Not much of a surprise that The King’s Speech overwhelmingly leads the nomination for Britain’s Oscars, The BAFTA’s, this morning. A whopping 14 nominations easily leads the pack. The rest of the nominations look to be pretty stock and obvious – which is why the Oscars are so anti-climactic this year (does anyone doubt for a second that The Social Network is going to go home a big winner at pretty much every major awards ceremony?).
That said, there are a couple of surprising omissions. Where is Blue Valentine? Where is The Ghost Writer (which won 5 awards – including best picture and director at the European film awards) and possibly most surprising, no nom for The Illusionist in the best animated category?
At any rate, here are all of the nominations for your consideration…
BEST FILM
Black Swan
Inception
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
True Grit
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
127 Hours
Another Year
Four Lions
The King’s Speech
Made In Dagenham
OUTSTANDNING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
The Arbor – Director, Producer – Clio Barnard, Tracy O’riordan
Exit Through The Gift Shop – _director, Producer – Banksy, Jaimie D’cruz
Four Lions – Director/Writer – Chris Morris
Monsters – Director/Writer – Gareth Edwards
Skeletons – Director/Writer – Nick Whitfield
DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, 127 Hours
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Christopher Nolan, Inception
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
David FincherThe Social Network
LEAD ACTOR
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours
LEAD ACTRESS
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Noomi Rapace, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale, The Fighter
Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
Pete Postlethwaite, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
Barbara Hershey, Black Swan
Lesley Manville, Another Year
Miranda Richardson, Made In Dagenham
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, John Mclaughlin, Black Swan
Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, The Fighter
Christopher Nolan, Inception
Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg, The Kids Are All Right
David Seidler, The King’s Speech
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy, 127 Hours
Rasmus Heisterberg, Nikolaj Arcel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Michael Arndt, Toy Story 3
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, True Grit
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Biutiful
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
I Am Love
Of Gods And Men
The Secret In Their Eyes
ANIMATED FILM
Despicable Me
How To Train Your Dragon
Toy Story 3
ORIGINAL MUSIC
127 Hours, Ar Rahman
Alice In Wonderland, Danny Elfman
How To Train Your Dragon, John Powell
Inception, Hans Zimmer
The King’s Speech, Alexandre Desplat
CINEMATOGRAPHY
127 Hours, Anthony Dod Mantle, Enrique Chediak
Black Swan, Matthew Libatique
Inception, Wally Pfister
The King’s Speech, Danny Cohen
True Grit, Roger Deakins
EDITING
127 Hours, Jon Harris
Black Swan, Andrew Weisblum
Inception, Lee Smith
The King’s Speech, Tariq Anwar
The Social Network, Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Alice In Wonderland
Black Swan
Inception
The King’s Speech
True Grit
COSTUME DESIGN
Alice In Wonderland
Black Swan
The King’s Speech
Made In Dagenham
True Grit
SOUND
127 Hours
Black Swan
Inception
The King’s Speech
True Grit
SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
Alice In Wonderland
Black Swan
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
Toy Story 3
MAKE-UP AND HAIR
Alice In Wonderland
Black Swan
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1
The King’s Speech
Made In Dagenham
SHORT ANIMATION
The Eagleman Stag, Michael Please
Matter Fisher, David Prosser
Thursday, Matthias Hoegg
SHORT FILM
Connect, Samuel Abrahams, Beau Gordon
Lin, Piers Thompson, Simon Hessel
Rite, Michael Pearce, Ross Mckenzie
Turning, Karni Arieli, Saul Freed, Alison Sterling, Kat Armour-Brown
Until The River Runs Red, Paul Wright, Poss Kondeatis
ORANGE WEDNESDAYS RISING AWARD
Gemma Arterton
Andrew Garfield
Tom Hardy
Aaron Johnson
Emma Stone
Interesting to see that the BAFTAs are infected with the same category-confusion as the OSCARS. Leslie Manville as best SUPPORTING ((WTF!!)) Actress. She is clearly the lead in that picture, even if she probably has equal screentime with Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen, but I’d bet that she actually has the most on-screen-time of the entire cast, and of course, the whole movie orbits around her.
Sheesh.
I don’t think Ghost Writer was quite as well received over here, it just sort of came and went with little fanfare so it doesn’t surprise me that it wasn’t nominated for anything. As for Blue Valentine, it’s only just come out over here, so unless it screened at a festival at the end of the year it probably just missed the cut.
Despicable Me instead of The Illusionist is just plain ludicrous though.