BBC - Films - High Noon - 23rd February 2004

		Awards Awards Awards Uncle High Noon is sorry it's late but illness and holiday has decimated the office and we had to watch Halle Berry 'chiller' Gothika this morning, which is so bad we're shocked... ...almost as shocked (nice link!) as the audience at the Screen Actors' Guild awards, when Johnny Depp was named best thesp for Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl, beating dead cert Sean Penn. Charlize Theron won best actress for playing a serial killer in Monster, while Renée Zellweger (Cold Mountain) grabbed a supporting actress award to go with her BAFTA. Tim Robbins received the supporting actor bookend, for Mystic River. The thesps of The Lord Of The Rings: The Lord Of The Rings were named best ensemble cast. It was a weekend of backslapping, with the Writers Guild Of America announcing its gongs, too. Sofia Coppola received an Oscar boost when Lost In Translation was named best original screenplay, while writer-directors Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman were given the best adapted gong for American Splendor... And in yet more awards news, the Cesars (aka French Oscars) gave the rather lovely The Barbarian Invasions best picture, best director and best screenplay. Mystic River was named best foreign flick.

		Streisand A Focker? Barbra Streisand is close to coming aboard Meet The Fockers. Ben Stiller, who wants her to play his mum (and Dustin Hoffman's hubby) in the sequel to Meet The Parents, told BBCi FILMS, "It's looking good. We start shooting in April and we're hoping [she'll sign]. I mean, there's nobody else I can see in the role."

		Void Takes Top Spot Fresh from winning best British film at the BAFTAs, Kevin Macdonald's Touching The Void has clambered past Bowling For Columbine to become the most commercially successful documentary ever at the UK box office... Pedro Almodóvar's new movie, Bad Education, will open the Cannes Film Festival... And finally, 24 star Elisha Cuthbert will topline a remake of 1953 horror flick House Of Wax. The original starred Vincent Price as a mad prof who fills his museam with wax-coated humans. The rejigged version will take this concept into teen slasher territory (surprise), with (spit now) Gothika production house Dark Castle in charge. The horror, the horror... indeed.