'Bon Cop, Bad Cop' wins top Genie
TORONTO -- "Bon Cop, Bad Cop," a uniquely Canadian action movie about a pair of cops who bicker in both official languages in their hunt for a homicidal hockey fan, snagged the best picture prize Tuesday at the Genie Awards in a gala that was otherwise dominated by the powerful biopic about hockey legend Maurice Richard.
"I always suspected you people had taste and insight; thank you for confirming that," Kevin Tierney, producer of "Bon Cop," one of the top-grossing movies in Canadian history, told the cheering crowd at the Carlu in downtown Toronto.
"Just because a movie is popular doesn't mean it's not good."
Though "Bon Cop" took the top prize, "Maurice Richard/The Rocket" was the night's big winner as it took home nine Genies, including best actor for Roy Dupuis and best actress for Julie Le Breton.
Dupuis, the prolific Quebec actor, took home his second best actor Genie in as many years -- he won last year for his portrayal of an amnesiac in "Memoires affectives."
He became emotional as he accepted the award for "The Rocket."
"He opened up to me and he became a friend," said Dupuis of meeting the late Richard while he was researching the role. "He's a man who moved me."
"The Rocket" dominated the Genie acting categories, with Stephen McHattie also winning best supporting actor. Only Carrie-Anne Moss broke the "Rocket" stranglehold with her supporting actress win for "Snow Cake."
Director Charles Biname conceded it was bittersweet to nab so many Genies on Tuesday but not best picture -- but he praised the makers of "Bon Cop."
"They are buddies of ours; these are people that work as hard as we work and they made a really good film," he said. "The award really celebrates the inventiveness of that film."
Biname won the best director Genie, and the film also netted hardware for art direction, costume design, editing and cinematography, among others.
"Bon Cop's" only other Genie was achievement in overall sound, though it also won the Golden Reel Award, awarded to the Canadian film with the highest domestic box office earnings.
"Bon Cop" is vying for the title of the highest-grossing Canadian film of all time against "Porky's."
It earned more than $12 million last year in domestic box office receipts.
The other big box office hit of 2006, "Trailer Park Boys: The Movie," was shut out of the Genies despite earning its way onto many year-end critics' Top 10 lists and enjoying the biggest opening weekend in Canadian box office history. Ricky, Bubbles and Julian -- rum and coke in hand -- were at the gala on Tuesday night.
Taking home acting Genies didn't seem to matter too much to "Bon Cop" stars Patrick Huard and Colm Feore.
The pair kissed for the cameras before the gala got underway, and Huard, up for a best actor Genie, expressed doubt he'd win.
"I'm just here to have fun," said Huard, who co-wrote "Bon Cop."
He added that a sequel to the film was in the works in "about five years or so; I have to write it."
Producers Tierney and Patrick Roy said they hoped it would happen sooner than that.
After lip-locking his co-star, Huard said: "He's a great kisser. I didn't know that. So just for that, there will be a sequel."
Also taking home a Genie was "Manufactured Landscapes," a look at the work of famed photographer Edward Burtynsky that has been sold to a U.S. distributor. It won best documentary.
This year's Genies were handed out amid trying times for the Canadian film industry as ACTRA, the union representing Canadian performers, remains locked in a bitter dispute with producers about new rates and fair compensation for use of actors' work on the Internet.
But there was, for a change, a genuine buzz surrounding the awards this year due to the financial and critical success of "Bon Cop," "Trailer Park Boys: The Movie" and "The Rocket." All three movies did well in English Canada, a notoriously difficult market to crack for Canadian filmmakers, resulting in domestic box office success outside of Quebec that was double what it was in 2005.
The year ahead also promises to be a banner one for Canadian film, with movies including Sarah Polley's "Away From Her," the zombie comedy "Fido" starring Moss and Scottish comic Billy Connolly, and a highly anticipated new Denys Arcand film scheduled for release.
Roy, executive producer of "Bon Cop," said the success of his film shows that English Canadians want to see good Canadian films.
He added he hoped "Bon Cop" would become a franchise, saying it would be a shame if the sparkling rapport between Feore and Huard was contained to just a single film.
"The successes that we've had in Quebec in the past were really because we were making films for Quebec people," he said. "The biggest mistake we can make is to try to do what Americans are doing. If we start making movies for Canadians, I think they'll go see them, but it's going to take a few successes in a row. People will realize that Canadian movies can be successful and they'll go see them."
Genie Award winners list
Winners at the 27th annual Genie Awards, honouring the best in Canadian film:
Best motion picture: "Bon Cop, Bad Cop"
Performance by an actor in a leading role: Roy Dupuis, "Maurice Richard/The Rocket"
Performance by an actress in a leading role: Julie Le Breton, "Maurice Richard/The Rocket"
Performance by an actor in a supporting role: Stephen McHattie, "Maurice Richard/The Rocket"
Performance by an actress in a supporting role: Carrie-Anne Moss, "Snow Cake"
Best documentary: "Manufactured Landscapes," Jennifer Baichwal, Nick de Pencier, Gerry Flahive, Daniel Iron, Peter Starr
Achievement in direction: Charles Biname, "Maurice Richard/The Rocket"
Achievement in art direction: Michael Proulx, "Maurice Richard/The Rocket"
Achievement in costume design: Francesca Chamberland, "Maurice Richard/The Rocket"
Achievement in cinematography: Pierre Gill, "Maurice Richard/The Rocket"
Achievement in editing: Michel Arcand, "Maurice Richard/The Rocket
Achievement in music, original score: Jean Robitaille, "Sans elle/Without Her"
Achievement in music, original song: Jennifer Kreisbery, "Have Hope," from the film "Unnatural and Accidental"
Achievement in overall sound: Dominique Chartrand, Gavin Fernandes, Nathalie Morin, Pierre Paquet, "Bon Cop, Bad Cop"
Achievement in sound editing: Claude Beaugrand, Olivier Calvert, Jerome Decarie, Natalie Fleurant, Francine Poirier: "Maurice Richard/The Rocket"
Original screenplay: Philippe Falardeau, "Congorama"
Adapted screenplay: Robert Favreau, Gil Courtemanche, "Un Dimanche a Kigali/A Sunday in Kigali"
Best live action short drama: "Le Rouge au Sol/Red," Maxime Giroux, Paul Barbeau
Best animated short: "The Danish Poet," Torill Kove, Lise Fearnley, Marcy Page
Claude Jutra Award winners: Julie Kwan, "Eve and the Fire Horse"; Stephanie LaPointe, "La Vie secrete des gens heureux/The Secret Life of Happy People"
Golden Reel Award winner: "Bon Cop, Bad Cop"
Special award for outstanding achievement in make-up design: Nick Dudman, "Beowulf and Grendel"
The nominees for DVD availability
With the Academy Awards less than two weeks away, you can catch up on three of the five best-picture nominees — and many other categories — on DVD before the telecast Feb. 25.
On Tuesday, Martin Scorsese's best-picture nominee, The Departed, arrived on DVD ($29, Warner Home Video). It garnered four other nominations: director, supporting actor Mark Wahlberg, editing and adapted screenplay.
Babel arrives Feb. 20 ($30, Paramount). It has seven nominations, including best picture, director, supporting actresses Rinko Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza, editing and music.
Little Miss Sunshine has been on DVD since December. The day after it received four Oscar nominations for best picture, supporting actress Abigail Breslin, supporting actor Alan Arkin and original screenplay, sales spiked as much as 200% in stores across the country.
"We call it the Oscar bump," says Steve Feldstein of 20th Century Fox, which released the DVD.
No dates have been announced for the other best-picture nominees, The Queen or Letters From Iwo Jima.
Nor has a date been revealed for Dreamgirls, which earned eight nominations, more than any other movie, but not a best-picture nomination. It is still drawing crowds in theaters; it was No. 9 this week at the box office.
Studio DVD marketers are scrambling to announce release dates for other nominees before the ceremony, but they are held in check by their theatrical counterparts, who don't want dates announced while a film is still playing strongly in theaters.
Blood Diamond, with five Oscar nominations, including best actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) and supporting actor (Djimon Hounsou), arrives March 20. The announcement was made just as the film dropped out of the box office top 20.
The Last King of Scotland, for which Forest Whitaker is up for best actor, comes out April 17 ($30, Fox). And Notes on a Scandal, with nominations for best actress (Judi Dench), supporting actress (Cate Blanchett), music and adapted screenplay, is due the same date ($30, Fox).
The leading candidate for best documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has been on DVD since November ($30, Paramount), and others are coming:
•Deliver Us From Evil, about a molesting priest (May 8, Lionsgate).
•Iraq in Fragments, no date yet.
•Jesus Camp, about a camp that teaches children to be evangelists, out now ($27, Magnolia).
•My Country, My Country, about a doctor who runs for office in Iraq (March 20, Zeitgeist Films).
Other high-profile nominees on DVD:
•United 93, up for best director (Paul Greengrass) and editing ($20, Universal).
•The Devil Wears Prada, up for best actress (Meryl Streep) and costume design ($30, Fox).
•Best-animated-feature nominees Cars ($30, Disney) and Monster House ($29, Sony). Fellow nominee Happy Feet arrives on March 20.
A handful of other movies with Oscar nominations in minor categories also are available on DVD, including:
•Black Dahlia, up for best achievement in cinematography ($30, Universal)
•Superman Returns, best achievement in visual effects ($20, Warner Bros.)
•Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, nominated for achievement in sound, sound editing, visual effects and art direction ($30, Disney).
•Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, up for best achievement in sound mixing and sound editing ($30, Paramount).
Cruise and Stiller, Hardy Men
It only took 80 years, but teenage super-sleuths Frank and Joe Hardy have finally grown up. And apparently it was worth the wait, at least for Hollywood, because they grew into Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise.
The box office golden boys have been tapped to play the now-adult brothers in the action comedy The Hardy Men, a reworking of the classic detective series The Hardy Boys, which kicked off in 1927 with The Tower Treasure.
As per Variety, The Hardy Men will feature the siblings, once inseparable but now estranged, reuniting to solve one last case. No word on whether they'll still go by Frank and Joe or if the screenplay will call for more modern monikers.
Cruise and Stiller have reportedly been exchanging plot ideas with Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy, who will helm the project for 20th Century Fox.
Meanwhile, the longtime pals—ever since Stiller nailed his first Cruise impression during his formative years on The Ben Stiller Show—are also contemplating teaming up for the making-of-a-movie-within-a-movie comedy Tropic Thunder, which Stiller will direct for DreamWorks. (Interestingly, Paramount would distribute the film, placing Cruise back in the industry arena with best bud Sumner Redstone.)
The pair also teamed up in 2000 for the short-form spoof Mission: Improbable, in which Cruise played himself and Stiller played a stuntman subbing for the heartthrob on the set of Mission: Impossible 2.
Fox is aiming to start production on The Hardy Men in 2008.
Although this will be the Hardys' first trip to the multiplex, the boys are no strangers to the small screen.
Before the era of Britney, Justin and Christina, Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk portrayed the Hardy brothers on the iconic Mickey Mouse Club from 1956-57.
Then, Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy wielded the flashlights in the ABC primetime series The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, costarring Pamela Sue Martin as the titian-haired heroine, which ran from 1977-79.
There was also a Hardy Boys Saturday-morning cartoon that premiered in 1969 and a 13-episode syndicated series that aired in Canada in 1995.
But first thing's first. Stiller has gone to bat again for the Farrelly brothers in The Seven Day Itch, due in theaters Oct. 5, while Cruise is set to star in the Robert Redford-directed Lions for Lambs, the first film in the pipeline for Cruise and production partner Paula Wagner's revamped United Artists nameplate.
Redford will also costar in the intersecting-lives drama, along with Meryl Streep and Derek Luke.
Canada's top films vie for Genie honour
Two Canadian box office blockbusters will battle it out Tuesday night for the country's top film honour.
Domestic hits Trailer Park Boys: The Movie and Bon Cop, Bad Cop are among the high profile nominees for best picture at the Genie Awards, Canada's version of the Oscars.
Trailer Park Boys grossed $1.3 million during its debut at the box office, making it the biggest opening weekend in history for an English-language Canadian film.
Bon Cop knocked long-running champion Porky's out of its post as the top-grossing Canadian movie ever made, after it earned $12.2 million at the domestic box last year.
Three French-language films are also vying for the best film Genie at the Toronto gala Tuesday night:
The Rocket, a portrait of hockey hero Maurice Richard starring Quebec acting superstar Roy Dupuis.
Un dimanche à Kigali (A Sunday in Kigali), the tale of a bi-racial romance set in 1990s Rwanda.
Guide de la petite vengeance (The Little Book of Revenge), a comedy about an accountant who enacts revenge on his psychotic boss.
Charles Binamé's The Rocket starts the evening ceremony with a leading 13 nominations but Bon Cop follows closely with 10 nods.
Other notable Genie nominees include:
Jennifer Baichwal's acclaimed documentary Manufactured Landscapes, in which she documents the life and work of photographer Edward Burtynsky;
Sundance film fest special jury prize-winner Eve and the Fire Horse;
British-Canadian co-production Snow Cake;
Quebec drama Congorama;
Romantic comedy La Vie secrète des gens heureux (The Secret Life of Happy People);
Animated short The Danish Poet, which is also up for an Oscar later this month.
21 awards to be presented at Genie gala
Overall, organizers will present Genies in 19 different categories and two special awards Tuesday night.
The team behind action comedy Bon Cop, Bad Cop will be presented with the Golden Reel Award, which honours the film that earns the year's highest domestic box office.
For the first time, the National Film Board of Canada's prestigious Claude Jutra Award will be shared by two directors who made their feature film debuts in 2006: Julia Kwan (Eve and the Fire Horse) and Stéphane Lapointe (La Vie secrete des gens heureux/The Secret Life of Happy People).
Established in 1993 to honour the memory of the renowned Quebec filmmaker, the annual Jutra award celebrates outstanding achievement by a first-time director.
Now in its 27th year, the Genie Awards celebrate Canada's film industry and are administered by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.
Reunion surprise for Sting
LOS ANGELES -- Sting says his decision to rejoin bandmates Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland in '80s British New Wave band the Police for a 30th anniversary tour this year surprised him as much as everybody else.
"You know, if you'd asked me the day I made the decision, I would have said, 'You're out of your mind,' " the Police singer-bassist, 55, told about 200 assembled media and contest winners packed yesterday morning into the Whiskey A Go Go, the small, legendary Sunset Strip club.
"I woke up one morning, it was like three months ago, and this light bulb went off in my head -- "I'm going to call Andy and Stewart and tell them that we should do a tour." I thought, 'Well, it'll surprise them, it'll surprise the world, and it's surprising me too.' "
As Sun Media exclusively reported yesterday, the Police's 30th anniversary reunion tour of mostly arenas and stadiums will launch in North America on May 28 in Vancouver and visit Toronto on July 22 and Montreal on July 25. Tickets in all three cities go on sale this Saturday at 10 a.m.
Edmonton wasn't among the tour stops announced yesterday, but the date Sun Media reported yesterday -- June 2 -- is pencilled in and is expected to be confirmed in a few weeks.
The most recent time the Police toured together was in 1984, but rumours of a pending reunion began circulating after they announced they would open the Grammy Awards telecast this past Sunday night.
Sting acknowledged yesterday that he has been the lone holdout over the years.
"What's happening is very interesting, because it's very healing," Sting said. "It's a part of my life that I've sort of run away from for 25 years. So to come back and be with the band and develop these relationships again, we're wiser than we used to be. We still fight, argue about the music, but we have ways of navigating now that we didn't have before. We're wiser and a bit more mellow."
Added Copeland, 54, "We've never hated each other. We shouted and screamed, as Sting says, about the music. We fought tooth-and-nail over the music, but as human beings we always liked each other."
"Now we do yoga and eat granola," added Summers, 64. "We love everybody."
Copeland continued more seriously. "I just want to play my dreams and follow Sting's lead and play the songs with Andy."
"You've changed, Stewart," Sting said.
"He hasn't," Summers lobbed back. "We refer to Sting as our dear leader ... on a good day."
Yesterday, the trio -- which had rehearsed in Vancouver for the past couple of weeks -- roughly made their way through four of their songs: Message In A Bottle, When World Is Running Down, I Can't Stand Losing You and Roxanne. How rough? Sting had a teleprompter to one side, and Copeland kept yelling out chords.
Then they answered only about a half-dozen questions from the assembled media.
The band Fiction Plane -- led by Sting's son, Joe Sumner -- will open for the Police in North America. A portion of the proceeds from the tour will go toward WaterAid.
Is a new Police album part of the reunion plan? The trio refused to seriously answer that question.
Sting did say the band will play Police songs that they've never before performed live, and production-wise, "it's going to be three guys on stage, that's all. Simple but spectacular."
Tickets for the Toronto show -- priced $225, $95 and $59.50 -- go on sale Saturday at TicketMaster, the Air Canada Centre box office (no first-day sales), by phone at (416) 870-8000, or online at ticketmaster.ca or livenation.com. There is a limit of four tickets per person.
For ticket price and ordering information for the Montreal and Vancouver shows, go to livenation.com or thepolicetour.com.
POLICE STORY
1977: Stewart Copeland and Sting form the Police along with guitarist Henri Padovani, who soon is replaced by Andy Summers.
1978: Sign with A&M. Roxanne released. It fails to chart.
First album, Outlandos d'Amour, released.
So Lonely released as a single.
1979: Re-released Roxanne hits No. 12 on U.K. charts.
Second album, Reggatta de Blanc, released with single Message in a Bottle going to No. 1 in Britain.
1980: Third album, Zenyatta Mondatta, released. Band's North American breakthrough.
Don't Stand So Close to Me group's second No. 1 single in the U.K.
1981: Ghost in the Machine, band's fourth album, released. No. 1 in the U.K. and No. 2 in the U.S. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic biggest hit to date.
Named Best British Group at the first Brit Awards.
1983: Return with album Synchronicity, No. 1 in U.K. and U.S. A blockbuster on the strength of Every Breath You Take, one of the biggest American hits of all time.
King of Pain and Wrapped Around Your Finger become hits, sending Synchronicity to multi-platinum status.
During record-breaking world tour, personal and creative tensions escalate greatly.
Band goes on "sabbatical" to pursue outside interests.
Sting embarks on a hugely successful solo career.
1986: Band plays an Amnesty International concert and attempts to record new tracks for a greatest-hits album. Studio session, however, unravel.
1992: Greatest Hits album released in the U.K.
2003: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, performing Roxanne, Message In a Bottle and Every Breath You Take live, as a group.
2007: Reunite for 30th anniversary to perform Roxanne at Grammy Awards. Announce North America tour.