BAFTA 2012 Winners. It's Our Final Pre Oscar Pit Stop

For reasons unbeknownst to  our puny mind American television doesn't believe in watching the BAFTAs live and instead makes us wait until we already know the winners and have possibly lost interest (especially on nights when they air hours after we know the winners opposite the Grammy Awards). I freely admit I've skipped them in busier years. I haven't been able to find a live stream of the actual show but this link promises a highlights reel and the video embedded at the bottom of this post covers arrivals so you can see a few of the gowns and a few interviews with the stars. 

I've given up the notion of live blogging as it'll be anti-climactic tonight at 8 pm but Xan Brooks at the Guardian was updating the event today.

I'm guessing: The Artist, Scorsese, Streep, Dujardin, Spencer and Plummer) UPDATE: Well, I got five of the six. Scorsese lost to Hazanavicius.

Quick Question before the winners: Why is everyone from Downton Abbey in mourning? So many black gowns. Or maybe they're just predicting that we'll all be in mourning when the second season ends and we have to wait another year. Nooooo

Downton Abbey Forevah!

WINNERS
Best Film: THE ARTIST
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin in THE ARTIST
Best Actress: Meryl Streep in THE IRON LADY
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius for THE ARTIST

Animated Film: RANGO
Adapted Screenplay: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Documentary: SENNA
Rising Star (voted on by the public): ADAM DEACON
Original Screenplay: Michel Hazanavicius for THE ARTIST
Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema (tribute/noncompetitive): JOHN HURT
Outstanding British Film: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer in THE HELP
Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer in BEGINNERS

Production Design: HUGO
Outstanding Debut: Paddy Considine for TYRANNOSAUR
Foreign Language Film: THE SKIN I LIVE IN
Makeup and Hair: THE IRON LADY
Costume Design: THE ARTIST
Cinematography: THE ARTIST
Editing: SENNA
Score: THE ARTIST
Live Action Short: PITCH BLACK HEIST (starring Michael Fassbender. Why have I not heard of this?)
Animated Short: A MORNING STROLL
Visual Effects: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2
Sound: HUGO

The Beautiful People... The Beautiful People... ♫ BAFTA PHOTOS AND RED CARPET ARRIVAL VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP

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Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer on Black Artists and Image.

I know I've gone on and on about Viola Davis this year. It's no secret that I'm rooting for her in Best Actress. She's such an enormous talent and such an interesting woman and she keeps on reminding me of of both of those truths in different revealing ways this year. (I'm really going to be disheartened if The Help doesn't lead to better and bigger things. I don't want to see her play one more lame anyone could do this "best friend to the heroine" part like in Eat Pray Love.) Thanks to Mark Harris for pointing out this new interview from the Tavis Smiley show on PBS and thanks to Tavis Smiley for starting with the rough stuff. He basically begins by telling the actresses that though he is rooting for them he is uncomfortable about awarding black women for playing maids some 73 years after Hattie McDaniel's Gone With the Wind win and he was also uncomfortable with Denzel Washington's win a decade ago for playing a dirty cop in Training Day. The stars and the host really get into it (respectfully). Here's Viola's take.

That mindset... is absolutely destroying the black artist. The black artist cannot live in a revisionist place. The black artist can only tell the truth about humanity. Humanity is messy. People are messy. Caucasian actors know that. They understand that. They understand that when you bring a human being to life you show all the flaws as well as the beauty. We, as African American artists, are more concerned with image and message and not execution. Which is why every time you see our images they've been watered down to a point where they are not realistic at all. It's like all of our humanity has been washed out. We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth tellers.

The conversation blossoms from there. They talk August Wilson. They talk Fences. They talk Red Tails. They talk about acting as baton passing. It's great stuff and nobody pulls any punches.

Octavia's late interview response about the difficulty of convincing Hollywood to bankroll more black projects takes a nice turn, too.

Let me tell you the other thing. It begins with the ticket buyer. Dee Rees wrote an amazing film called Pariah. And if you haven't paid to see it at a theater near you, you're part of the problem.

It's inspiring that some people, and people as visible as Meryl Streep and these two, have singled out Pariah for praise. It's just too bad the movie had such extremely limited distribution and too bad it was saved until the one weekend of the year when no one would be able to pay it any attention during the Oscar glut. But bygones. It's one of my favorite pictures of last year and I'm hoping it gets a better life on DVD.

The complete interview which I've embedded after the jump is well worth a watch if you have half an hour. 

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RIP Whitney Houston (1963-2012)

Jordin Sparks and Whitney in the forthcoming "Sparkle"Breaking news as CNN is currently investigating the discrepancies within the details but Whitney Houston has died at the age of 48, the day before the Grammys no less. She won six of the music industry's top prizes over the span of her career, the last in 2000 for "It's Not Right, But It's OK".

She'll always be remembered as one of the great voices of the 80s and 90s but her career had been quiet for a decade, plagued as it was with substance abuse. I'll personally never forget that chilling "crack is whack" Diane Sawyers interview but there were occasional intermittent signs that Whitney was on the mend. She had recently returned to acting filming a remake of Sparkle with "American Idol" alum Jordin Sparks. 

That musical is currently in postproduction aiming for an August 2012 release date. Whitney's movie career previously was sparse and short but started with a supernova: The Bodyguard (1992) was a smash hit at the box office and the music was an even bigger deal launching a series of hits and becoming the bestselling soundtrack of all time.

Houston jumped from A list co-star to A list co-star: Kevin Costner to Angela Bassett to Denzel Washington. (I remember being miffed at the time that Angela Bassett had to take second billing but I was a possessed Bassett fan in college and hoping to see her snag a second nod for her literally fiery work in Waiting To Exhale.).

The song everyone remembers from The Bodyguard is of course Dolly Parton's immortal "I Will Always Love You". My fondest memory of the song is actually Dolly Parton related. My friends and I would always be like 'ka-ching. You get that money, Dolly!' whenever Whitney held that crazy note which was, appropriately, ALWAYS ♫ since she didn't seem to need to breathe and the song was always on. Mostly out of loyalty to Dolly and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas where 'I Will Always' was first movie-fied but maybe also because I go weak at the knees for a sparkly headdress or wrap, I was more partial to "I Have Nothing."

Rest in Peace, Whitney Houston.  Your voice had plenty and you gave quite a lot of it to the world.

15 Days... (Remember When?)

Just a fortnight + 1 until Hollywood's High Holy Night

Remember what Jude and Nicole were looking at?
Remember when?

Jude Law Nicole Kidman Renée Zellweger

What profiles those two have, eh?

Continue for flashback / discussion

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Review: "Rampart"

originally published in my column at Towleroad

Woody Harrelson hits movie screens with such galvanizing force in Rampart, you might be surprised that Hollywood didn't cower and hand him an Oscar nomination, trembling. It's getting harder and harder to remember that he first came to fame as lovable naive "Woody" on Cheers. His turn in Rampart is closer to that worldly carnality from The People Vs. Larry Flynt but drained of any subversive joy.

Woody is playing an obstinate corrupt cop named Dave Brown. Brown's moniker within the precinct is the not-so-charming "Date Rape" which he supposedly garnered from the killing of a rapist years earlier. It's a piece of street justice that he will neither confirm nor deny but it sounds entirely plausible given his disdain for legality.

When Brown is caught on tape beating a suspect, he's put on probation. The Rampart Precinct has abundant PR problems and Brown, who is loudly homophobic, xenophobic and racist ("I hate all people equally," as he explains it) is one of their largest ones. So begins his downward spiral. It's not just his dirty cop behavior. His personal life is even messier. Brown is an unrepentant womanizer and in addition to one night stands (Broadway wonder Audra McDonald in a memorable cameo) and randy lawyers (Robin Wright, sensational) he's still living with and sleeping with his two ex-wives (Anne Heche and Cynthia Nixon), who are sisters. The women he's not sleeping he's either purposely or accidentally antagonizing like his lesbian daughter Helen (Brie Larson from United States of Tara).
 
"How's school?" he asks her, remembering to play Dad.

"It sucks," she replies more exhausted than angry. "It's full of candy-ass future fags and dykes like me. Those are your words not mine."

more after the jump

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