Maddin’s Dracula wins top prize in Prague

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/05/2002 (8848 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GUY MADDIN’S film Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary has been awarded The Golden Prague (grand top prize) at the 39th International Television Festival Golden Prague, a prestigious television festival honouring excellence in music programming.

Set to the music of Gustav Mahler and choreographed by Mark Godden for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Maddin’s film was praised by the festival jury as “a high-quality work on every level.”

“It takes the old silent movie genre and transforms it into expressive contemporary art form,” said the jury citation. “It stands by itself as a work of art.”

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We tend to believe that modern stars are the most self-indulgent, excessive bunch of celebrities to ever walk the earth.

Allow Irwin Winkler to set you straight. Winkler is the producer of the Jennifer Lopez film Enough. Go back a few decades, and you’ll note he was also the producer of a 1967 film titled Double Trouble starring another crossover pop/movie star named Elvis Presley.

In terms of entourage numbers, Winkler says Elvis wins hands-down.

“Elvis had more bodyguards than Jennifer,” Winkler says. “He had 32 guys working for him and each one, by the way, had a Cadillac convertible.

“So compared to Jennifer, forget about it. I think she has one (bodyguard).”

Winkler suggests that the bigger the entourage, the more removed you may be from reality. To illustrate, he offers an anecdote about Presley during the shooting of Double trouble on the MGM movie lot:

“He had his big limousine and the guys would be in the back with him and every day, as they headed for the gate to get out of the studio, they would say, ‘OK, Elvis, get down on the floor.’ He’d get down on the floor of the car and they would cover him over with a blanket, so that the crowds outside didn’t mob the car,” Winkler says.

“But the truth of the matter is: There was nobody there any more. But he was under that blanket and either he didn’t want to know or they didn’t want to tell them, so they kept him under the blanket,” he says.

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Want to win a double pass to a screening of the film Insomnia next Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Silver City Polo Park?

It can be done. Simply e-mail the answers to the following questions to randall.king@freepress.mb.ca before 11 a.m. today (one entry per person please) along with your name and daytime phone number. Winners will be notified by e-mail and must pick up their passes from the Winnipeg Free Press reception desk at 1355 Mountain Ave. by 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 22. (Reception desk hours are weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.) One entry per person, please.

1. Rob Reiner plays Tom Hanks’ best friend in what 1993 comedy?

2. Johnny Depp learns the hard way that staying awake equals staying alive in what 1985 Wes Craven shocker?

3. Insomnia is a remake of a 1997 Swedish film starring a Swedish actor who starred opposite Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting. Name him.