'Halifax Explosion' honoured at Geminis
TORONTO (CP) -- A miniseries on the Halifax Explosion took a number of honours at the Gemini Awards Sunday night.
Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion took awards for a number of technical categories including, costume design, sound, photography, visual effects.
The two-part miniseries, which aired on the CBC, dramatized the 1917 blast that killed about 2,000 people and injured thousands more when a Belgian relief ship collided with a munitions vessel in the city's harbour.
Some of the other winners included:
Best production design or art direction in a non-dramatic program or series: Astrid Janson, Shadow Pleasures.
Best production design or art direction in a dramatic program or series: Lawrence Collett, Human Cargo.
Best costume design: Trysha Bakker, Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion (Part One)
Best achievement in make-up: Mary Monforte, Gerry Altenburg, Debra Johnson, Elizabeth Rex.
Best performance in a pre-school program or series: Jason Hopley, Jamie Shannon, Nanalan' Season 1 Free.
Best pre-school program or series: Poko.
Best animated program or series: Doodlez.
Best children's or youth fiction program or series: Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Best children's or youth non-fiction program or series: Swap TV.
Gemini Humanitarian Award: George R. Robertson.
Margaret Collier Award: Wayne Grigsby, for his work as a writer and contribution to Canadian television. Grigsby worked on anumber of award-winning shows including E.N.G., North of 60, Back Harbour and Trudeau.
Best performance by an actor in a guest role dramatic series: Richard Chevolleau, The Eleventh Hour.
Best performance by an actress in a guest role dramatic series: Nicky Guadagni, Blue Murder.
The awards were handed out during the Sunday Industry gala, the second in a three-day event celebrating the best in Canadian English-language television.
The CBC miniseries Human Cargo leads the pack going into the Monday night awards gala, with 17 nominations. Close behind with 15 nods is the CBC legal drama This Is Wonderland, followed by CTV's The Eleventh Hour with 12 and CBC's Da Vinci's Inquest with 10.
Like the film equivalents, the Genie Awards, the Geminis are overseen by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television and are designed to honour the finest in home-grown TV production.
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CHUM wins Gemini for best newscast at documentary, news, and sports gala
TORONTO (CP) - CHUM Television's CityPulse at Six won a Gemini Award for best newscast at a Saturday gala marking the first of a three-day event celebrating the best in Canadian television.
CityPulse at Six, the flagship newscast of Citytv Toronto, beat out CBC's The National and CTV News for the honour.
CBC programming won 12 of the 28 awards presented Saturday, including Sunday's Evan Solomon for best host or interviewer in a news program or series, The Fifth Estate for best news information series and The National for best reportage.
The CBC's The Nature of Things also won a Gemini for best documentary series, as did Hockey Day in Canada - a program showcasing hockey at the grassroots level - for best sports program or series. The Fifth Estate's Neil Docherty also received the Gordon Sinclair Award for Broadcast Journalism.
The first of the 19th annual Gemini Awards were handed out during Saturday's documentary, news and sports gala.
Among the other winners:
-Arctic Dreamer - The Lonely Quest of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, for best biography documentary program.
-Suzuki Speaks for best science, technology, nature, environment or adventure documentary program.
-Men of the Deeps for best performing arts program or series or arts documentary program or series.
-CBC's 2003 World Road Cycling Championships: Elite Men's Final, for best live sporting event.
-Jim Hughson, for best sports play-by-play or analyst.
The CBC miniseries Human Cargo leads the pack going into the Monday night awards gala, with 17 nominations. Close behind with 15 nods is the CBC legal drama This Is Wonderland, followed by CTV's The Eleventh Hour with 12 and CBC's Da Vinci's Inquest with 10.
Like the film equivalents, the Genie Awards, the Geminis are overseen by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television and are designed to honour the finest in home-grown TV production.
'Ocean's Twelve' Bests 'Treasure' in Debut
LOS ANGELES - Movie audiences have gone from one robbery flick to another. "Ocean's Twelve," the star-driven sequel to the theft caper "Ocean's Eleven," debuted with $40.9 million, stealing the top box office slot from the heist hit "National Treasure," which slipped to third place with $10 million, studio estimates showed Sunday.
"National Treasure," which held the No. 1 spot the three previous weekends, lifted its domestic total to $124.2 million.
"Blade: Trinity," the third in Wesley Snipes' vampire series, opened at No. 2 with $16.1 million. The franchise had lost much of its bite since "Blade II," which debuted with more than twice the revenue, $32.5 million, and opened as the No. 1 movie in March 2002.
Playing in 3,290 theaters, "Ocean's Twelve" averaged a robust $12,426 per cinema, compared with $5,537 in 2,912 movie houses for "Blade: Trinity."
In limited release, Bill Murray's quirky oceanography tale "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" opened strongly, taking in $114,000 at just two theaters in New York City and Los Angeles. The film expands on Christmas Day.
Hollywood revenues rose solidly, with the top 12 movies taking in $102.8 million, up 28 percent from the same weekend in 2003, when "Something's Gotta Give" opened as the No. 1 movie with $16.1 million.
"Ocean's Twelve" reunites director Steven Soderbergh with a dream cast led by George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and Andy Garcia. Joining them this time was Catherine Zeta-Jones, adding to the sequel's star power.
"Movie-goers like their movie stars all in one place," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "It's like one-stop shopping for all the top stars in Hollywood."
The follow-up sends the gang to Europe, where they must pull off a virtually impossible heist to win a bet with a rival and pay off the Vegas casino owner they robbed in "Ocean's Eleven."
Given the movie's marquee-name roster and the success of the first movie, which grossed $183.4 million domestically, some industry analysts thought "Ocean's Twelve" might do even better than it did.
Still, its debut came in higher than the $38.1 million opening weekend of "Ocean's Eleven" in December 2001. Factoring in today's higher admission prices, "Ocean's Twelve" sold slightly fewer tickets than the original.
Distributor Warner Bros. and producer Jerry Weintraub already are mulling a second "Ocean's" sequel, said Dan Fellman, the studio's head of distribution.
"Blade: Trinity" features Snipes returning as the half-human, half-vampire action hero, this time battling the lord of the bloodsuckers, Dracula.
Distributor New Line hopes "Blade: Trinity" will hold up well during an onslaught of comedies, dramas and family flicks through year's end.
"Everybody always wants their numbers to be better," said David Tuckerman, head of distribution for New Line. "Still, we're basically the only movie like it. There's nothing else like it in the marketplace, a sci-fi, horror type of movie."
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Ocean's Twelve," $40.9 million.
2. "Blade: Trinity," $16.1 million.
3. "National Treasure," $10 million.
4. "The Polar Express," $9.8 million.
5. "Christmas With the Kranks," $7.6 million.
6. "The Incredibles," $5.05 million.
7. "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie," $4.4 million.
8. "Closer," $3.75 million.
9. "Finding Neverland," $1.7 million.
10. "Alexander," $1.4 million.
Highway Worker Daugherty Wins 'Survivor'
NEW YORK - CBS's "Survivor: Vanuatu — Islands of Fire" came down to two highway workers, but only Chris Daugherty was able to drive home with the $1 million prize and a new car.
Daugherty, 33, outplayed, outlasted and outwitted Twila Tanner, 41, in the 39-day contest. Daugherty received five of the seven-person jury's votes.
At the start of the game, originally divided by gender, it seemed Daugherty would be the first player to go: His inability to cross a balance beam during an immunity challenge forced his tribe to vote out one of their own. Thirty-nine days and a powerful all-female alliance later, he somehow survived.
On the final episode, Daugherty won both immunity challenges. During the season's requisite final endurance challenge, Daugherty successfully held a warrior stance with a bow-and-arrow longer than Scout Cloud Lee, 59, and Tanner, giving him the power to take Tanner with him to the final two.
Daugherty, who lives in South Vienna, Ohio, works for the Ohio Department of Transportation. Tanner works for the Missouri Department of Transportation.
Toward the end of the game, Tanner pledged an alliance allegiance to Ami Cusack and Leann Slaby by swearing on her son's life but later backed out, infuriating some survivors.
This ninth edition of "Survivor" has been the most watched reality show currently airing, beating competitors such as "The Apprentice" and "The Amazing Race," according to Nielsen Media Research. But that hasn't stopped some fans from calling the volcano-laden season humdrum because the tribes were gender-divided (a tactic previously seen in the "Amazon" season) and strong alliances predictably plucked off tribe members (older men sent a series of younger men home; women voted off a row of men).
Film Group Honors Box Office Hits, Arthouse Movies
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A group of film industry notables on Sunday declared such crowd-pleasers as "Spider-Man 2" and "The Incredibles" as the best movies of 2004, alongside smaller offerings like "Maria Full of Grace" and "Sideways."
The pictures were among the 10 selected for the American Film Institute's annual AFI Awards. They were listed alphabetically, rather than in order of merit.
Also cited were "The Aviator," "Collateral," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Friday Night Lights," "Kinsey" and "Million Dollar Baby."
Director Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator," starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, opens nationwide on Dec. 25. "Million Dollar Baby," which stars and was directed by Clint Eastwood, opens in limited release on Dec. 17.
The 13-person jury included actor James Cromwell, Chicago Tribune critic Roger Ebert and a few academics and producers.
The films will be honored during a ceremony in Beverly Hills on Jan. 14.
A separate jury also named the top 10 TV shows and films of 2004, with cable accounting for seven of them: the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Deadwood," "The Sopranos" and TV movie "Something the Lord Made," FX's "Nip/Tuck" and "The Shield," and Comedy Central's "South Park." Rounding out the list were Fox's Emmy-winning "Arrested Development" and the hit ABC newcomers "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost."