BAFTA Long List Losses

I've said it before and I'm forced to say it again. I'm *so* glad that the American Academy does not publish a long list. i.e. the semi-finals. You see, It's so much more bearable / engaging when you can imagine that straight up great achievements or achievements you really responded to personally but you knew might have trouble rallying huge swaths of support were in 6th or 7th place or 10th place in voting. The way BAFTA does it, however, you are forced to understand that Oscar buzz is everything and Super Size Mediocrities will always triumph over critical darlings or more challenging Art.

Take the Best Picture categories for a prime example. Notice that Weekend for example, a very British and very acclaimed film is not one of their "outstanding" homegrown products (they might want to check the reviews again) and notice that auteurist films frequently called masterpieces by their fans (The Tree of Life and Melancholia) are also absent. Other films ignored because you have to have space for The Lukewarmly Reviewed Biopics About Lady Actresses and Lady Politicians are... no, no. It's too horrible to start listing them!

Best Film The Artist, The Descendants, Drive, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Help, Hugo, The Ides of March, The Iron Lady, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, My Week with Marilyn, Senna, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, War Horse, and We Need to Talk About Kevin 

Outstanding British Film Arthur Christmas, Attack the Block, Coriolanus, The Guard, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Iron Lady, Jane Eyre, My Week with Marilyn, Senna, Shame, Submarine, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tyrannosaur, War Horse, and We Need to Talk About Kevin 

BAFTA voters went crazy 4 My Week With Marilyn, longlisted many many times

Film Not in the English Language  Abel, As If I Am Not There, The Boy Mir – Ten Years in Afghanistan, Calvet,  Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries), Incendies, Little White Lies, Pina, Post Mortem, Potiche, Le Quattro Volte, A Separation, The Skin I Live In, Tomboy and The Troll Hunter

More long list looniness with commentary after the jump...

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London Critics Love: A Separation, Drive, Tinker Tailor

The London Film Critics will not name their winners, as far as I can tell, until a ceremony on January 19th. I wonder if that's correct? Do they really have enough clout to get celebrities to show without winning in advance? (That's how most critics organizations get celebrities at their events. They come specifically to receive awards they've already won). But here are their nominees. It's good news for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Drive which led the nominations with six each including Best Film. A Separation also did really well as it continues to build momentum. It's just so sad that it didn't get an earlier and harder push. It should've been in the Best Picture discussion and lord knows it's about time we had an instant foreign language classic in the Best Picture discussion again. Remember when that was happening regularly for a few years about ten yeras back.

I don't want to keep you or myself -- I have things to type up -- but how about these actress categories? It's like one amazing woman after another.

ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Kirsten Dunst - Melancholia (interview... not on this film)
Anna Paquin - Margaret *
Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady 
Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk About Kevin 
Michelle Williams - My Week With Marilyn

* NYC readers should note that Margaret, which has been causing such a no screeners / no campaign year-end critical fuss is reopening at Cinema Village on December 23rd. That theater is microscopic so expect sell-outs. I can't say whether I'll end up on #TeamMargaret or not but I appreciate the chance to see it before I publish my lists.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Sareh Bayat - A Separation
Jessica Chastain - The Help 
Vanessa Redgrave - Coriolanus
Octavia Spencer - The Help 
Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom INTERVIEW

BRITISH ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Olivia Colman - The Iron Lady & Tyrannosaur INTERVIEW
Carey Mulligan - Drive  &  Shame 
Vanessa Redgrave - Anonymous & Coriolanus
Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk About Kevin
Rachel Weisz - The Deep Blue Sea

I've never quite understood British Award groups tendencies to have specifically British prizes. Can't we just assume they'll prefer the Brits and be as patriotic as other countries in their homegrown awards? The Oscars don't have a "Best American Actress" category. The London Critics regular "Best Actress" category is two American blondes who were once teen star co-stars, a Canadian/New Zealander, a Jersey Girl (that'd be Streep) and a Scottish alien goddess. 

BIFA Noms: "Tyrannosaur" Triumphs, "Weekend" Wobbles

Herewith a few comments about the just-announced British Independent Film Awards. You may recall that last year they heavily favored The King's Speech and strangely snubbed Mike Leigh's Another Year in Best Film.

BIFA loved "Kevin" but wasn't crazy about "Weekend"

I should warn you up front that I'm apt to spend the whole time bitching about the strange snubbing of Weekend in all but one category. 

British Independent Film
Senna
Shame
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Tyrannosaur
We Need To Talk About Kevin

They unfortunately snubbed the acclaimed gay romance Weekend (Dear reader, I did warn you. DEAR NOTE, I SHALL HIT THEE FREQUENTLY!) which was a perfect fit given the "British" and the "Independent"... not to mention that it's a better film than some of these titles. But then, that's award season for you. Right from the start there will be winners and losers and unexpecting favoring of certain titles that nobody was expecting major awards runs from. Not sure what to make of the lineup other than that the deep preferencing for Shame, Tyrannosaur, and Kevin reminds us that when seeking kudos, ambitiously arty but thunderously grim depression can be an easier path to glory than optimistic and delicately carved miniatures. Again, where is Weekend?

Best Director
Ben Wheatley, Kill List
Steve McQueen, Shame
Tomas Alfredson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Paddy Considine, Tyrannosaur
Lynne Ramsay, We Need To Talk About Kevin

Best Debut Director (The Douglas Hickox Award)
Joe Cornish, Attack the Block
Ralph Fiennes, Coriolanus
John Michael McDonagh, The Guard
Richard Ayoade, Submarine
Paddy Considine, Tyrannosaur 

Paddy Considine directs Olivia Colman to greatness in "Tyrannosaur"

I am of the opinion that when one separates directing categories one should not be eligible for both. More direction and acting nods after the jump...

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Best of London: Weekend, Snowtown, Martha, and More...

[Editor's Note: Thank you to Craig and David for their reporting from this year's London Film Festival which concluded two days ago. Here they are with a final chat about their treasures and pleasures. -Nathaniel]

Craig: So, David, I guess it's time to mull it over and decide on our "Best of the Fest". Top tens, top fives? More, less? I wonder what we'll agree and disagree on...

David: It's always sad to say goodbye. It might not be the most glamorous or revelatory event on the festival circuit, but it has such a nice atmosphere strewn across Central London, flirting with megastars every so often, but giving equal red carpet steps to the little gems you speak of. A top five definitely isn't enough for me, but I'll give restraining myself my best shot. I've been there most days, and often packed in four in a day (my eyes are paying the price!), so I'd wager I have seen more than you - quality over quantity, though! 

Dendera

In my stringently ordered, agonisingly compiled list that I just came up with, my number five slot would go to Oslo, August 31st, which I offered up some thoughts on just the other day - so I'll give conversation space to a glorious runner-up instead. Dendera – one of the most enjoyable experiences of the fest – is a gloriously demented twist on a Japanese myth invented in Imamura's The Ballad of Naramaya; in this new film, his son Daisuke Tengan explores the afterlife of the elderly who've been put out to pasture. One old woman decided she didn't want to die, thank you, and set up a community on the other side of the hill from the village that cast her out. In short: it's the sort of bloody batshit horror movie you'd have seen in 1980s Britain, not least because of hilariously dreadful bear puppetry that's very similar to Attack the Block.

Craig: I’ve heard variable things on Dendera, but your description makes it sound like great fun. Sad I missed it now. And due to timing I had to choose another film over Oslo, sadly. Quite unintentionally I saw a lot of  rather grim confrontational dramas although the lighter titles were a delight, so I should first give credit to three not at all violent films which won me over immensely. Weekend was a beautifully played affair that grabbed me from the first frame. Loved its naturalistic dialogue, likeable performances and wistfully hopeful (would you agree?) overall tone. How sweet to finally have a gay take on the Before Sunset/Sunrise 'will they or won't they?' film! Pariah, another excellent gay-themed romance, was moving and featured a great central turn from Adepero Oduye. The photography stood out as some of the fest’s best, too. (I wrote about both earlier) Terri, a cheering and good-natured film about an overweight high school loner made, was made with easy style and without sentimental cliché. It snuck up on me in a big way; its emotional impact worked during the film and later, on my way to the tube, it made me smile in the way that obviously quirky indie films of its ilk rarely do. John C. Reilly gave one of his best performances and the humour was well-timed. What gems delighted you, David? I ask this now, before we get to the inevitably gloomier stuff...

David: Weekend is so good it deserves repeating. [MORE AFTER THE JUMP ON SEVERAL TITLES...]

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London: "The Deep Blue Sea"

David here with one last report from the London Film Festival. Master British filmmaker Terence Davies provided a suitably British closing film, with Rachel Weisz lost in The Deep Blue Sea...

"Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea," Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) remarks at one point, naming the title of Terence Davies' latest feature, an adaptation of a Terence Rattigan play. It's Hester's voice that opens the film, too, disembodied over the dark blue background of the credits, reading a suicide note to her lover, Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston of Thor fame). Hester is drowning in the deep blue sea of her own adoration, because Freddie's love isn't strong enough to reciprocate and pull her back to the surface.

The Deep Blue Sea betrays its theatrical origins from the first shot, panning smoothly across the front of a row of houses, the edges of the frame misty as though the smoke machines have been humming for hours. Davies has never been one to shy away from formalistic filmmaking, though, and like his best work, this film finds emotional power in and despite of the thoroughly artificial surface, which cracks itself between theatrical mannerisms and the sort of dissolution of temporality that dominated Davies' feature debut Distant Voices, Still Lives. The couple's flat houses much of the action, lit with a curiously indistinct glow through the windows, and the dialogue, particularly Hester's verbalisation of her feelings, is more narrational than conversational. But only minutes in, her memories spin, and black dissolves glide through her memories with a ghostly implacability.

As we meet her, Hester is trying to commit suicide - an indication that her story is not set to be a cheerful one. Handy with the sort of observational intimacy he practiced in Distant Voices and The House of Mirth, Davies again tells a deeply personal story without giving his filmmaking over to a singular point of view. It's due to Weisz's superb performance - besting her Oscar-winning work in The Constant Gardener - that we understand the moments of worldly perspective, from every mention of the war to the words of her landlady Mrs. Elton (Ann Mitchell), are Hester's own realisations of how selfish and narcissitic her dramatic emotions are. Despite the stilted dialogue, Weisz's is a very physical performance, the overwhelming nature of Hester's love and her attempts to quash it apparent in the cadences of her voice and the limits she puts on her movements.

The Deep Blue Sea is often too mannered, too ponderous, and Davies' technical mastery of the camera has the faint scent of pomposity to it. The pitch of Weisz' vivid passion is never as apparent as it needs to be in this environment;  a breathless swoop of the camera onto her face is notable for its alertness, a crack in the fusty air around her. But finally, though rooted in British history (as the final shot insists), this is an irrefutably personal story in a world that emphasised the communal. Hester, unfamiliar with the song the patriotic drinkers around her sing, softly sings the chorus only to Freddie, shifting the words into her own narrative. Selfish, but after all, her passion is just a drop in the deep blue sea. (B)