If you believe that the BAFTAs act as a bellweather for the Oscars, then Slumdog Millionaire will win all the Oscars.
Also, the Oscars are going to be really bloody drizzly. Because that happened at the BAFTAs too. But anyway, Slumdog Millionaire was the big winner at last night’s BAFTA awards, scooping Best Film, Best Director, Best Music, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay. Why? Because it’s principally British? No. Well, yes. A bit.
But Slumdog Millionaire wasn’t the only thing to leave the BAFTAs with anything. We left with the onset of trenchfoot. Eat that, Dev Patel.
The BAFTAs are the shining light at the centre of the British filmmaking calendar, where the great and the good decide that they’re probably happier to stay in Hollywood and have a night off, then the good and the mediocre plan to go but get put off by all the rain and we’re left with Christian Slater and celebrity hairdresser Nicky Clarke and an auditorium that smells vaguely of wet dog.
But the BAFTAs aren’t just the badly-dentured Oscars any more – now they’re an exciting precursor to the Oscars. You see, the BAFTAs inform the Oscars, just in the same way that the 4,000 other award shows which happen in the first six weeks of the year inform the Oscars.
And, if the BAFTAs have any sway whatsoever, it might be a good year for Slumdog Millionaire. It’s a movie that’s already beaten the odds – originally destined to be a direct-to-DVD release, Slumdog Millionaire is at once both the most depressing feelgood movie you’re ever likely to see and the most celebrated movie to ever fall apart and stop being any good about two-thirds in.
Not that any of that stopped Slumdog Millionaire from winning everything at the BAFTAs, though, as the Hollywood Reporter, um, reports:
Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” dominated this year’s Orange British Academy Film Awards, scooping seven awards including best film, director, cinematography and adapted screenplay for writer Simon Beaufoy. “I’ve had a complex relationship with this statue,” Beaufoy said, “I have a plastic one that I bought from eBay, a chocolate one that I stole from the dinner one year and now, well …”
Elsewhere at the BAFTAs, Kate Winslet‘s Best Actress award for The Reader gave her another chance ahead of the Oscars to not instantly start blubbering like an idiot the moment that anybody says her name out loud, Noel Clarke won the BAFTA Orange Rising Star Award and Abi Titmuss turned up, even though nobody really knew why.
Chances are you’ve already seen our searing expose of the BAFTA red carpet, but if you actually want to see what some of the celebrities who turned up look like when they’re not studiously avoiding a swearing idiot, then you’ll be able to find some decent BAFTA interviews here. Warning – in them, Fearne Cotton appears to be wearing Brian Blessed to keep warm.
Andrew says
Ugh this piece of crap has robbed so many awesome movies of their well-deserved awards.