BAFTA 2019 Film Awards

[CaptainYooh]

Perhaps, this could be of interest to CP movie buffs.


I am in Europe now. We watched BAFTA Awards ceremony for the first time last night. BAFTA has two award ceremonies, one for films (in February) and another for TV (in May). "Roma" pretty much cleaned out, snubbing awards in most major categories, including best film of the year, best director etc., which should be a good indicator for where the American Academy is going to vote. "The Favourite" picked up almost everything that "Roma" didn't.

I had conflicting feelings about this. Both my wife and I were cheering for "Roma" and were happy it had won so many awards. I really loved "Roma"; it's a great movie, just like a breath of fresh air in what's being produced these days. Wonderful, simple story, well-told and well-shown. So, absolutely, well-deserved awards for Best Foreign Movie and Best Foreign Language Movie (they have two different award categories). But to be completely honest, I couldn't stop thinking that if I were a British actor/director/producer with entries in the major categories, I'd be really pissed at BAFTA for also giving "Roma" Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay awards. Because "Roma" has nothing to do with British cinematography, whatsoever. I actually did some reading about BAFTA qualification and it's very vague. It says that BAFTA can qualify entries on exceptional basis, but, still, this complete sweep was quite surprising. There was a controversy a few years ago, when "Gravity" allowed to compete with zero British film-industry involvement; but the explanation was that movies in English language can qualify by simply checking a proverbial "check-mark" on the entry form. OK, fine. "Roma" doesn't check it. Anyway, I guess it is what it is. Just puzzling.

Other notes/observations:

Bradley Cooper was nominated for five awards (!) and won one for the original score ("A Star is Born") with Lady Gaga (who was at the Grammy's). Apparently, he also wrote the music for that movie.

Prince William is BAFTA's President. I didn't know that. He announced the Fellowship Award to Thelma Schoonmaker, Editor of all Scorcese movies. This is an equivalent of the Academy Lifetime Achievement Award but they give it last, to top the evening.

The ceremony was two hours on the clock. They shoot it an hour early and then edit out smaller awards. No long speeches; a couple of "thank you"s, a quick joke (a few good ones about Brexit) and that's it, 10-15 seconds at most. Notable exceptions were Letitia Wright ("Rising Star" Award voted online) thanking Jesus for about 5 minutes and "Black Panther" US sound crew, thanking everyone on earth in the worst of Oscar's traditions.

Melissa McCarthy was nominated for the Best Actress ("Can You Ever Forgive Me?", her first major/serious nomination (and the first role in which she is not playing the same character over an over again). Good for her.

We were rooting for Glenn Close to win Best Actress for "The Wife", but, predictably, Olivia Colman took it for "The Favourite". Her speech was awful. She had a bunch of hand-written notes, but couldn't read them without glasses so she just mumbled something incoherent, which was embarrassing.

Rami Malek won the Best Actor and said "You, Brits, know how to do it classy". I kinda agreed with him. It was a good show to watch, without Oscars' over-the-top idiocy of having to watch celebrities thanking their hairdressers and preaching world peace.