Sunday, February 13, 2011

"The Social Network" Wins "Best Editing" BAFTA

EDITING

THE SOCIAL NETWORK Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter WINNER

127 HOURS Jon Harris

BLACK SWAN Andrew Weisblum

INCEPTION Lee Smith

THE KING’S SPEECH Tariq Anwar

Helena Bonham Carter Wins "Best Supporting Actress" BAFTA

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

HELENA BONHAM CARTER The King’s Speech WINNER

AMY ADAMS The Fighter

BARBARA HERSHEY Black Swan

LESLEY MANVILLE Another Year

MIRANDA RICHARDSON Made in Dagenham

Geoffrey Rush Wins "Best Supporting Actor" BAFTA

SUPPORTING ACTOR

GEOFFREY RUSH The King’s Speech WINNER

CHRISTIAN BALE The Fighter

ANDREW GARFIELD The Social Network

PETE POSTLETHWAITE The Town

MARK RUFFALO The Kids Are All Right

"The King's Speech" Wins Outstanding British Film BAFTA

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM

THE KING’S SPEECH Tom Hooper, David Seidler, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin WINNER


127 HOURS Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy, Christian Colson, John Smithson

ANOTHER YEAR Mike Leigh, Georgina Lowe

FOUR LIONS Chris Morris, Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, Mark Herbert, Derrin Schlesinger

MADE IN DAGENHAM Nigel Cole, William Ivory, Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley

How to Follow the 2011 BAFTAs from America

The BAFTAs, the British equivalent of the Academy Awards, are today.  Anyone who has the BBC on their cable or satellite system can watch the awards broadcast starting at 4 PM EST.  Later, BBC America, which most Americans are likely to have on their cable and satellite services, will begin coverage at 8 PM Eastern and Pacific, but by then, I'm pretty sure the awards ceremony will have concluded.

BBC America's blog, Anglophenia, will live blog the event beginning at 2:30 PM EST.  Meanwhile, I'll update as often as I can and have a full list of winners by tomorrow.

Thanks, as always, for visiting.

2001 BAFTA "Best British Film" Winner: BILLY ELLIOT is Amazing


TRASH IN MY EYE No. 137 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Billy Elliot (2000)
Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some thematic material
DIRECTOR: Stephen Daldry
WRITER: Lee Hall
PRODUCERS: Greg Brenman and Jonathan Finn
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Brian Tufano (D.o.P)
EDITOR: John Wilson
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA

Starring: Jamie Bell, Gary Lewis, Jamie Draven, Julie Walters, Jean Heywood, Stuart Wells, and Nicola Blackwell

When Billy Elliot (Jamie Bell) takes a fancy to ballet dancing over boxing, his newfound love comes at the most inopportune time - his family is slowly disintegrating. His dad Jackie (Gary Lewis) and his brother Tony (Jamie Draven) are striking coalminers. His mother’s passing has made his father a broken man, and his brother is a violent strike agitator. His teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson (Julia Walters who received an Oscar nomination for this supporting role), however, sees something in Billy and encourages him to think about auditioning for a position at the Royal Ballet Academy in London. With her encouragement, Billy strives through his self-doubt and his personal troubles to dance to his heart’s content.

Set in an northern England mining town in 1984, Billy Elliot is an inspirational movie that exceeds beyond the usual expectations even for a movie of its type. You don’t have to go very far into the film before you realize how this movie can make you feel so good while being, for the most part, quite sad. Through the despair and hardships, Billy has to succeed at being himself. A young lad (11), he stands in the face of obstacles and rushes headlong into doing what he wants. He simply uses the bumps in the road as momentum for his next dance step. It is easy to see why audiences took this fine film to heart.

The acting is exquisite from top to bottom with the director making the most of his cast and the actors drawing every last drop of quality storytelling from the script. Every now and again, a child actor has a performance that stands out as so good it matches the performances of the best adult actors, such as Anna Paquin in The Piano and Haley Joel Osmet in The Sixth Sense. Mr. Bell’s performance joins their company because he does something few children can do: to hold the audience’s attention and to carry the film with the craft of acting, rather than with the trick of being cute, precious, and precocious.

As Billy’s suffering father, Jackie, Gary Lewis nearly steals the show. Lewis plays Jackie as a man on shaking ground. He’s lost his wife and his job, and his elder son seems to run the house. When Jackie finally sees his son dance, Jackie has a reason to live, and he’s ready to fight for his son’s ambitions. Lewis totally sells us on the Jackie’s transformation from the beaten man to the loving, supporting dad.

Director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter Lee Hall, do more than just play to our emotions. Daldry is certainly a director to keep an eye on despite a misstep like his follow up to this film, The Hours. In Billy Elliot, he and Hall have created a film that sends our spirits soaring and inspires us to dream or to, at least, vicariously enjoy the triumph of Billy. It is truly a work of art when you can engage the mind, the heart, and the soul. Billy Elliot will stand out as one of the finest films in recent memory.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2001 Academy Awards: 3 nominations: “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Julie Walters, “Best Director” (Stephen Daldry), and “Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen” (Lee Hall)

2001 BAFTA Awards: 3 wins “Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film” (Greg Brenman, Jonathan Finn, and Stephen Daldry), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Jamie Bell), and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role” (Julie Walters); 9 nominations “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (Stephen Warbeck), “Best Cinematography” (Brian Tufano), “Best Editing” (John Wilson), “Best Film” (Greg Brenman and Jonathan Finn), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (Gary Lewis), “Best Screenplay – Original” (Lee Hall), “Best Sound” (Mark Holding, Mike Prestwood Smith, Zane Hayward), “Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer” (Stephen Daldry-director and Lee Hall-writer), and “David Lean Award for Direction” (Stephen Daldry)

2001 Golden Globes: 2 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama” and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Julie Walters)

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Saturday, February 12, 2011

London Film Critics Join "The Social Network"

If I understand correctly, the London Film Critics’ Circle is part of a larger organization, The Critics’ Circle, which makes an annual award for Services to the Arts. This circle is comprised of the five sections: dance, drama, film, music, and visual arts.

On its website, The Circle says that its aims are “to promote the art of criticism, to uphold its integrity in practice, to foster and safeguard members’ professional interests, to provide opportunities to meet, and to support the advancement of the arts.” Currently there are 430 members of the Circle, mostly from the UK, and the majority of them write regularly for national and regional newspapers and magazines. Membership is by invitation.

Thursday night, the film critics announced their 2010 film award winners.

Winners list of 31st London Critics’ Circle Film Awards:

* FILM OF THE YEAR: ‘The Social Network’

* DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR: David Fincher – ‘The Social Network’

* SCREENWRITER OF THE YEAR: Aaron Sorkin – ‘The Social Network’

* ACTOR OF THE YEAR: Colin Firth – ‘The King’s Speech’

* ACTRESS OF THE YEAR: Annette Bening – ‘The Kids Are All Right’

* THE ATTENBOROUGH AWARD: BRITISH FILM OF THE YEAR: ‘The King’s Speech’

* BRITISH DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR: Tom Hooper – ‘The King’s Speech’

* BRITISH ACTOR OF THE YEAR: Christian Bale – “The Fighter”

* BRITISH ACTRESS OF THE YEAR: Lesley Manville – ‘Another Year’

* BRITISH ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Andrew Garfield – ‘The Social Network’

* BRITISH ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Olivia Williams – ‘The Ghost’

* YOUNG BRITISH PERFORMER OF THE YEAR: Conor McCarron – ‘NEDs’

* BREAKTHROUGH BRITISH FILM-MAKER: Gareth Edwards – ‘Monsters’

* DILYS POWELL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN FILM: Kristin Scott Thomas

* FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR: 'Of Gods and Men'