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