found dead in New York this
morning.
”What a terrible tragedy,” Kidman said through her publicist
Wendy Day. ”My heart goes out to Heath’s family.”

One of Kidman’s closest friends is Australian actress Naomi Watts,
who dated Ledger for two years from 2002.
Mel Gibson has told of his grief at learning of fellow
Australian actor Heath Ledger’s death in New York.
”I had such great hope for him,” Gibson told the
Entertainment Tonight website.
”He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young
age is a tragic loss. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his
family.”
Pomeranz mourns ‘beautiful soul’
Film critic Margaret Pomeranz said she was shocked by the news
of the 28-year-old actor’s death.
“I am so upset, I just can’t tell you,” Pomeranz told ABC
radio.
“I mean he is such a talented boy and really, I think a
beautiful soul.
“And I think to choose the roles he chose shows such
intelligence.”
Australian director Neil Armfield, who directed Ledger in
Candy, said he was ”incredibly saddened” by the young
actor’s death.
”He made a decision about four years ago to stop being led by
producers and managers and to forge his own way,” Armfield told
ABC radio.
”He was so successful at breaking out of the teen idol
image.”
Politician pays tribute
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett joined Mr Rudd
in paying tribute to an actor he described as an ”instinctive and
powerful presence”.
Speaking in Parliament House this afternoon, Mr Garrett
said it was ”a terribly sad day for Australians - our hearts
are really strongly out there with his family and friends and
fans”.
Mr Garrett described Ledger as a ”a great actor, a
young talent” who ”took the difficult roles”.
”Australia’s lost a talent, a bloke that achieved a lot in a
short time and had so much more to give,” he said.

with AAP

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Australia’s entertainment community is reeling from the news of
the death of Heath Ledger at 28.
Geoffrey Rush, who starred with Ledger in the Australian film
Candy, said the actor’s death was a tragedy.
”This is such a sad event. I admired Heath enormously,” Rush
said in a statement this afternoon.
”He was such a sensitive and committed and daring actor. This
is truly a tragedy. I send my condolences to his family and
friends and colleagues.”
Blanchett ’shocked, saddened’
Cate Blanchett, who along with Ledger played Bob Dylan in the
biopic I’m Not There, said in a statement released by her
agent that she was “shocked and very saddened by the news.
“I deeply respect Heath’s work and always admired his continuing
development as an artist.
“My thoughts are with his family and close friends.”
Blanchett, who was nominated for two Academy Awards overnight
including for her portrayal of Dylan, was not commenting on the
nominations, her agent said.
‘Incredible shock’: Edgerton
Joel Edgerton, who co-starred
with Ledger in Ned Kelly said it was a
‘’sad day” and an ”incredible shock”.
”Heath was an exceptional human being with a massive heart -
always generous, adventurous and impressive,” Edgerton said
in a statement this afternoon.
”I always believed, as a young man, he was wise well beyond his
years. And as far as his work goes, I know I’m not alone in
thinking he was just getting started to realise an incredible
potential. My heart goes out to those who knew him best.”
Rose Byrne, a Hollywood contemporary of Ledger’s said she would
“never forget his spirit”.
“Heath was an enigmatic, wonderful and endlessly generous friend
and colleague,” she said.
“His passing is deeply tragic and my thoughts and love go out to
his friends and family in Perth and in New York.”
‘Kind and sensitive man’
Fellow actor Noni Hazlehurst described Ledger as “one of the
finest actors of his generation”.
In a statement issued through her agent, Hazlehurst said
the “remarkable characters he has left us in his extraordinarily
wide-ranging body of work will remain as a testament to his
talent.”
She said Ledger was “an artist, a kind and sensitive man, who
simply wanted to do good work of which he could be proud”.
He was respected and admired for his determination to be the
best actor he could rather than chasing celebrity, she said.
“He was uncomfortable with celebrity, which made him a target
for fools, preferring to focus on being the best actor he could
be.
“For that, he will always have the respect and admiration of
those who knew, understood and admired him.
“His early death is a terrible loss for all of us, but most
particularly for his family, and his adored daughter,
Matilda.”
Director John Polson was “incredibly shocked and saddened by the
news”, his statement said.
“Nothing can soften the blow from this kind of tragedy,
especially with someone so young.
“I have met Heath many times over the past decade and was always
struck by how warm, gentle and decent-hearted he was.
“I know people will remember him with great respect and my
thoughts are with his family.”
Sydney hip-hop artist N’fa, a close friend of Ledger’s, was too
devastated by the news to take calls or comment.
Ledger had been an active supporter of N’fa’s music and in 2006
directed a music video for N’fa’s band 1200 Techniques.
N’fa - who has appeared as a genie in a television
advertisement for Tim Tams - was ‘’simply too devastated to
comment right now”, a spokeswoman for his record label Rubber
Records told The Age.
“He’s deeply saddened by (Ledger’s) death and understandably
he’s too upset to take any calls or make any comments.”
Kidman laments ‘tragedy’
Nicole Kidman says her heart goes out to Heath Ledger’s family
after the Australian actor was found dead in New York this
morning.
”What a terrible tragedy,” Kidman said through her publicist
Wendy Day. ”My heart goes out to Heath’s family.”

One of Kidman’s closest friends is Australian actress Naomi Watts,
who dated Ledger for two years from 2002.
Mel Gibson has told of his grief at learning of fellow
Australian actor Heath Ledger’s death in New York.
”I had such great hope for him,” Gibson told the
Entertainment Tonight website.
”He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young
age is a tragic loss. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his
family.”
Pomeranz mourns ‘beautiful soul’
Film critic Margaret Pomeranz said she was shocked by the news
of the 28-year-old actor’s death.
“I am so upset, I just can’t tell you,” Pomeranz told ABC
radio.
“I mean he is such a talented boy and really, I think a
beautiful soul.
“And I think to choose the roles he chose shows such
intelligence.”
Australian director Neil Armfield, who directed Ledger in
Candy, said he was ”incredibly saddened” by the young
actor’s death.
”He made a decision about four years ago to stop being led by
producers and managers and to forge his own way,” Armfield told
ABC radio.
”He was so successful at breaking out of the teen idol
image.”
Politician pays tribute
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett joined Mr Rudd
in paying tribute to an actor he described as an ”instinctive and
powerful presence”.
Speaking in Parliament House this afternoon, Mr Garrett
said it was ”a terribly sad day for Australians - our hearts
are really strongly out there with his family and friends and
fans”.
Mr Garrett described Ledger as a ”a great actor, a
young talent” who ”took the difficult roles”.
”Australia’s lost a talent, a bloke that achieved a lot in a
short time and had so much more to give,” he said.

with AAP

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Australia’s entertainment community is reeling from the news of
the death of Heath Ledger at 28.
Geoffrey Rush, who starred with Ledger in the Australian film
Candy, said the actor’s death was a tragedy.
”This is such a sad event. I admired Heath enormously,” Rush
said in a statement this afternoon.
”He was such a sensitive and committed and daring actor. This
is truly a tragedy. I send my condolences to his family and
friends and colleagues.”
Blanchett ’shocked, saddened’
Cate Blanchett, who along with Ledger played Bob Dylan in the
biopic I’m Not There, said in a statement released by her
agent that she was “shocked and very saddened by the news.
“I deeply respect Heath’s work and always admired his continuing
development as an artist.
“My thoughts are with his family and close friends.”
Blanchett, who was nominated for two Academy Awards overnight
including for her portrayal of Dylan, was not commenting on the
nominations, her agent said.
‘Incredible shock’: Edgerton
Joel Edgerton, who co-starred
with Ledger in Ned Kelly said it was a
‘’sad day” and an ”incredible shock”.
”Heath was an exceptional human being with a massive heart -
always generous, adventurous and impressive,” Edgerton said
in a statement this afternoon.
”I always believed, as a young man, he was wise well beyond his
years. And as far as his work goes, I know I’m not alone in
thinking he was just getting started to realise an incredible
potential. My heart goes out to those who knew him best.”
Rose Byrne, a Hollywood contemporary of Ledger’s said she would
“never forget his spirit”.
“Heath was an enigmatic, wonderful and endlessly generous friend
and colleague,” she said.
“His passing is deeply tragic and my thoughts and love go out to
his friends and family in Perth and in New York.”
‘Kind and sensitive man’
Fellow actor Noni Hazlehurst described Ledger as “one of the
finest actors of his generation”.
In a statement issued through her agent, Hazlehurst said
the “remarkable characters he has left us in his extraordinarily
wide-ranging body of work will remain as a testament to his
talent.”
She said Ledger was “an artist, a kind and sensitive man, who
simply wanted to do good work of which he could be proud”.
He was respected and admired for his determination to be the
best actor he could rather than chasing celebrity, she said.
“He was uncomfortable with celebrity, which made him a target
for fools, preferring to focus on being the best actor he could
be.
“For that, he will always have the respect and admiration of
those who knew, understood and admired him.
“His early death is a terrible loss for all of us, but most
particularly for his family, and his adored daughter,
Matilda.”
Director John Polson was “incredibly shocked and saddened by the
news”, his statement said.
“Nothing can soften the blow from this kind of tragedy,
especially with someone so young.
“I have met Heath many times over the past decade and was always
struck by how warm, gentle and decent-hearted he was.
“I know people will remember him with great respect and my
thoughts are with his family.”
Sydney hip-hop artist N’fa, a close friend of Ledger’s, was too
devastated by the news to take calls or comment.
Ledger had been an active supporter of N’fa’s music and in 2006
directed a music video for N’fa’s band 1200 Techniques.
N’fa - who has appeared as a genie in a television
advertisement for Tim Tams - was ‘’simply too devastated to
comment right now”, a spokeswoman for his record label Rubber
Records told The Age.
“He’s deeply saddened by (Ledger’s) death and understandably
he’s too upset to take any calls or make any comments.”
Kidman laments ‘tragedy’
Nicole Kidman says her heart goes out to Heath Ledger’s family
after the Australian actor was found dead in New York this
morning.
”What a terrible tragedy,” Kidman said through her publicist
Wendy Day. ”My heart goes out to Heath’s family.”

One of Kidman’s closest friends is Australian actress Naomi Watts,
who dated Ledger for two years from 2002.
Mel Gibson has told of his grief at learning of fellow
Australian actor Heath Ledger’s death in New York.
”I had such great hope for him,” Gibson told the
Entertainment Tonight website.
”He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young
age is a tragic loss. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his
family.”
Pomeranz mourns ‘beautiful soul’
Film critic Margaret Pomeranz said she was shocked by the news
of the 28-year-old actor’s death.
“I am so upset, I just can’t tell you,” Pomeranz told ABC
radio.
“I mean he is such a talented boy and really, I think a
beautiful soul.
“And I think to choose the roles he chose shows such
intelligence.”
Australian director Neil Armfield, who directed Ledger in
Candy, said he was ”incredibly saddened” by the young
actor’s death.
”He made a decision about four years ago to stop being led by
producers and managers and to forge his own way,” Armfield told
ABC radio.
”He was so successful at breaking out of the teen idol
image.”
Politician pays tribute
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett joined Mr Rudd
in paying tribute to an actor he described as an ”instinctive and
powerful presence”.
Speaking in Parliament House this afternoon, Mr Garrett
said it was ”a terribly sad day for Australians - our hearts
are really strongly out there with his family and friends and
fans”.
Mr Garrett described Ledger as a ”a great actor, a
young talent” who ”took the difficult roles”.
”Australia’s lost a talent, a bloke that achieved a lot in a
short time and had so much more to give,” he said.

with AAP

Related posts

• Aussie stars devastated by Ledger’s death
• Aussie stars devastated by Ledger’s death
• Aussie stars devastated by Ledger’s death
• Aussie stars devastated by Ledger’s death
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