BAFTA Nominations

The British Academy of Film and Television released their nominations for feature films in 2014 yesterday.  One thing we've learned from the awards in the past is that the British Academy always mixes in a blend of British and Hollywood films to make the films of their country seem more relevant.  

The truth is, British film is normally not so relevant in the rest of the award season as it is this year.  Two major films poised for several Oscar nominations, The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything (both mediocrely reviewed biopics about historical geniuses, if you wanted to know the formula for getting a nomination) are made by British film companies and starring British people.  It's important to note that neither of these films have topped very many top 10 lists (unlike the other BAFTA nominees this year), however, the savior that is the Best British Film category will save one of them from being shut out right?

Actually, The BAFTA's started this whole trend of spreading the love around, and not caring who thinks what about it.  Since the early 80s, the BAFTA's have helped move award season to the true display of cronyism we see today, and create the makeup of award politics, boiling down to which colleagues do voters want to give a speech to (and, of course, more "creative" opportunities).

This has obviously taken a further turn with the availability to watch films pretty much anywhere, taking a vaudevillian hook to the old award season days, when actors, directors and producers had to truly campaign to get people to go watch their film, rather than just send them a screener.  However, the potential to illogically and arbitrarily give awards with no rhyme or reason begun with the BAFTA tactics of awarding the top award (Best Film) to a movie that would lose in a more specific category.

Examples include: Atonement, The Queen, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Full Monty all winning best film in their respective years and losing Best British Film to a film many may not have seen, or Jean de Florette winning Best Film and losing Best Foreign Film.

Go Figure.  Fortunately, we have a slightly more logical system, right?

If what you're interested in is the Oscars, then you need not pay attention to the BAFTAs, as nomination announcements coincides with Oscar balloting closing, so the films honored are just Brits being Brits pretty much every time.  But at least the BAFTAs aren't constantly chasing to be just like Oscar.  

Anyway, if you are familiar with British stereotypes, you're probably not surprised that the most nominated film at this years BAFTA is The Grand Budapest Hotel.  Some surprises did include Damien Chazelle's nomination for Best Director and Original Screenplay, a preview to what we will se from the Oscar nominations next week.  Steve Carell was considered Supporting Actor for playing John du Pont in Foxcatcher, which was otherwise pretty much ignored, as was Jennifer Aniston in Cake.  You can check the full list of the BAFTA's tab.

Selma update: although the movie was unsurprisingly ignored by the Brits, the Ohio film critics did give the film a number of awards, and a late wave of liberal artists pushing back at pre-release lash backs by outraged die-hards of President Johnson.  The real do-or-die prediction is the film winning the Golden Globes over Boyhood, if you want to try and beat the Vegas odds.  However the Globe film awards are usually much more predictably sacred than its TV awards, which often is given to the nominee you absolutely least expect.

Since Academy voting has ended, you can start making your first round of predictions for next weeks announcement.  wait till after the Globes and DGA nominee announcement to print your final draft.