Thai wins top film prize at Cannes

Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Palme d'Or top prize at the Cannes film festival for a surreal reincarnation tale, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who plays a terminally-ill hustler in Biutiful by Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, shared the best actor award with Italy's Elio Germano.

And France's Juliette Binoche was named best actress for her role as an unhappy antiques dealer in Certified Copy by Iran's Abbas Kiarostami.

Apichatpong's was a surprise best film winner after critics strongly tipped French director Xavier Beauvois, who took the runner-up Grand Prix for Of Gods and Men, about Catholic monks threatened by Islamists in Algeria.

"This is like another world for me... this is surreal," Apichatpong told a packed festival hall after receiving the Palme d'Or from the head of the festival jury, US film-maker Tim Burton.

The 39-year-old director thanked "the spirits... in Thailand that surrounded us" while making the film, a hypnotic tale featuring a humanoid monkey ghost and a disfigured princess having sex with a catfish.

Frenchman Mathieu Amalric won the best director prize for "On Tour," about a troupe of buxom American stripteasers touring French seaside towns, while South Korean director Lee Chang-Dong's Poetry scooped best screenplay.

Hundreds of celebrity-spotters lined the waterfront around the festival hall ahead tonight's gala ceremony.

Critics have widely pegged this year's edition of the world's biggest film festival as more low-key than usual, with fewer big stars and hit movies.

But the main competition still drew some big names, including three former Palme winners: Britons Mike Leigh and Ken Loach plus Kiarostami.

Five Asian works were competing today, including another South Korean film, The Housemaid.

Cannes had asked Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi to sit on the jury but he was prevented from attending. He has been in jail in Tehran since March, accused by authorities of planning a film against the country's Islamic leaders.

The French government and the festival demanded Panahi's release and the film-maker himself spoke out against his detention in a letter to Cannes organisers.

Controversy also erupted over "Outside the Law", a violent thriller about Algeria's independence struggle which sparked rowdy demonstrations by protestors who accused director Rachid Bouchareb of rewriting history.

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Brittany Murphy's husband found dead at home

LOS ANGELES: The husband of Brittany Murphy was found dead at his Los Angeles home late Sunday, five months after the Hollywood actress died, police said.

The preliminary cause of the death of British screenwriter Simon Monjack is natural causes, police spokesman Sgt. Louie Lozano said.

"We concluded there no signs of foul play or any criminal activity involved," said Sgt. Alex Ortiz, another police spokesman.

Firefighters responding to an emergency call from a woman at 9:40pm found the 39-year-old Monjack dead at the Hollywood Hills residence, police spokesman Sgt. Louie Lozano said. Ortiz said he didn't know who called. Monjack and Murphy had shared their home with Murphy's mother, Sharon.

Ortiz said that the Los Angeles Coroner's Office was taking over the investigation because criminal activity had been ruled out, and would provide more details later on the death and circumstances surrounding it.

At his wife's funeral in December, a visibly emotional Monjack talked about their relationship and called her his best friend and soulmate. The two married in 2007. He had said that they had been planning a family and
contemplating a move to New York.

Murphy, best known for her major roles in ``Clueless,'' ``Girl Interrupted,'' and ``8 Mile'' in 2002, died Dec. 20, at age 32 after collapsing in her home. The Los Angeles County coroner's office concluded Murphy's death was accidental, but likely preventable.

Monjack is credited as producer and co-writer of the 2001 film ``Two Days, Nine Lives'' and executive producer of the 2006 ``Factory Girl.''

The coroner's report said that the medications found in her system were consistent with treatment of a cold or respiratory infection. Monjack and Murphy's mother had reported the actress was ill with flu-like symptoms in the days before her death.

An autopsy found no evidence that Murphy abused drugs. Investigators had found numerous prescription medications in her home.

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Pic of the Day - 24th May

In this Monday, May 17, 2010 photo, Lisa, a rescued 700-plus pound Yorkshire pig, lays next to Sansa Collins, resident manager at Sanctuary One, a nonprofit animal sanctuary at Double Oak Farm in the Applegate Valley, Oregon. (Photo: AP)

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