One for the Weekend...

It's February meaning that once again the Awards season is upon us, the time for the stars to shine and the deserving films to get the gongs. First up it's the Baftas, hosted by Stephen Fry. They can be seen on BBC One and BBC One HD from 9pm this Sunday February 12th 2012.

Below are the nominations for this year's awards.

Best Film

• The Artist


• The Descendants


• Drive


• The Help


• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Outstanding British Film

• My Week with Marilyn


• Senna


• Shame


• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy


• We need to talk about Kevin

Outstanding debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer

• Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, Director/Writer)


• Black Pond (Will Sharpe, Director/Writer)


• Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes, Director)


• Submarine (Richard Ayoade, Writer/Director)


• Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, Director)

Film not in the English Language

• Incendies


• Pina


• Potiche


• A Separation


• The Skin I live in

Documentary Film

• George Harrison: Living in the material world


• Project Nim


• Senna

Animated Film

• The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn


• Arthur Christmas


• Rango

Director

• Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)


• Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive)


• Martin Scorsese (Hugo)


• Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)


• Lynne Ramsay (We need to talk about Kevin)

Original Screenplay

• The Artist


• Bridesmaids


• The Guard


• The Iron Lady


• Midnight in Paris

Adapted Screenplay

• The Descendants


• The Help


• The Ides of March


• Moneyball


• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Lead Actor

• Brad Pitt (Moneyball)


• Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)


• George Clooney (The Descendants)


• Jean Dujardin (The Artist)


• Michael Fassbender (Shame)

Lead Actress

• Berenice Bejo (The Artist)


• Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)


• Michelle Williams (My week with Marilyn)


• Tilda Swinton (We need to talk about Kevin)


• Viola Davis (The Help)

Supporting Actor

• Christopher Plummer (Beginners)


• Jim Broadbent (The Iron Lady)


• Jonah Hill (Moneyball)


• Kenneth Branagh (My week with Marilyn)


• Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Ides of March)

Supporting Actress

• Carey Mulligan (Drive)


• Jessica Chastain (The Help)


• Judi Dench (My week with Marilyn)


• Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)


• Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Original Music

• The Artist (Ludovic Bource)


• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)


• Hugo (Howard Shore)


• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alberto Iglesias)


• War Horse (John Williams)

Cinematography

• The Artist (Guillaume Schiffman)


• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Jeff Cronenweth)


• Hugo (Robert Richardson)


• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Hoyte Van Hoytema)


• War Horse (Janusz Kaminski)

Editing

• The Artist (Anne Sophie Bion, Michel Hazanavicius)


• Drive (Mat Newman)


• Hugo (Thelma Schoonmaker)


• Senna (Gregers Sall, Chris King)


• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Dino Jonsater)

Production Design

• The Artist (Laurence Bennett, Robert Gould)


• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Stuart Craig, Stephanie McMillan)


• Hugo (Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo)


• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Maria Djurkovic, Tatiana Macdonald)


• War Horse (Rick Carter, Lee Sandales)

Costume Design

• The Artist (Mark Bridges)


• Hugo (Sandy Powell)


• Jane Eyre (Michael O'Connor)


• My week with Marilyn (Jill Taylor)


• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Jacqueline Durran)

Make up and Hair

• The Artist (Julie Hewitt, Cydney Cornell)


• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Amanda Knight, Lisa Tomblin, Nick Dudman)


• Hugo (Morag Ross, Jan Archibald)


• The Iron Lady (Marese Langan, Mark Coulier, J. Roy Helland)


• My week with Marilyn (Jenny Shircore)

Sound

• The Artist (Nadine Muse, Gerard Lamps, Michael Krikorian)


• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (James Mather, Stuart Wilson, Stuart Hilliker, Mike Dowson, Adam Scrivener)


• Hugo (Philip Stockton, Eugene Gearty, Tom Fleischman, John Midgley)


• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (John Casali, Howard Bargroff, Doug Cooper, Stephen Griffiths, Andy Shelley)


• War Horse (Stuart Wilson, Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson, Richard Hymns

Special Visual Effects

• The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (Joe Letteri, Keith Miller, Wayne Stables, Jamie Beard)


• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Tim Burke, John Richardson, Greg Butler, David Vickery)


• Hugo (Rob Legato, Ben Grossmann, Joss Williams, Alex Henning)


• Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White, Daniel Barrett)


• War Horse (Ben Morris, Neil Corbould)

Short Animation

• Abuelas


• Bobby Yeah


• A Morning Stroll

Short Film

• Chalk


• Mwansa The Great


• Only Sound Remains


• Pitch Black Heist


• Two and Two

Orange Wednesdays Rising Star Award

• Adam Deacon


• Chris Hemsworth


• Chris O'Dowd


• Eddie Redmayne


• Tom Hiddleston

BAFTA Fellowship this year will be awarded to Martin Scorsese

Outstanding Contribution award will be awarded to John Hurt.

Where possible, I have highlighted in blue the ones that I think are the potential winners.

In many ways the shape of the outcomes of the BAFTAs often pre determines the winners of the Oscars. Tune in on Sunday to find out if your favourite is the winner.

One for the Weekend...

My choice for this weekend is another network premiere on Channel 4, of Danny Boyle's follow up to the Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire... 127 Hours. Nominated in 2010 for 6 Academy Awards, it tells the true story of Aron Ralston (James Franco) who whilst canyoneering alone in Utah has a boulder fall above him and trap him. What measures will Ralston take in order to free himself? Gripping drama.


The film is showing at 9pm on Channel 4/4HD on Sunday 22nd January 2012.

The Iron Lady review

Having previously worked with this actress on 2008's summer hit Mamma Mia, director Phyllida Lloyd sure knows how to exact a rousing performance from Academy Award winner Meryl Streep. Nominated more than almost any other actress working in the business today, it has been almost thirty years since Streep took the Best Actress crown for her work in Sophie's Choice (Alan J Pakula, USA, 1982) but it is looking likely that she may have a third golden statue to add to her mantle this season as her performance in Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady is nothing short of remarkable. From Consolata Boyle's exquisite costume design to Thomas Newman's subtle score, the film is simultaneously a delicate portrait of a frail old woman and a biography of an undeniably powerful leader with an even more powerful public presence.

Whatever your opinion of Thatcher's regimes and her miscalculated decisions during her 11 year reign in office between 1979 and 1990, she carried a heavy burden. She was the first female Prime Minister in this country in a government dominated by masculinity and she overcame adversity and misogyny in order to stand up for her beliefs. In this respect she was every bit the leader a nation could hope for. Just contrast this with the pitiful attempts of David Cameron and there is no argument as to who has made the bigger difference to this country, albeit for good or bad. The film thus presents Thatcher as both a woman who stands by her morals and begs to be heard at the same time as generating audience pathos for a woman who, in old age, reminds us all of the futility of life. She made decisions that cost lives, she brought economic destruction but she will be remembered.

It is in Streep's heartfelt declaration to husband Dennis, (played with great comic relief by Jim Broadbent), that she wants to make a difference in her life and does not want to die in the kitchen washing up a tea cup, that the human being emerges. Thatcher is such a duplicitous character and as such the film will seem controversial to many. I am in agreement with critics that praise Streep's meticulous mimicry of Thatcher from her speech to her body language, yet at the same time the story seems to be a little choppy. The narrative seems to dispense wth much of Thatcher's actions during her time in office and only sporadically uses actual footage to highlight the effect that her irrational decisions had on the United Kingdom and the world.

As a character study, this is Streep's film. As the eponym of the title she puts her all into the physicality and the emotion of the character and the moment that she finally lets Dennis go reminds us that this is a woman who, despite being power hungry and neglecting her children in favour of this power, has a heart and a voice, whether we choose to listen or ignore.

One for the Weekend...

Continuing my look at the best on the box this week with Stephen Daldry's The Reader (2008) which gets its premiere on Channel 4/4HD this Sunday January 15th 2012 at 9pm.

This drama, set in post-war Berlin, focusses on the story of Michael Berg (David Kross and Ralph Fiennes) as he begins a secret relationship with an older woman, living alone, who seeks company and his storytelling. After going off to study criminlogy years later and observing the Nazi War crime trials, Berg learns the shocking truth of Hanna Schmitz' (Kate Winslet) involvement in the concentration camps. A powerful drama with unsurprisingly brilliant performances particularly from Winslet who, after having been nominated 5 times for various Best Actress Oscars, was finally granted with the golden statue for this film. Highly recommended.

If you're looking for something a little lighter, you can't go wrong with Entrapment (Jon Amiel, USA, 1999), a cat and mouse thriller with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones which, though often implausible, is great entertainment. This can be seen on Channel 4/4HD on Sunday 15th January 2012 at 3.15pm.

Failing that, if screwball comedy is your cup of tea, give one of Jim Carrey's zaniest films a whirl. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (Tom Shadyac, USA, 1993) is full of laughs and good Sunday afternoon fun. This is showing on Sunday 15th January 2012 on Channel 5/5HD from 5.00pm.

One for the weekend...

Welcome to 2012, and the first of my One for the Weekend sections of the blog. Keeping it simple, this is where I post my pick of the films to watch this weekend. First up is quirky, engaging rom com 500 Days of Summer (Marc Webb, USA, 2009), making its premiere on Channel 4/4HD on Sunday 8th January 2012 at 9pm.

Teaming two of the best young talents, Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Webb's film is simultaneously a brilliantly insightful outlook on modern relationships and an inversion on the stereotypical boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after fantasy. Gordon-Levitt's comic timing is superb and Deschanel just has to walk into frame and the film shines that little bit brighter. The film is also notable for making a name of rising star Chloe (Kick Ass, Let Me In) Moretz, who plays Gordon-Levitt's wiser than her years sister in the film.

Bolstered by an eclectic soundtrack and one of the best sequences in recent years set to the upbeat "You make my dreams come true" from Hall and Oates, this is a refreshing rom com that provides the perfect antidote for a couple of hours away from the humdrum of daily life.

Merry Christmas from Film Fanatic

George Bailey and family and Film Fanatic
wish all followers of this blog
a warm and Merry Christmas 2010 and a prosperous 2011!