By Charles Lyons
NEW YORK (Variety) - The National Board of Review has singled out Fox's Moulin Rouge as best picture of 2001.
The honors are the first in the award season, which culminates with the Academy Awards on March 24.
Miramax Films' In the Bedroom nabbed director and screenplay honors for first-time writer-director Todd Field, who co-wrote the script with Rob Festinger.
Field said: "I feel deeply touched to be held in such esteem by the National Board of Review."
After hearing of the Moulin kudos, helmer Baz Luhrmann told Daily Variety, "As we all know, it was a very difficult film to make. We had the simple mission of trying to reinvent the musical as a popular form today. Art isn't a horse race, but being recognized in this way is a great thing."
Animated feature honors went to DreamWorks' Shrek, while Lions Gate's Amores Perros nabbed foreign film prize. Billy Bob Thornton won best actor for his combined work in Monster's Ball, The Man Who Wasn't There and Bandits; and Halle Berry won as actress for Monster's Ball.
Jon Voight won a career achievement award, while the Billy Wilder Award for excellence in directing will be bestowed upon Steven Spielberg. For his work on the epic The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson nabbed the NBR's award for special achievement in filmmaking, and the picture also won for production design.
The NBR, founded in l908 as a censorship board with the mandate to bestow viewing age recommendations on pictures, has evolved as an organization of New York lawyers, teachers, editors and others who form a loose film appreciation society.
© Reuters/Variety REUTERS