True Grit gets a trailer

Ah, bless those Coens. Nothing gets me happy that awards season is approaching like the chance to see a new Coen Brothers film. And here we have reigning Best Actor Jeff Bridges in a role that nabbed John Wayne his only Oscar. Add in Matt Damon and Josh Brolin and a reputedly more faithful rendering of Charles Portis' novel and this all looks like true greatness yet again.

Apple.com has the exclusive trailer linked below and in the right-hand trailer bar.

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/truegrit/

Latest screening: Winter's Bone

Winter’s Bone is bleak. There’s no denying that fact. It deals with a young woman in a tough situation in a brutal environment surrounded by unlikeable characters. It is therefore all the more impressive that this is such an engaging and stunning piece of cinema.

Eschewing the sorts of back-water clichés (both in character development, or lack thereof, and plot-points) any Hollywood film would embrace to throw against the heroine Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) Winter’s Bone manages to wring real, believable characters from even its most loathsome of antagonists. Every moment of the film from quiet trekking across a barren landscape to familial pleasures and concerns to moments of disturbing violence, threat and discovery is treated with a sense of absolute truth

Nothing feels false here and there isn’t a performance that lets it down, even the young kids that play Ree’s younger siblings can’t be faulted and Dale Dickey, probably best known as trailer-trash hooker Patty in sitcom My Name Is Earl, pulls off a brilliant job in probably the film’s hardest role – a loathsome bitch matriarchal character who could have, and would have, descended into caricature in most hands.

John Hawkes is equally brilliant as Ree’s uncle Teardrop. His frustrations and fury show in his eyes and despite his slight frame you sense exactly why people in this world might be afraid of and respectful toward him. He is a powder-keg but he has a heart. It is another fine balancing job that could have been overplayed. He could have been a monster yet despite his initially unsympathetic, and at moments appalling, treatment of his niece you understand him and you feel for him. A moment of tension with the local sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) is riveting.

But while surrounded by excellent performances from experienced character actors the film belongs to Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence was very good in the under-seen (but admittedly only so-so) The Burning Plain but is a revelation here. This is breakout stardom good. Lawrence is virtually never off screen and yet holds you enthralled in her quest and trials that you couldn’t tear your eyes away if you tried. I swear there could have been a seven hour cut of this film and no one would get up to even go to the toilet Lawrence’s performance is so compelling.

It will be interesting to see her as Mystique in the new X-Men movie, playing in a role that makes immersive belief much more difficult, because in Winter’s Bone you never doubt her for a second. If you were told this were a documentary you could believe it. In a just world Lawrence would easily walk away with a slew of Best Actress awards this year but small independent films with no star names have trouble getting attention and so I fear it is a very long shot to the gold. Still noms like that for Melissa Leo in Frozen River mean it’s possible. In fact that film and Wendy & Lucy are good examples of films that if you liked them you are sure to love this. Only, Winter’s Bone is far better a film than either.

Director Debra Granik has delivered on every level. This may well be the best film of the year. It certainly is so far.

***** (5 stars)

Recent screening: The Illusionist

Enjoyment of Sylvain Chomet’s delightfully whimsical The Illusionist will likely depend a great deal on how well you know and appreciate the films of Jacques Tati.

As a big fan of Tati films such as M Hulot’s Holiday and especially Mon Oncle (which gets an in-joke poster gag in The Illusionist) I adored Chomet’s film which superbly captures the look, mannerisms and style of Tati.

This was all the more pleasing as going in I had no idea what the film was about. I had no idea of the connection to Tati or the fact it was adapted from one of Tati’s own un-realised screenplays. All I knew was it was the new film from the guy the made the wonderful Belleville Rendez-Vous. When the lead character appeared pre-credits sequence I thought “that looks just like Jacques Tati” but assumed it was a sort of animated cameo. Then once I saw the screenplay credit it became clear that I was about to essentially get to see a new Jacques Tati film in nearly 40 years.

And it didn’t disappoint. Starting out in a slightly similar manner to the Pixar short Presto! it then goes into a beautifully observed whimsical world of a magician struggling to find work as the variety circuit dies out in favour of rock ‘n’ roll groups, and his relationship to a young Scottish girl who in her naivety misunderstands an act of kindness for genuine magic and makes ever increasing demands on the poor man’s dwindling fortunes.

It is the kind of beautifully observed mix of humour and pathos that made Tati such a genius of universal appeal. Chomet’s palate and style perfectly compliment the tone of the story and it is impossible not to be swept up in it.

Any Tati fan will delight at this film. It is my feeling even those unfamiliar with Tati’s works (and if you are seek out the Hulot comedies now) will still love this film, but you never know.

**** (4 stars)

Trailers: Hereafter & The Fighter

Two new trailers in the right-hand trailer bar (and linked below). Clint Eastwood is always a significant presence come awards season and Hereafter looks like it could follow his usual pattern. I hear great things about Cecile De France in this film, Damon is riding high on last year's Invictus (also for Eastwood) nomination and also appears in a supporting role in the Coens' True Grit this year - doubling his chances again as he did last year with a lead turn in The Informant! alongside Invictus' supporting role.

This looks to be an Eastwood film with a rare large scale and effects work. He has done large scale with effects before (most recently in the brilliant Letters From Iwo Jima and it's less successful companion picture Flags Of Our Fathers).

Unfortunately for all Eastwood's greatness as a director he has in the past shown a fatal flaw, the selection of unknown/child actors. Few people could dispute that the young actors in Gran Torino were terrible, especially the boy. Here even just a snippet of the boy in Hereafter gives the distinct impression of a terrible, wooden performance. Unfair to judge completely on a moment in a trailer but the kid could once again be the fly in the ointment here.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1274415385/

Then we have The Fighter. What to make of this? I am well on record as a supporter of the boxing film. I believe boxing is the most cinematic of sports subjects. Raging Bull may be my favourite film but there are numerous great films that revolve around boxers and boxing, such as: Rocky and its subsequent sequels, Cinderella Man (ignoring Zellweger), The Hurricane, Girlfight, Ali, Million Dollar Baby and Somebody Up There Likes Me.

The Fighter looks good. Generally i don't like Mark Wahlberg but he just got in my good books by being funnier than Will Ferrell in The Other Guys and this looks like one of those roles he can pull off. Add in the always good Amy Adams (although i admit to not having seen the apparently wretched Leap Year) and a typically immersive supporting turn from Christian Bale (is this finally the year he'll get a long overdue nomination?) and i'm there.

Of course it is David O Russell who made the irritatingly smug I Heart Huckabees and comes off as a total ass! But then he also did the great Three Kings, so i'll give him a pass.

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2330986777/

Honorary Oscars for Coppola, Godard, Wallach

The Academy announced the recipients of this year's honorary Governor's Awards today and they include three legends.

Director Francis Ford Coppola, best known for his seminal Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now (i also always loved The Conversation) will be honoured.

The great Eli Wallach will be recognised. The actor is now in his 7th decade of making movies and had roles in both The Ghost Writer and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps this year. He is probably best remembered as the hapless Tuco in The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (left) and as the villainous bandit in The Magnificent Seven.

French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, director of such new wave classics as A Bout De Souffle and Masculin Feminin, will also receive the award.

Black Swan trailer

Okay, so after 4 months of astonishing slackness i'm going to try and boot this thing up again (took me three goes to get my password correct!) since awards season is getting going with all the Venice, Toronto, London etc Film Festival line-up announcements coming thick and fast.

One of the most anticipated titles coming up (if you're me) is Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan and the trailer (out today) makes it look as great as i'd have hoped. With a cast including the disturbingly beautiful Natalie Portman, the ridiculous cute Mila Kunis, 80s elfin crush Winona Ryder and some French bloke called Vincent Cassel (coming off the awesome Mesrine films) this looks to be a winner. And Barbara Hershey is in it. First Debra Winger in Rachel Getting Married 2 years ago and now Babs. All we need is Kelly McGillis and the where-are-they-now? of 80s leading ladies will be complete.

I've also updated the trailer bar on the right with the latest trailers for a few other upcoming films, including the brilliant looking (and well buzzed) Get Low, James L Brooks' latest How Do You Know, Paul Haggis' remake of Pour Elle titled The Next Three Days, and another buzz title Love And Other Drugs.


For Black Swan check this out:

http://uk.eonline.com/uberblog/b195828_natalie_portman_ballet_showgirls_black.html?utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=imdb_uk_topstories

Hilarious and sad and true! Brilliant breakdown of a Nicholas Sparks' movie

Click on the above image to see it bigger (and more readable)!

This piece from Cracked.com is pure gold. Personally i actually kind of liked The Notebook but that's more to do with a love of Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling than anything else and was the first 'Sparks' movie i'd seen.

The centre piece image from the article (above) is spot on (especially the poster designer bit which cracked me up) but it's worth reading the whole piece as Sparks sounds like a colossal douche!

http://www.cracked.com/funny-4725-nicholas-sparks/

Contenders? A look ahead to the 2010 awards slate possibilities

With the date for next year’s Oscars announced Friday as February 27th, 2011 (back in its standard time frame after this year’s push back to avoid Winter Olympics competition) and the BAFTAs now announced as February 13th, 2011 it clearly has to be time to look ahead to some of the potential contenders for the 2010 Awards.

Of course in a perfect world it would be a three horse race between The Expendables, Machete and Predators, but I can’t help thinking that even if the Academy extended the Best Picture nominees from 10 to 100 none of these would be likely to get a look in. Call me crazy!

So just a scant 11 months away from the big night what is currently on my horizon as seeming like potential Oscar bait?

True Grit – Any of the following would be enough to get this film consideration: The Coen Brothers writing and directing; Roger Deakins on as DP for a western; Oscar-winner Jeff Bridges taking on the role of Rooster Cogburn that won John Wayne his only acting Oscar; Josh Brolin and Matt Damon in the supporting cast. The combination of all these things surely makes this a sure fire front-line contender.

Hereafter – Okay so I say this about the new Clint Eastwood movie every year and some years it proves more true than others, but frankly Eastwood could send a CCTV tape into the Academy and drum up at least a couple of nominations so a reteam with Matt Damon (nominated this year in Eastwood’s Invictus) seems a good bet.

Get Low – The reputation preceding this film regarding veteran actor Robert Duvall’s performance alone puts this in the “pay attention” stakes. Add Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray and the Academy will be considering this.

The Fighter – (Pictured above). I’m not a fan of David O Russell but a true-story, boxing themed picture starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo screams Oscar potential. Three of those four actors have had Oscar nomintions in the past 3 years, and the insane thing is Bale is the one who hasn’t. On set pictures suggest he’s pulled a Machinist-style body transformation for this one. Could Bale finally be set for the Oscar recognition he deserves? I’m betting yes.

Love And Other Drugs – Another one with incredible early word. The IMDb tries to tell you this is a rom com, which doesn’t sound very Oscars, but this has Ed Zwick (Glory, Last Samurai) directing Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, with Hathaway already being lauded for her portrayal of a woman with early-onset Parkinsons disease. Hathaway seems much loved in Hollywood and after her stunning role in Rachel Getting Married at this early stage she seems a good bet for one of the 5 best actress nominees. And it had nudity which is one of those hallmarks of “serious actress” roles – see Hathaway’s own turn in Brokeback Mountain (with Gyllenhaal) or Halle Berry’s Oscar-winning turn in Monster’s Ball.

127 Hours – Danny Boyle directing the underrated James Franco (overdue some Oscar recognition – Milk anyone?) in the true story of a mountain climber trapped under a rock for 5 days who eventually cuts his own arm/leg (I forget which, I saw Danny Boyle talking about it at the end of last year) off in order to escape/survive. Harrowing, grueling, all about the acting. Hello Mr Oscar, sign me up!

The Greatest – There’s no shortage of opportunities for this year’s Best Actress nominee Carey Mulligan (who should have won) to get another nomination next year. One possibility is for supporting actress (always a sure fire-win for a young actress with a Best Actress loss under her belt) in The Greatest. This romantic drama weepy seems a bit like Moonlight Mile from about 8 years back based on the trailer below. Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon (also in Moonlight Mile) are parents whose son (Aaron Johnson) is kicked in a car accident and find themselves having to deal through their grief with the pregnant girlfriend of their son (who they don’t really know and Sarandon dislikes). That would be Mulligan sporting a flawless American accent. This is early in the year though in the US so may only have Bafta potential.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/videonews.php?id=64355

Never Let Me Go – The other (and stronger) Mulligan shot also would likely see her in a push for supporting actress (seriously, add Wall Street 2 into the mix – who knows how big her role as Gordon Gekko’s daughter is – and Mulligan could have supporting actress sown up one way or the other already). Never Let Me Go sees Mark Romanek finally back behind the camera for the first time since the brilliant (and vastly underrated) One Hour Photo in 2002. Based on the novel by Kasuo Ishiguro (Remains Of The Day) and starring Keira Knightley, Mulligan and the ever excellent Andrew Garfield this should get attention unless it proves to be a real clunker!

Blue Valentine – A relationship drama starring two of the best young actors around (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams – both past Oscar nominees) that was one of the hits of Sundance? Yup, Oscars beckon.

The Way Back – Peter Weir is a superb director and he’s making his way back here after 7 years away (since Master & Commander) with a 1940s-set true story about soldiers trying to escape from Siberia (I think). Colin Farrell and Ed Harris star.

The Descendants – Alexander Payne steps back behind the camera for the first time since 2004’s Sideways and has George Clooney in the lead as a widower searching, with his two daughters, for his late wife’s lover. This one should at least garner attention.

The American – Clooney again as Anton Corbijn follows up the excellent Control with the story of an assassin. So Clooney in lighter Payne-directed mode (Up In The Air Clooney) or in more serious mode (Michael Clayton Clooney)? Perhaps both! I bet he’s in the actor race somewhere though.

How Do You Know? – equally bound to get viewed at the very least is this rom com for the simple reason it’s the new James L Brooks. Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson star and rumour has it Brooks’ lucky charm Jack Nicholson is along for the ride.

Another Year – Lesley Manville stars in the new Mike Leigh, whose films are always cause for celebration and awards attention. Plus Imelda Staunton and Jim Broadbent feature. Typically though no clues as to the plot or even tone.

Betty Anne Waters – look out Oscar voters Hilary Swank is back with another true story portrayal. Oscar experts Fox Searchlight are distributing this story of a high-school drop-out single-mother (I may have just worn out my hyphen key!) who puts herself through law school to defend her brother, wrongfully accused of murder. Sam Rockwell (as the brother) may finally get the Oscar recognition he deserves (and deserved this past year for Moon).

The King’s Speech – wait a minute this year’s Oscar-loser Colin Firth following up his best ever performance (in A Single Man) by playing King George VI. Support from Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Michael Gambon and Sir Derek Jacobi. Hello consecutive nominations for Mr Firth!

Black Swan – okay so it has a supernatural bent but Darren Aronofsky knows how to deliver a damn fine film and he has a cast including Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Winona Ruder and Barbara Hershey to help him. No shoe in but can’t be ruled out either.

Inception – Chris Nolan steps away from the bat for a thriller that looks to be a mind-bender but that little is known about. Of course what is known is that Nolan has assembled a phenomenal cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy); and that the man has never made a bad film. Stepping away from Batman may make the academy take him a little more seriously for once (and they already took notice with nominations for both Bat-films, even if not the big ones).

The Rum Diary – No idea what to make of this long gestating film but you can never ignore Johnny Depp and the return of Withnail & I’s Bruce Robinson to the director’s chair after nearly 20 years makes it a must see at least.

The Social Network – David Fincher telling the story of Facebook’s creation? Could be brilliant, could me a major WTF? It seems an odd, and therefore intriguing, match of director and subject. I love (LOVE) Fincher’s Zodiac so hoping this true story proves as intriguing (because frankly the subject matter doesn’t do anything for me).

Tree Of Life – Terrence Malick directs Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. Unless it’s a train wreck (and yes, I did see The New World so I know how possible that is!) this is surely an Oscar voters must-see at least. Rumour has it it may first see the light of day in Cannes so that may tell us more if it happens (of course Malick will have to stop tinkering for that!).

There are of course numerous others. We could bring up Toy Story 3 which, as a Pixar film, has already locked a slot in the Best Animated Feature category.

Then there’s films from industry stalwarts Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island) and Ridley Scott (Robin Hood), but Shutter Island feels too early and not good enough. It’s a better film than The Departed but Scorsese has his Oscar now and Shutter isn’t good enough to stay in voters minds for 10 months IMHO. Robin Hood is another “we’ll see come Cannes” one but the uninspired trailering makes it look more Kingdom Of Heaven than Gladiator, and both the Ridley/Russell/period epic and Robin Hood story in general feel very “been there, seen that” so I don’t expect big things or awards attention for this unless if really surprises and knocks it out of the park. Time will tell.

Oh, my! Predators looking pretty cool!

There are three big, stupid, old-school action movies this year and i'm excited for all three, but Predators didn't make my top 10 most anticipated films of the year, whereas Machete (co-directed by Predators' producer and co-writer Robert Rodriguez) and The Expendables did. Why? Casts, plain and simple.

The Expendables has the greatest action cast ever assembled full stop (Stallone, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Schwarzenegger, Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Terry Crews, etc) while Machete places kick-ass supporting actor Danny Trejo front and center and surrounds him with about the most eclectic cast of all time (Robert DeNiro, Steven Seagal, Jessica Alba and Lindsey Lohan all in one movie! That's just plain bizarre!)

But now Rodriguez has posted some behind-the-scenes footage from Predators on the official website (and a trailer is due later this week) which gives a better concept of what the intention is on this sequel/reboot of the franchise which saw one of the best action films of the 80s, followed by a pretty decent and underrated sequel before being butchered in the past 5 years by the AvP films.

Frankly if there a man for the job of overseeing a reboot of this material Rodriguez with this genre, action, kick-ass, entertainment approach (see From Dusk Till Dawn, The Faculty, Desperado, Planet Terror) is the perfect man.

This footage gives me hope and boosts Predators up my must-sees for 2010:

http://www.predators-movie.com/

Bullock: Oscars & Razzies - how make a speech

I haven’t seen The Blind Side so I can’t comment on Sandra Bullock’s worthiness to win the Oscar Sunday night, but everything about her conduct over the awards weekend justifies it in my book.

Firstly there was the Oscar speech. Easily the best of the night and arguably the best Best Actress acceptance in modern history. It seemed genuine. It had emotion but neither the histrionics of a Halle Berry or a Gwyneth Paltrow nor the forced “look at me emote” of Nicole Kidman. It was funny, from the self deprecating opening of “did I really earn this, or did I just wear y’all down?” to the references. Even when the emotions took over with tributes to her mother she still threw in several funnies and ended on that note too. Often winners evoke the brilliance of their fellow nominees and it is always a hideous, false gush, but not from Bullock, again she seemed genuine and was funny (and thankfully unlike Kate Winslet from last year did remember all of them – she forget Angelina!)

I also like the idea of films like Speed and Demolition Man playing on TV with an “Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock” slogan!

The win also made it a good showing for stars of the 1993 remake of The Vanishing, with both Bullock and Jeff Bridges winning. I bet Kiefer Sutherland and Nancy Travis wish they’d done supporting performances this year.

But ultimately the main reason you have to love her and give her the award is her appearance at and acceptance speech for Worst Actress (for All About Steve) at the Razzie Awards Saturday night – complete with DVD copies of All About Steve for all the members of the audience. She was gracious and hilarious – funnier than she’s been on film in years – and frankly utterly loveable.

This simply demands to be watched:

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/16553/golden-idol-spirit-awards-the-razzies

She’s never been in a position to win an Oscar prior to The Blind Side and she may never be again and so this seems fine. I would have liked Carey Mulligan to win, but I have no doubt given her extraordinary talent that she’ll have many, many more opportunities.

This was a Bullock version of Julia Roberts’ Erin Brockovich win.

Don’t know what the film is like but after her Razzies and Oscars performances I’m glad I’ll be able to revisit Speed 2: Cruise Control and Love Potion #9 with the knowledge I’m watching Oscar-quality acting (sort of!)

New Trailers: Two of the best for 2010?

New trailers for Iron Man 2 and Tron Legacy here. Finally get to see a bit more about what the new Tron film is about, so next up from Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges is...

http://www.program-glitch-esc.net/

Meanwhile having not survived Iron Man Bridges won't feature in Iron Man 2 but this trailer suggests it'll do just fine without him:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/

Now all we need is a True Grit trailer (which, as it has only just started shooting is likely to be a good 6 months plus away) to complete the Bridges related 2010 joy.

And if you haven't seen his Oscar-winning turn in Crazy Heart yet stop reading this now and go out and see it immediately.

The Dude Abides!

The BAFTAs: An assessment

It proved a good night at the Baftas last night as pretty much all the right films and performances won. Even the annual jingoism award, which inevitably crops up in an acting category, seemed justified: Colin Firth’s superb, career-best performance in A Single Man (and I won £50 on that so it pleased me!). Plus Firth gave the best speech of the night in his fantastically laconic tone. Note here that Carey Mulligan’s win doesn’t count as jingoism since hers was far and away the best performance in the category.

Mulligan’s win was of course a highlight. Expected but thoroughly deserved and it feels like a justification to those of us who have been banging on about how good she is and how big she was destined to be for the past 3-4 years. She also wins best dressed. She looked fantastic.

Equally great was Moon’s win at the top of the night for Duncan Jones as best first-time director. Love the film and so glad it didn’t go to Sam Taylor Wood’s uninspired Nowhere Boy.

Of course The Hurt Locker’s 6 wins, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, was the triumph of the night. It was my vote for Best Film and I’m glad to see it beat out Avatar – though I think this was pretty expected at the Baftas despite what American publications like Variety say about “surprises”. I was particularly pleased here to see Mark Boal take screenplay over Quentin Tarantino (which also happened at the WGA Awards Saturday night). This is great because as good as QT’s dialogue is that script just lay there on the page. Tarantino made a hugely enjoyable, well crafted film but I had despised it in script form when I had read it a year earlier and it really showed me that Tarantino’s true talent lies in his direction, the way he brings together all the great elements behind and in front of the camera, not his writing. Sure he writes great dialogue but Hurt Locker deserved this win and I thought it was the one they might not get.

I was disappointed that Up’s fairly twee score got Best Music. Coraline’s (unnominated) score was far superior, and of the nominees Crazy Heart deserved the win. But then Crazy Heart, much as I loved it, never felt to me like a film that was going to gel with Bafta voters (hence, my placing the bet on Firth to beat bookie favourite Jeff Bridges).

I also would have liked to see Coraline win Best Animated Film. I don’t want to come off like an Up hater. I’m not, I loved it. But there was something so fresh and brilliant about Coraline that I would have liked to see it buck the Pixar-win-trend.

As disappointed as I was by the inevitable win of Kristen Stewart for the Orange Rising Star Award (or Jello BAFTA as I call that hideous statue) over Mulligan we all knew thanks to Twilight and it being the public-vote award that this would happen. What provided the silver lining though was that Stewart seemed genuinely embarrassed to have won, clearly knowing it was only due to the obsessive Twilight fans and not really because of how people felt about her work. And let’s be fair, Stewart really impressed in Sean Penn’s Into The Wild and was great in last year’s Adventureland; and she also seems to go out of her way to make a lot of small budget indies inbetween Twilight sequels like this week’s domestic opener The Yellow Handkerchief, Sundance films Welcome To The Rileys and The Runaways. In fact Stewart gave the distinct impression in her exception speech that she wasn’t terribly enamoured of Twilight fans – not that I’m sure they’d notice. Plus Mulligan was always going to win Best Actress so it all evened out.

The “lack of imagination” award (or Costume Design as it’s generally known) predictably went to uninspired costume drama The Young Victoria. Why imaginative works of genius like The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus consistently get overlooked here is beyond me but on the plus side it did lead to winner Sandy Powell dedicating here award to the woman who had cut her costumes for years and died after Young Victoria before accidently calling her “replaceable” – brilliant!

James Corden scored good laughs as a presenter (Nick Frost died on his arse with his attempts at humour) but one of the best laughs of the night was a cut to Avatar producer Jon Landau after he was named-checked in the acceptance speech for Production Design, where he was clearly about to doze off.

The reel of Vanessa Redgrave’s acting history reminded us how great an actress she is and how much she deserved the Fellowship; and then her off-the-wall rambling bonkers speech (who knew Rosalind in Shakespeare’s As You Like It said “Thank you Bafta”?!) reminded us how true her reputation for being bat-shit crazy is. She’s basically our Shirley Maclaine!

Amongst a generally good evening though my biggest disappointment was finding out that Lord Attenborough had chosen as his successor as president of the academy Prince William. Ugh! What a step backwards. I’ve rarely agreed with any Dickie sentiment and this seems typical Dickie but I think is a mistake. It should have been kept in industry. Perhaps Lord Puttnam for instance.

Picture of the year?! Genius on the Goya red carpet

I for one was thrilled to see the brilliant prison riot drama Cell 211 (Celda 211) triumph at the Goya Awards at the weekend with 8 awards including Best Film.

However the highlight of the event has to be the above red carpet moment from presenters Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. This photo is surely a picture captioners dream. Everything works for comedy - Penelope's stance, her expression, her head tilt; Bardem's stance, his smile, the fact you can't see his hands; the publicists apparent attempt to not notice anything; the crowd's (especially the bald gent) clear focus on Penelope's posterior. It may be my favourite red carpet photo ever. I applaud the photographer that took it. You sir (or madam) deserve your own award!

Steven Soderbergh - how many films can this guy make in a year?

News stories abound today of Steven Soderbergh’s new film casting up, with Matt Damon and Jude Law on board and Marion Cotillard and Kate Winslet in negotiations.

So they must be in Knockout, right? No, wait that’s already filming. Then Cleo that 3D musical with Catherine Zeta Jones must be back in the offing, no? No! Could they be joining Mr CZJ (Michael Douglas) is the much touted Liberace film? They’re not?

No this film, apparently set to shoot in the autumn after he’s finished up on Knockout, is called Contagion.

Is it me or is Soderbergh on a one-man mission to contradict all the directors who go on about how hard work making a film is and how it takes up “two-three years of your life”. You hear that time and again.

Soderbergh has made 14 films in the past decade. 14! Yes, okay, that includes Eros which was only a segment of a 3-part anthology film and both parts of Che but still…

He had 2 films out in 2000 (Erin Brockovich & Traffic), 2002 (Solaris & Full Frontal), 2008 (both Che films), 2009 (The Girlfriend Experience & The Informant!) and has hardly been slacking in the years between.

Also you look at some of the titles and wonder is he deliberately trying to tell other directors and the industry how easy it is. His constant “Traffic” of films is “Out Of Sight”. He’s upfront about how to get a film made fast and effectively, even acting as his own DP. You could say he makes his views “Full Frontal”. He is an “Informant!” for the red camera and making films quickly and cheaply, living in a “Bubble”.

He is constantly knocking another one out (see his latest film title) and they come thick and fast like a “Contagion”.

I think he is actively goading the film industry. With his titles he’s going “look at me and get your act together”. I greatly look forward to his future films “Better Than You” and his “Fast & Furious” remake!

Top 12 Oscar "what the...?!" moments of the last decade

The Oscars come in for a lot of criticism. Rightly, in my opinion!

There are always the awards that make you go “what the f*#+?” – the ones that someone wins because they were owed from a recent losing year; or they just should have won by now; or they are the only American in the category; or they are an industry favourite; or the favourite was too “challenging” for many voters; etc.

But some of those that people mention a lot aren’t so bad are they? A lot of people think Star Wars should have won in 1977, but isn’t that like thinking Avatar ought to win this year? Years of nostalgic rose-tinted watching of Star Wars makes people wonder why a film with revolutionary special effects but a sub-par paint-by-numbers script and a lot of lousy acting (not everyone, but a lot of them) didn’t win over the smartly scripted, superbly acted, incredibly inventive Annie Hall. Fact is, Annie Hall deserved its win.

I have to accept this about wins I don’t like. I often disagree (in fact almost always) with the foreign language winner. To me Amelie was far better then No Man’s Land and Pan’s Labyrinth was one of the best film’s of its year, not just foreign language so its loss was astounding to me. But I accept that No Man’s Land is a very good film and The Live Of Others is excellent. They did deserve to win, I just wish they hadn’t come up against something else that deserved to as well.

The last couple of years have brought up prime examples of where I can’t really fault a win over my preference even though personally I disagree.

I love the Coen Brothers and I love No Country For Old Men but for me the raw power and majesty of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood was far superior. Had either film come out in either of the very bland year’s since they’d have walked it easily. Shame they had to go head to head. Last year I loved Mickey Rourke’s performance in The Wrestler and think he deserved to win the Best Actor Oscar that for a while he seemed on course for. Sean Penn won. But I can’t fault that. Penn was superb in Milk. The film was overrated but Penn was stunning. He did deserve to win. So did Rourke but only one man can so…

And then there are those I don’t think deserved to win (the third Lord Of The Rings, The Departed, Rocky, Russell Crowe in Gladiator over Tom Hanks in Cast Away – the man made 2 hours of talking to a volleyball compelling viewing, what more could we possibly ask him to do?!?!?!) but which I can see, and accept, why :– the first one should have won so Jackson was owed; Scorsese was so owed it was ridiculous; it was American feel good (and to be fair decent) movie in a year when the 3 (yes, 3!) far superior nominees had a very negative view of things in American society (Taxi Driver, All The President’s Men, Network); Crowe was owed from The Insider the previous year.

However there are some winners that just make me go “WHAT!!!!!” (like Ordinary People beating Raging Bull – which is just plain nuts!) and so below is my top 12 bad Oscar choices of the past decade (in no order other than chronogical) with my POV:

1. 2000 Best Actress – Julia Roberts beats Ellen Burstyn – Roberts was popular, sure, and she was never better than in Erin Brockovich. Okay. But it was hardly a testing role. Essentially a John Grisham character with a push-up bra Erin Brockovich is the kind of Hollywood version of an everyman character that Hollywood loves to slap itself on the back for but simply doesn’t exist.

Then we have Ellen Burstyn’s phenomenal, raw, disturbingly real portrayal of obsession and addiction in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem For A Dream. There simply is no way Burstyn shouldn’t have won for this and we all know that had she not previous won (in the 70s for Alice Doesn’t Love Here Anymore) she’d have walked this one. Burstyn was plain robbed here.

2. 2001 Best Picture/Director/Adapted Screenplay – A Beautiful Mind beats Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring – Many people viewed Ron Howard as owed, especially after the slight in 1995 when he wasn’t even nominated for the excellent Apollo 13 (which did get a Best Picture nom). And he pretty much carried the solid, but hardly astonishing A Beautiful Mind and its assorted departments to Oscar glory. There were certainly awards it deserved bit these three are definitely nos when you put it up against the first of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy – and let’s not ignore the fact that this gave the writer of Batman & Robin and Lost In Space an Academy Award!

Fellowship Of The Ring was an incredible achievement. Jackson and his cohorts had taken a very very dull book (I’m sorry but the first one really is, nothing happens) about walking and fashioned a compelling, exciting and yet bizarrely pretty faithful movie. A faultless cast (he even got a solid turn out of Orlando Bloom) FOTR had all the magic and whimsy, thrills and drama you could want. It was a true epic that instantly became as impressive a feat of filmmaking as anything released in the preceding decade or more. But it was fantasy – not a popular Oscar genre – so it got all the technicals the genre films are always fobbed off with while some said, well, let’s see the trilogy and see if they’re all this good. The second one was. It didn’t win either (see #5) but that didn’t matter because by now everyone knew it was all being saved up to give Jackson the keys to the kingdom with part 3. And the Oscars trapped themselves in a corner. When Jackson delivered part 3 and it turned out to be a bloated, seemingly never ending, ego-trip that offered nothing new to the trilogy and was the first to fail to match the book, offering zero tension or drama where its predecessors had excelled, the Oscars had no choice, they had to give it the win. People expected it, after all that was why they hadn’t given it to either of the first two.

Fellowship deserved it. It was the best film of the trilogy; the best film of 2001; and it would have saved them face in 2003. Whoops!

3. 2001 Best Supporting Actor – Jim Broadbent over Ben Kingsley – Okay so I love Jim Broadbent, he’s always good and he was typically solid in Iris. It was also the same year that saw him play a very different role in Moulin Rouge! (and close behind his excellent turn in Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy) and it really seems his win here was a combination win for both roles unofficially.

On the other hand we have Sir Ben Kingsley, who frankly is a pretentious ass! But that doesn’t remove the fact that his Don Logan in Sexy Beast was one of the most memorable and exhilarating characters to appear on the big screen in the entire decade. Kingsley was phenomenal in Sexy Beast. If I had to pick the 10 best performances of the 2000s he’d be in the top few and, I’m sorry, but Broadbent wouldn’t feature. This one should have gone to Sir Ben even if he is a prick!

4. 2001 Original Screenplay – Gosford Park – I love Altman and Gosford Park rode to a good haul of Oscar nominations off the back of how much Altman was owed an Oscar. Of course he didn’t win and Gosford Park consolation prize was a screenplay win. Everyone knew it would win this category and it did. But did it deserve to? Gosford Park was a solid script no doubt but this category featured Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach’s masterpiece The Royal Tenenbaums, the Nolan brothers twisty brilliance Memento and Guillaume Laurent and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s incredibly original whimsical fancy Amelie. Did Gosford Park deserve to beat any let alone all of these?

Some controversy that year regarding Memento being in the Original Screenplay category after the film credited it as being adapted from a short story written by Chris Nolan’s brother Jonathan is probably the reason Memento didn’t win. It should have been Memento’s to lose, but if it did Gosford Park was not the one that should have stepped in.

5. 2002 Beat Picture – Chicago beats The Pianist – Chicago is a fun musical with a sensational performance by Catherine Zeta Jones and great male leads in Richard Gere and an undervalued John C Reilly but a Best Picture winner? Essentially feeling like Rob Marshall took a camera into a theatre and just flatly and with little sense of dynamism filmed what was going on on stage (the DGA should be ashamed they gave him a Best Director award for this) is starred a weak-voiced and out-of-her-depth Renee Zellweger as the least sexy Roxie Hart in history. CZJ, Gere, Reilly and a dynamite Queen Latifah couldn’t make up for the director’s and Zellweger’s short-comings. And let’s not forget whatever won this year had to be enough to justify beating the second of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Chicago wasn’t even close.

But then there was The Pianist. It won Best Picture and Director at the Baftas causing a shock and a stir that many credit with its Best Actor and Director wins at the Oscars. It saw Polanski get a deserved (and controversy) Best Director Oscar but they just didn’t have the guts to give the film the win. Shame on them! The Pianist was grueling but stunning cinema. Not just a return to form for Polanski after years of so-so thrillers but a powerful, personal, devastating look at a period that created the artist looking back on it. All the pain in the movie could be palpably felt and every moment rang disturbingly true. The Pianist is Polanski’s masterpiece, more so even than Chinatown. Chicago is forgettable fluff. This win was a travesty.

6. 2002 Best Actress – Nicole Kidman and a plastic nose beat Julianne Moore – One of my deepest disappointments with this year’s Oscar nominations was that the brilliant, memorable supporting turn from the frequently overlooked Julianne Moore in A Single Man was ignored. But the fact remains Moore should have won years ago for her heartbreaking portrayal of the stoic housewife trying to keep everything in her outwardly-seeming-perfect life together as her world changes and collapses. Moore’s turn in Todd Haynes’ beautiful and tragic Far From Heaven is glorious.

What makes her loss worse was she lost to a plastic nose. Nicole Kidman’s bland delivery of Virginia Woolf in The Hours was not even the best female performance in The Hours. Both Meryl Streep and Moore herself were far more compelling and believable but Kidman had the showier role and the “transformative” plastic nose. If anyone was in doubt Kidman’s utterly false acceptance speech proved how overrated she is as an actress. I’ve despised Kidman ever since.

7. 2003 Best Actor – Sean Penn beats Bill Murray – Ah, the old “he’s owed and he’s overacting” thing the Oscars do so well. Like Al Pacino in Scent Of A Woman, Sean Penn’s hugely overacted shouty role in Mystic River was an attention grabber but hardly a great performance. Penn has given thoroughly deserving performances in his career (Dead Man Walking and Milk come most immediately to mind) just as Pacino (Godfather, Serpico) had prior to Scent Of A Woman, but Mystic River wasn’t one of them. The irony is in a typical compelling Clint Eastwood movie he was the weakest of the three leads. Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon’s more subtle, nuanced roles as the other two corners of the disparate friend triangle at the centre of the movie were utterly compelling and felt totally real. As did Laura Linney and Marsha Gay Harden’s supporting female leads. But then right in the middle of it was the over-the-top “look at me I’m ACTING!!!” of Penn. Why Oscar voters frequently seem to buy Acting (with the capital A) over a more subtle and realistic inhabiting of a character (like Bacon’s here) is beyond me. It’s like they’ve never seen films before. It’s like asking a punter down the multiplex who was the best actor – they’ll only remember the big shouty roles too. But as industry insiders – many of whom are actors! – shouldn’t they see the difference?

Well apparently they don’t and Penn’s win here over the desperately sad, painfully real, incredibly subdued, warmly funny and poignant Bill Murray in a career best (career redefining) Lost In Translation is appalling. Murray was never so good. Penn was rarely less deserving. This too is a criminal decision.

8. 2003 Best Supporting Actress – Renee Zellweger over Patricia Clarkson – Patricia Clarkson is like the female Stanley Tucci. She is always brilliant. She steals scenes and entire films over and over again. Yet she remains largely ignored by the academy – probably largely because she makes a lot of independent films which don’t have a studio behind them doing multi-million dollar Oscar campaigns.

In Piece Of April she gives a brutal, real portrayal of a woman fighting, and losing, a battle with cancer. She is mean, funny, irascible, frustrated and altogether human. It’s a slight film but there is nothing slight about Clarkson’s performance. Still (amazingly) her only nomination this should have been Clarkson’s to lose.

However she came up against the utterly miscast and totally ridiculous Renee Zellweger creation Ruby in Cold Mountain. Cold Mountain had Harvey Weinstein and the might of Miramax behind it. Plus Zellweger had lost Best Actress twice is the previous 2 years (for Bridget Jones’s Diary and Chicago). Cold Mountain has the smack of an “owed” Oscar all over it. But why was Zellweger owed? She didn’t deserve to win for Bridget Jones and she didn’t even deserve to be nominated for Chicago, she was the film’s weakest link (see #5 above). This could all be explained if she were extraordinary in Cold Mountain but she isn’t, she’s the most unconvincing farm-hand (or whatever she is, I forget exactly) in modern film.

Her win here is bizarre and inexplicable while Clarkson’s loss is equally so.

9. 2005 Best Picture – Crash wins – I don’t hate Crash but it is an incredibly obvious exercise in “worthy” filmmaking, drafting in an all-star ensemble to grab attention. There’s nothing subtle about Crash and for all it has “to say” on the surface when you look underneath that surface there’s really nothing all that deep to what is has to say. Nothing original. Nothing particularly interesting or surprising. It’s a solidly made, pretty entertaining film.

But then there’s Brokeback Mountain and Good Night, And Good Luck. Both films with incredible depth that didn’t try too hard to impress but simply did by their measured approaches. Films that equally had phenomenal ensemble casts but made up of performances that blended into the whole smoothly without drawing “ooh, look it’s…” comments. Both had deep routed and important messages, ones that are sadly seldom addressed, and certainly not so well. Both were everything Crash was not.

Most people think Brokeback Mountain should have won. Personally I think Good Night, And Good Luck is the best of the three (and indeed one of the best film’s of the decade). But either way Crash should not have won.

10. 2006 Original Screenplay – Little Miss Sunshine beats Pan’s Labyrinth – I enjoyed Little Miss Sunshine. It was fun, slight, but fun. It had a faultless ensemble cast, and no doubt they made the script seem better. The script however strung a few good and a few running gags together before petering out with a “that’s what they came up with” ending.

Pan’s Labyrinth had arguably the most original screenplay of the decade. Now I know “original” screenplay refers to not based on previous material as opposed to original in the ‘unlike anything you’ve read before’ sense but Pan’s Labyrinth thought out every strand, balanced the fantasy and real worlds on a knife-edge with expert skill. It was capable of bringing out emotions and opinions in one viewer that were entirely different from another while allowing both to be right. Some people find the ending heart-rending and tragic, others beautiful and heart-lifting. The skill of the screenplay of Pan’s Labyrinth is really something special. Perhaps rivaled only by the Coen Brothers and There Will Be Blood during the decade there is simply no way Pan’s Labyrinth should have lost out to the entertaining but hardly outstanding whimsy of Little Miss Sunshine.

Unfortunately Oscar has a habit of giving the “little US indie hit made good” the Original Screenplay award as a consolation prize. It’s a habit they need to break, never so clearly proven as here.

11. 2007 Best Visual Effects – The Golden Compass beats Transformers – say what you will about Michael Bay’s bombastic Transformers but ILM’s groundbreaking VFX were astounding. It all got a bit confused in the second film (not nominated this year) but the robot-human interaction in the first film was utterly seemless, the transformations believable. There hadn’t been as convincing an effects movie since LOTR and perhaps even since Jurassic Park, but rumours abound that general bad feeling towards ego-maniac Michael Bay kept Transformers from scoring any wins, even in these technical awards which would have given the hard work of behind the scenes maestros (not Bay) the little gold man.

And so instead they awarded The Golden Compass! Yes, the same Golden Compass with the cartoonish polar bears and Narnia-standard FX. It was one thing not to award a Bay film an Oscar but to give it to such a sub-standard effort as Golden Compass must have been a huge slap in the face. Perhaps that’s why. It probably is. But it’s childish and the fact remains that Transformers not winning this category is perverse.

12. 2008 Best Foreign Language – Departures beats Waltz With Bashir – As I said at the start the foreign language pick often galls me but never more so than last year. Since the Academy insist on foreign language films being seen on a big screen in order to vote in the early stages it tends to lead to older, retired voters who lean toward “Sunday afternoon TV movies your Mum would like” over edgier, darker, tougher fare, dominating this category and leads to the exclusion of films like City Of God and last year’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days from even the nominations. Very original foreign language films (such as Amelie and Pan’s Labyrinth) have a tendency to lose out to more straight-forward dramas that the older voters are more comfortable with.

Last year was such a case. Departures from Japan is a lovely film. There’s nothing very special about it but it does warm your heart and makes for a nice viewing experience for 2 hours. You can sit back and, apart from reading the subtitles, do no work – just letting it wash over you.

Waltz With Bashir is not that. It is an animated documentary-style account of brutal historic events told with a worrying impartiality (worrying to Hollywood and the US which tend to be anything but impartial), while dealing with post-traumatic stress induced hallucinations and nightmares. It is compelling filmmaking and quite simply not just the best foreign language film of 2008 but the best film (full stop) of 2008.


So that’s it. Sure there are other things I disagree with (Alan Arkin winning supporting actor instead of Jackie Earle Haley in 2006; The Fog Of War besting Capturing The Friedmans for Best Documentary Feature for 2003) but these are the 12 I really wish I could go back and correct.

Is this 10 Best Picture nominations such a good idea?

These 10 Best Picture nominations are all well and good but don’t they kind of de-value getting one?

Look at this year’s 10. Can anyone honestly say half (arguably more) of these films will survive in people’s memories beyond this year? I really enjoyed An Education, but Best Picture? A Serious Man feels like it’s there because it’s the Coen brothers rather than really deserving the place. Blind Side, what’s that about?

The main reason I got thinking about this though is the presence of Up.

Pixar churns out a masterpiece so often we’re going to have to invent a new word for them because they are devaluing the concept of masterpieces. You want a masterpiece every so often across the industry not every damn year from the same studio! But many people I know, and I think I’d include myself in this, would argue Up isn’t the best animated film of 2009 – Coraline is.

Others may disagree with that assessment but even so, doesn’t having Up in the Best Picture category (as surely WALL-E would have been last year if there had been 10 and Pixar films going forward may become a regular fixture of) kind of make the Best Animated Feature category a foregone conclusion?

Many think this about the BAFTAs where they have both a Best Film and Best British Film category. Frequently one of the 5 nominations for Best Film is British but this same film fails to win Best British Film. For example the past three years has seen a British film, nominated for Best British Film, win the Best Film category: 2008 – Slumdog Millionaire, 2007 – Atonement, 2006 – The Queen. And yet despite winning Best Film not one of those three managed to win Best British Film! These instead went to: 2008 – Man On Wire, 2007 – This Is England, 2006 – The Last King Of Scotland. This leads to perfectly reasonable queries of “how the hell does that happen?”

But there is actually an explanation for this phenomenon. It’s not a great explanation, but it is at least, well, one. The whole Bafta membership votes to decide both the 5 nominees for Best Film and the eventual winner. However a select committee awards Best British Film so the general consensus of the membership need not be reflected. It may be a bit daft but it explains the disparity.

However, if such a disparity happens at the Oscars such an explanation will not stand. The Best Picture nominations and eventual winner, as I understand it, are the same – selected by the whole membership – so it stands to reason Up is considered the best animated film since it is the only animated film up for Best Picture. However the whole membership also votes for the winner of the Best Animated Feature nominees. Therefore is there anyway in which Up can lose, and if it does it has to leave everyone scratching their head and going “How?”

But the extension of the category to 10 and the inclusion of Up brings up a bigger issue of de-valuation of the category. It was inevitable that the very first report I read about the Oscar nominations after they were announced yesterday would state (and it did) that Up was “only the second animated feature ever to receive a best picture nomination”.

Doesn’t this de-value the nomination for 1991’s Beauty And The Beast. This is truly the only animated film ever to receive a best picture nomination.

Sure the odds were stacked against it happening again once the Best Animated Feature category was introduced. Too many voters would see that as award enough and not consider an animated feature for the big prize – although they have always been allowed to. The Golden Globes exclude animated features from being considered for Best Film, but then they segregate everything. Their Best Film is split into Drama and Musical/Comedy so it seems fair enough that Animation’s own category is essential just a third version of the big prize. But Oscar doesn’t do that and nor should it.

Yet animation has consistently been overlooked since the creation of its own category (well, and before, but still).

You can argue the same for Foreign Language. They have their own category after all and yet over the years they’ve been far more likely (Life Is Beautiful, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Il Postino, Letters From Iwo Jima) to get a Best Picture nomination, as well as consideration is other categories (City Of God and Talk To Her both received director noms although they missed out on Best Picture).

But this isn’t really the seen as being the same. The foreign language films category is only open to a single film from each country and that whatever the country submits. The rules of the category often exclude multi-country co-productions like Michael Haneke’s Hidden or Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries and a film like Letters From Iwo Jima could never be considered because despite being entirely filmed in Japanese it’s an American production. Politics play a big part. The Spanish industry, not wanting the world to think the Spanish film industry consists of nothing but the Oscar and Bafta friendly Pedro Almodovar rarely selects his films as the Spanish entry. Hence the year Talk To Her was nominated for the Best Director Oscar and won Best Original Screenplay it wasn’t eligible for Best Foreign Language Film. Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement was funded by Warner Bros France and so the French refused to consider it French (a marked difference from the UK Film Council which considers pretty much any film that has even contemplated hiring a British gaffer as a British film!) and so no selection for Jeunet.

The other problem is to vote for the foreign language nominees an Oscar member has to have seen them all on a big screen so often this falls to older, retired members and harsher-themed movies lose out to windy-sentimentalism. City Of God was Brazil’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002. It should have won. Instead it failed even to garner a nomination, while the likes of Dutch rom com Zus & Zo did! This balance was redressed somewhat following its proper US release in 2003 which led to 4 Oscar nominations for Director, Screenplay, Cinematography and Editing (although it didn’t win any).

Therefore considering a foreign film for best picture may be seen as redressing an imbalance that can, and frequently does, exist it that category.

Animated Feature doesn’t have that luxury. The nominations and eventual winner process are as straight-forward as those for any of the other big categories. So logically there’s no imbalance to address and no need to give them a seat at the big table.

But now we have 10 nominees so why not throw them a bone? Why not include that animated film you enjoyed so much. Two simple reasons:

1 – it makes a mockery of the Best Animated Feature category. If only one of them makes the Best Picture nominees then the teams behind the other four might as well just turn up. And if they do miraculously win then it surely suggests there’s something wrong with the selection of the 10 Best Pictures!

2 – it de-values Beauty & The Beast’s nomination. In 10 tens when we have 10 more (probably all Pixar) animated Best Picture nominees Beauty & The Beast’s status will be diminished.

Okay, so Beauty & The Beast’s nomination for Best Picture (along with the special award for Toy Story in 1995) probably paved the way for the 2001 introduction of the Best Animated Feature category but more than any of the other 9 films in this year’s Best Picture nominees (well, okay maybe District 9 and The Blind Side) Up feels like it wouldn’t be there without the expanded category.

After all The Incredibles didn’t make the Best Picture 5 when that category agve slots to the likes of Finding Neverland and Ray; Spirited Away didn’t make the 5 for Best Picture in a year that gave noms to The Hours and Gangs of New York, and was won by Chicago!; last year WALL-E didn’t make the Best Picture cut in a year when the category was filled by the underwhelming likes of Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.

The inclusion of an animated film in an expanded field of Best Picture nominees (much like a genre one for the likes of District 9) therefore feels like a consolation prize.

Until an animated film actually wins Best Picture or at least receives a Best Director nomination their inclusion seems both pointless and a de-valuation both of the category and that one film that made it to the heralded 5.

10 Best Pictures? Might boost the ratings but it seems a bad idea to me on reflection.

Oscar nominations... thoughts

Okay so we have 10 best picture nominees and they couldn't have split that category more perfectly into the 'popularist' titles and the 'Oscar fodder' titles.

There can be only one logical reason to have 10 nominees - its a ratings getter. Sure it boosts flagging 'for your consideration' ad revenues with 10 films to vie for Best Picture. But ultimately Oscar show ratings have been flagging and since Lord Of The Rings win back in 2003 (a foregone conclusion after all that walking for three years) big name, big money making movies needed some attention at the Oscar table. Theory being... that'll get viewers. Well let's look at the 10 Best Picture nominees... yup, 5 of the ten are clear 'popularist' votes. Avatar - highest grossing film of all time, $2bn worldwide and counting. The Blind Side - over $200m domestic. Inglourious Basterds - QT's most successful film with over $300m worldwide. District 9 - a sci-fi break out that cost $30m to make and grossed over $200m worldwide. Up - the latest piece of genius from animation powerhouse Pixar which floated off with over $720m worldwide.

Then we have the more typical ‘Oscar fodder’ movies that do low to middling money and most audiences never get around to seeing that are terribly “worthy” but don’t pull in viewers: Up In The Air, Precious, An Education, A Serious Man and The Hurt Locker.

No I’m not saying they don’t all deserve their place at the table. District 9 is a stunning piece of work and a film like this, usually discriminated against because of its genre (see Dark Knight last year) is exactly the reason the type of movie this expanded category should exist to aid. Equally a couple of the “worthy” titles (An Education and A Serious Man” would almost certainly not have made the list had it been 5 as Tarantino and Cameron had those sown up.

So maybe it helps everyone. What’s interesting is how many nay-sayers thought we’d just see Avatar and 9 of the worthies. That a list of 10 would almost certainly allow for “good but not outstanding” films like Crazy Heart and Invictus (from Oscar favourite Clint Eastwood) in there. I don’t exclude myself from those assumptions. If anything I would say that while it didn’t deserve a place the lack of Invictus in the 10 – purely for being an Eastwood movie – is one of the bigger surprises amongst today’s nominations. That’s like Meryl Streep making a movie and not getting an actress nomination. It’s unthinkable! Perhaps the voters are getting more fair with the expanded category.

So who has it sown up? Is Up’s presence in Best Picture a certainty of Best Animated Film – you’d think, no? Can Mo’Nique or Christoph Waltz fall at the final hurdle? – surely not, but then it has happened before. Avatar is one big effect so it must have Visual Effects sorted right? Well presumably but then District 9 looked like a $200m movie with a total budget of $30m so…! Nick Park’s never lost (well once, for A Grand Day Out, but that was to himself with Creature Comforts so surely doesn’t count) so he’s got to win by default right?

Something funny is going to happen somewhere – it almost always does – but where?

And what were the surprises. There weren’t many but the inclusion of Maggie Gyllenhaal and exclusion of Julianne Moore in the Best Supporting Actress category has to be one of the bigger ones. Personally this makes be both very happy and desperately sad. I thought Moore was superb in A Single Man. It wasn’t a huge role but it was incredibly memorable for all that and she deserved her place on this list. That said I’ve been arguing (and voting) for Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy Heart from the off – worried (as most awards bodies have done) that she be overlooked as she was in a film with such a powerful central performance that is kind of eclipsed everything else. But I think the always good Gyllenhaal did some of her best work in Crazy Heart. Without her to ground Bridges performance the movie would have not been half what it was. Personally I think both performers deserve a spot in this category more than Penelope Cruz or either of the (still excellent) Up In The Air actresses. But then Cruz is there by default because she won last year. There’s nothing remarkable about her in the tedious musical Nine and had this film come the year before Vicky Cristina Barcelona I guarantee this nomination would not exist. As for the Up In The Air pair who wouldn’t you vote for? That is clearly why they are both there. They are both great in the movie. They are both completely different. They are both undeniably supporting. There’s no way to choose between them so I suspect most voters (as I and several people I know did) voted for both of them simply because that was easier. It’s also why neither of them has a hope in hell of winning.

The other big surprise for me was In The Loop’s nomination for Screenplay. I always assumed it would get a Bafta nomination, but an Oscar nomination?! I never saw that coming.

It’s an interesting mix. There’s a few things I simply don’t get. Things I didn’t vote for on the BAFTAs on principal. But I’m clearly wrong. I just wish someone could explain them to me.

First Avatar – Best Cinematography. It’s basically one big created effect so surely the beautiful vistas and lighting are created in the computer so shouldn’t that just all come under the VFX category? I’m obviously in a minority here but as beautiful as Avatar was to watch I just never saw that as cinematography.

Secondly Coco Before Chanel – Best Costume Design. So it’s a movie about a world renowned costume designer, so surely the costumes in the movie are just Coco Chanel designs, no? Were these created for the film? In which case presumably there’s no truth to the biopic at all.

Personally I’m hoping all the “obviousness” of Coco Before Chanel, The Young Victoria, Nine and Bright Star’s show-off period costuming will cancel each other out and Monique Prudhomme’s beautiful, exciting work on Gilliam’s The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus will win out. Not a ridiculous dream, surely?

I’m pleased to see the, expected, nominations for young actresses Carey Mulligan (woo hoo!) and Gabourey Sidibe as for me they gave the real stand-out performances of the year. It’s a shame the voters will most likely consider their nominations (each for their first lead roles) as good as a win and hand the award elsewhere.

It’s also nice to see the always superb Stanley Tucci finally get an Oscar nomination. Bad year for him to get it though as after years or delivering brilliant, scene-(often movie)stealing performances and never getting a nomination he’s come up against one hit wonder Christoph Waltz. I don’t mean to belittle Waltz, he is great in Basterds and I loved the film, but I give him 5 years max before he’s making Steven Seagal DTV movies. I hope Tucci gets another chance soon.

Beyond that all I have to say is “no Ponyo!!!!!!!” in animation. That’s appalling. They nominated Fantastic Mr Fox but not Ponyo? I can’t comment on Secret Of Kells as I haven’t seen it, and I’m glad that Princess And The Frog (a hugely enjoyable, old-school Disney movie) got in. And of course Up and Coraline had to be there (I’d have liked to see Coraline get a Best Picture nom too to be honest).

So come March 7 we’ll know the outcome. Will exs Cameron and Bigelow come to blows? Will there be an almost traditional acting upset? Will the film I want to win Best Foreign Film actually win for once (I’m not saying what, don’t want to jinx it!) Hmmm!

Oscar nominations... the list

Best Picture
“Avatar” James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers
“The Blind Side” Nominees to be determined
“District 9” Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers
“An Education” Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers
“The Hurt Locker” Nominees to be determined
“Inglourious Basterds” Lawrence Bender, Producer
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers
“A Serious Man” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers
“Up” Jonas Rivera, Producer “Up in the Air” Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers

Directing
"Avatar” James Cameron
“The Hurt Locker” Kathryn Bigelow
“Inglourious Basterds” Quentin Tarantino
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels
“Up in the Air” Jason Reitman


Actor in a Leading Role
Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
George Clooney in “Up in the Air”
Colin Firth in “A Single Man”
Morgan Freeman in “Invictus”
Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker”


Actor in a Supporting Role
Matt Damon in “Invictus”
Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger”
Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station”
Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones”
Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds”


Actress in a Leading Role
Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side”
Helen Mirren in “The Last Station”
Carey Mulligan in “An Education”
Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia”


Actress in a Supporting Role
Penélope Cruz in “Nine”
Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air”
Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart”
Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air”
Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”


Animated Feature Film
“Coraline” Henry Selick
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” Wes Anderson
“The Princess and the Frog” John Musker and Ron Clements
“The Secret of Kells” Tomm Moore
“Up” Pete Docter


Art Direction
“Avatar” Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
“Nine” Art Direction: John Myhre; Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
“Sherlock Holmes” Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
“The Young Victoria” Art Direction: Patrice Vermette; Set Decoration: Maggie Gray


Cinematography
“Avatar” Mauro Fiore
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” Bruno Delbonnel
“The Hurt Locker” Barry Ackroyd
“Inglourious Basterds” Robert Richardson
“The White Ribbon” Christian Berger


Costume Design
“Bright Star” Janet Patterson
“Coco before Chanel” Catherine Leterrier
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Monique Prudhomme
“Nine” Colleen Atwood
“The Young Victoria” Sandy Powell


Documentary (Feature)
“Burma VJ” Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
“The Cove” Nominees to be determined
“Food, Inc.” Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
“Which Way Home” Rebecca Cammisa


Documentary (Short Subject)
“China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
“The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner” Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
“The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
“Music by Prudence” Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
“Rabbit à la Berlin” Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra


Film Editing
“Avatar” Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
“District 9” Julian Clarke
“The Hurt Locker” Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
“Inglourious Basterds” Sally Menke
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Joe Klotz


Foreign Language Film
“Ajami” Israel
“El Secreto de Sus Ojos” Argentina
“The Milk of Sorrow” Peru
“Un Prophète” France
“The White Ribbon” Germany


Makeup
“Il Divo” Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
“Star Trek” Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
“The Young Victoria” Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore


Music (Original Score)
“Avatar” James Horner
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” Alexandre Desplat
“The Hurt Locker” Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
“Sherlock Holmes” Hans Zimmer
“Up” Michael Giacchino


Music (Original Song)
“Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
“Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
“Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36” Music by Reinhardt Wagner Lyric by Frank Thomas
“Take It All” from “Nine” Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston
“The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett


Short Film (Animated)
“French Roast” Fabrice O. Joubert
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell
“The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” Javier Recio Gracia
“Logorama” Nicolas Schmerkin
“A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park


Short Film (Live Action)
“The Door” Juanita Wilson and James Flynn
“Instead of Abracadabra” Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström
“Kavi” Gregg Helvey
“Miracle Fish” Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey
“The New Tenants” Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson


Sound Editing
“Avatar” Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
“The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson
“Inglourious Basterds” Wylie Stateman
“Star Trek” Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
“Up” Michael Silvers and Tom Myers


Sound Mixing
“Avatar” Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
“The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
“Inglourious Basterds” Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano
“Star Trek” Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson


Visual Effects
“Avatar” Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
“District 9” Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
“Star Trek” Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton


Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
“District 9” Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
“An Education” Screenplay by Nick Hornby
“In the Loop” Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher
“Up in the Air” Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner


Writing (Original Screenplay)
“The Hurt Locker” Written by Mark Boal
“Inglourious Basterds” Written by Quentin Tarantino
“The Messenger” Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
“A Serious Man” Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
“Up” Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy

BAFTA nominations

And so the BAFTA noms…

Good to see District 9’s Neill Blomkamp make the Best Director list, though I don’t get all the Nowhere Boy love.

Below are the complete nominees with what I think will win (not necessarily what should) in bold:

BEST FILM
AVATAR - James Cameron, Jon Landau
AN EDUCATION - Amanda Posey, Finola Dwyer
THE HURT LOCKER - Nominees TBC
PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE - Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness, Gary Magness
UP IN THE AIR - Ivan Reitman, Jason Reitman, Daniel Dubiecki

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM

AN EDUCATION - Amanda Posey, Finola Dwyer, Lone Scherfig, Nick Hornby
FISH TANK - Kees Kasander, Nick Laws, Andrea Arnold
IN THE LOOP - Kevin Loader, Adam Tandy, Armando Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche
MOON - Stuart Fenegan, Trudie Styler, Duncan Jones, Nathan Parker
NOWHERE BOY - Kevin Loader, Douglas Rae, Robert Bernstein, Sam Taylor-Wood, Matt Greenhalgh

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
LUCY BAILEY, ANDREW THOMPSON, ELIZABETH MORGAN HEMLOCK, DAVID PEARSON - Directors, Producers – Mugabe and the White African

ERAN CREEVY - Writer/Director – Shifty
STUART HAZELDINE - Writer/Director – Exam
DUNCAN JONES - Director – Moon
SAM TAYLOR-WOOD - Director – Nowhere Boy

DIRECTOR
AVATAR - James Cameron
DISTRICT 9 - Neill Blomkamp
AN EDUCATION - Lone Scherfig
THE HURT LOCKER - Kathryn Bigelow
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - Quentin Tarantino

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
THE HANGOVER - Jon Lucas, Scott Moore
THE HURT LOCKER - Mark Boal
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - Quentin Tarantino
A SERIOUS MAN - Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
UP - Bob Peterson, Pete Docter

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
DISTRICT 9 - Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
AN EDUCATION - Nick Hornby
IN THE LOOP - Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE - Geoffrey Fletcher
UP IN THE AIR - Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
BROKEN EMBRACES - Agustín Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar
COCO BEFORE CHANEL - Carole Scotta, Caroline Benjo, Philippe Carcassonne, Anne Fontaine
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN - Carl Molinder, John Nordling, Tomas Alfredson
A PROPHET - Pascale Caucheteux, Marco Chergui, Alix Raynaud, Jacques Audiard
THE WHITE RIBBON - Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Margaret Menegoz, Michael Haneke

ANIMATED FILM
CORALINE - Henry Selick
FANTASTIC MR FOX - Wes Anderson
UP - Pete Docter

LEADING ACTOR
JEFF BRIDGES - Crazy Heart
GEORGE CLOONEY - Up in the Air
COLIN FIRTH - A Single Man
JEREMY RENNER - The Hurt Locker
ANDY SERKIS - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

LEADING ACTRESS
CAREY MULLIGAN - An Education
SAOIRSE RONAN - The Lovely Bones
GABOUREY SIDIBE - Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
MERYL STREEP - Julie & Julia
AUDREY TAUTOU - Coco Before Chanel

SUPPORTING ACTOR
ALEC BALDWIN - It’s Complicated
CHRISTIAN McKAY - Me and Orson Welles
ALFRED MOLINA - An Education
STANLEY TUCCI - The Lovely Bones
CHRISTOPH WALTZ - Inglourious Basterds

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
ANNE-MARIE DUFF - Nowhere Boy
VERA FARMIGA - Up in the Air
ANNA KENDRICK - Up in the Air
MO'NIQUE - Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS - Nowhere Boy

MUSIC
AVATAR - James Horner
CRAZY HEART - T-Bone Burnett, Stephen Bruton
FANTASTIC MR FOX - Alexandre Desplat
SEX & DRUGS & ROCK & ROLL - Chaz Jankel
UP - Michael Giacchino

CINEMATOGRAPHY
AVATAR - Mauro Fiore
DISTRICT 9 - Trent Opaloch
THE HURT LOCKER - Barry Ackroyd
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - Robert Richardson
THE ROAD - Javier Aguirresarobe

EDITING
AVATAR - Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua, James Cameron
DISTRICT 9 - Julian Clarke
THE HURT LOCKER - Bob Murawski, Chris Innis
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - Sally Menke
UP IN THE AIR - Dana E. Glauberman

PRODUCTION DESIGN
AVATAR - Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, Kim Sinclair
DISTRICT 9 - Philip Ivey, Guy Poltgieter
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE - Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS - Nominees TBC
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - David Wasco, Sandy Reynolds Wasco

COSTUME DESIGN
BRIGHT STAR - Janet Patterson
COCO BEFORE CHANEL - Catherine Leterrier
AN EDUCATION - Odile Dicks-Mireaux
A SINGLE MAN - Arianne Phillips
THE YOUNG VICTORIA - Sandy Powell

SOUND
AVATAR - Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, Tony Johnson, Addison Teague
DISTRICT 9 - Nominees TBC
THE HURT LOCKER - Ray Beckett, Paul N. J. Ottosson, Craig Stauffer
STAR TREK - Peter J. Devlin, Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer, Mark Stoeckinger, Ben Burtt
UP - Tom Myers, Michael Silvers, Michael Semanick

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
AVATAR - Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andrew R. Jones
DISTRICT 9 - Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros, Matt Aitken
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE - John Richardson, Tim Burke, Tim Alexander, Nicolas Aithadi
THE HURT LOCKER - Richard Stutsman
STAR TREK - Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh, Burt Dalton

MAKE UP & HAIR
COCO BEFORE CHANEL - Thi Thanh Tu Nguyen, Jane Milon
AN EDUCATION - Lizzie Yianni Georgiou
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS - Sarah Monzani
NINE - Peter ‘Swords’ King
THE YOUNG VICTORIA - Jenny Shircore

SHORT ANIMATION
THE HAPPY DUCKLING - Gili Dolev
MOTHER OF MANY - Sally Arthur, Emma Lazenby
THE GRUFFALO - Michael Rose, Martin Pope, Jakob Schuh, Max Lang

SHORT FILM
14 - Asitha Ameresekere
I DO AIR - James Bolton, Martina Amati
JADE - Samm Haillay, Daniel Elliott
MIXTAPE - Luti Fagbenle, Luke Snellin
OFF SEASON - Jacob Jaffke, Jonathan van Tulleken

ORANGE RISING STAR AWARD
JESSE EISENBERG
NICHOLAS HOULT
CAREY MULLIGAN – text MULLIGAN to 82058 to combat the predicted Twilight whitewash!
TAHAR RAHIM
KRISTEN STEWART

The Baftas are awarded Feb 21.