Another Prize for Lost In Translation

The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in festive Aspen concluded on Saturday:

Sofia Coppola’s observation of two Americans marooned in Tokyo won the audience, performance (Bill Murray), first-time director and screenplay prizes at the festival’s second annual Comedy Film Honors.

Last Sunday, Coppola won the Academy Award for her original screenplay. The Aspen event’s director honor went to Christopher Guest for “A Mighty Wind.”

As part of the festival’s expanded Film Discovery Program, “Napoleon Dynamite,” a loser-makes-good comedy by Jared Hess, won the award for best feature, while “My Date With Drew,” which co-stars Corey Feldman [Corey’s back!] and follows a regular guy who is in love with Drew Barrymore, nabbed the audience award. “Nobody Is Perfect,” directed by and starring Hank Azaria, won the best short film accolade.

Other films that had festivalgoers buzzing included “Mail Order Bride” and Sundance sensation “Super Size Me,” about a healthy man who risks his life to eat at McDonald’s exclusively for a month; the latter is set to reach theaters in May.

Elsewhere, Al Madrigal went home with the jury award for best standup performer after entertaining audiences with stories about his Mexican background and how it affects his world view. Madrigal was just a few days ago cast in the David Schwimmer-directed NBC pilot “Home and Hardware.”

….This year’s AFI Star Award at USCAF went to Diane Keaton, who also received a standing ovation. In addition to discussing her relationships with Woody Allen and Al Pacino, Keaton claimed she was “a loser and not very popular in high school.”

She also said that film comedy “deserves more than it gets,” particularly at the Oscars, which tend to ignore comedies.

Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker left Aspen with the AFI Filmmaker Award for putting the genre of spoof comedies on the map. David Zucker, who directed last year’s third installment of the “Scary Movie” franchise, said he expects writing on the fourth part to start this fall with a release to come in 2005. [Hollywood Reporter]

I have to get the DVDs of Lost In Translation and A Mighty Wind – procrastinate no more, I say to myself with vigor.