BAFTA Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Moon has been the little movie that did, thanks to director Duncan Jones's tireless traveling, interviews, audience Q&As, fan interaction, and, of course, because it's a kick-ass sci-fi movie. Jones has even gone so far as to create an online petition to get Sam Rockwell nominated for a Best Actor Oscar – heck, it even has its own Twitter hashtag. You can also follow Jones on Twitter for more Moon news, and keep track of his campaign for a Rockwell nom on his blog.

Earlier tonight at a screening for Gentlemen Broncos, there was an audience Q&A session with actors Sam Rockwell, Michael Angarano, Halley Feiffer, and Mike White, and writer/director Jared Hess. (Jemaine Clement, I'm sad to say, was not there.) As for Duncan Jones's campaign, Rockwell said, "Well, you know, dreams are nice. It's very flattering. Very, very flattering. Very nice. I mean it's obviously the director so he has an agenda [audience laughs] but it's nice to see that. We worked really hard on that film." (The audience, by the way, clapped hard at the mention of Jones's campaign.)

A little positivity has gone a long way for Mike Leigh. Since Happy-Go-Lucky premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2008, it's charmed audiences worldwide, and earned an impressive 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It seemed destined to win it all, or at the very least -- a Best Film nod at this year's British Academy Film Awards (also known as the BAFTAs). Nope! Think again!

The Hollywood Reporter posts that the film will not be in the running for a nomination in the Best Film category this year, nor will Mike Leigh be on the list for Best Director. A long list was sent to voting members, and while flicks like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Wrestler, and The Dark Knight were present, Poppy's happy-go-lucky attitude was not. The small bone that the film will most likely get is a nod in the Best British film category. That's it.

We complain about all the Oscar rules, but man -- it's a lot more annoying when one of the most highly regarded British films this year couldn't even be on the long list for Best Film at a British awards ceremony. I would get all ranty about this, but that behavior is most certainly anti-Poppy. So, I'll just wish the powers that BAFTA be find themselves locked in a car with Scott sometime.

Atonement was a solid pick that seemed destined to fall at the Golden Globes. However, it zoomed into the lead and stole the big Golden Globe away from the likes of No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Now it's the frontrunner on its home turf for this year's British Academy Film Awards --aka-- the BAFTAs. Variety reports that the film grabbed a whopping 14 nominations, leading, again, the two films it crushed at the Globes, Old Men and Blood -- both of which received nine nods. Behind them, there's the two films that grabbed five nominations each, and are also in the running for best film -- American Gangster and The Lives of Others.

I imagine that Atonement will come out with a victory again, being British and all, but just maybe some Stasi sternness, Blood, or Men can slip in and steal the win. (Props to Gangster for a nod, but I would be beyond surprised if it beat out it's competition for Best Film.) Most of the other picks are pretty expected, although you might be surprised to see Shrek 3 as one of the 3 animation contenders. Personally, I'd love to see Ulrich Muehe get a posthumous award myself for Best Actor.

Zip through the jump to see the full list of nominees.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA -- the Brit equivalent of the Oscars over here) just announced their nominees, and there are going to be some happy people at Fox Searchlight going into Sundance next week. Their big pick from last year's Sundance, Little Miss Sunshine, continues to pick up steam on the awards front, scoring BAFTA noms for Best Film, Direction, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor (Alan Arkin) and -- not one, but two! -- Supporting Actress nods for Abigail Breslin and Toni Collette.

There's no denying that people just love something about this film, but it's interesting that Collete scored a nom. Breslin is great in the film, but Collette's restrained performance didn't seem to stand out much, competing against the trio of Arkin, Greg Kinnear and Steve Carrell, so it's nice to see BAFTA recognizing her work there.

Joining the little-comedy-that-could in the Best Picture berth are Babel, The Departed, The Last King of Scotland, and The Queen. The Last King of Scotland and The Queen were also nominated in the Best British Film Category; it's likely, if one of those wins, it will be in that slot, leaving Babel and The Departed to duke it out with little Abigail and the yellow VW bus.

This marks Alejandro González Iñárritu's second Best Picture nom, with Babel already nommed for a Best Picture Golden Globe, while fellow Amigos Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro once again get left out in the cold). Innaritu is also a Directors Guild of America nominee. Del Toro did get a nod for his film, Pan's Labyrinth, in the Best Foreign Picture category, where he's up against Apocalypto (James might just have a stroke if that one wins), Black Book, which was getting heavy buzz for awhile at Toronto, Rang de Basanti (Paint it Yellow) and Volver.

Best Actor nominations include Leonardo DiCaprio (The Departed), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Peter O'Toole (Venus), Richard Griffiths (The History Boys) and Daniel Craig (Casino Royale). Don't look for the latter two to carry much weight with Oscar noms. If I were betting on this one, my money would be on O'Toole to take this one. Best Actress, much like the Globe noms, pits the formidable British trio of Helen Mirren, Judi Dench and Kate Winslet against Penelope Cruz for Volver. Whereas the Globes rounded out the Best Actress court with Maggie Gyllenhaal for Sherrybaby, the BAFTAs toss in some love for Meryl Streep for The Devil Wears Prada. Prada also scored noms for Emily Blunt for Best Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay.

Children of Men, sadly, continues to get ignored for the big categories, although it scored noms for cinematography and production design. I'm not sure what exactly happened to derail this film's chances for major awards; it's critically lauded, it's done decent box office, and it was on all kinds of top ten lists, but for whatever reason it's getting overlooked for the majors, which is a shame.

Full list of BAFTA noms after the jump:

If you had to choose the better year for Cillian Murphy, would you pick 2005 or 2006? In the earlier year, millions of viewers saw him in Batman Begins and Red Eye. In the later year, a few people saw him in Breakfast on Pluto (which was also seen by some in 2005) and the Cannes winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Okay, so I'm going by American audiences -- both were seen by a lot of people overseas. Still, 2005 was the year he seemed to shoot into stardom with higher profile roles. And he had already been widely seen a few years earlier in 28 Days Later.

Speaking of 28 Days Later, that film also featured Naomie Harris, who now co-stars with Murphy in the list of nominees for BAFTA's Orange Rising Star Award. The award debuted at last year's BAFTA Awards in order to recognize an actor or actress with great promise for the future in terms of acting talent and connection with audiences. The first winner was James McAvoy, who beat out breakthrough actors Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams (who was also in Red Eye), Michelle Williams and Gael García Bernal.

The BAFTA awards were handed out in London today by the British Film Academy and, as usual, Brokeback Mountain took home a whole pile of awards. The film won both best picture and best adapted screenplay, and director Ang Lee got yet another trophy to add to his drooping mantle. There was, however, one surprise in Brokeback's triumph: Jake Gyllenhaal was named best supporting actor, thus (unofficially) becoming the first member of the always-nominated gay cowboy couple to actually win something.

Other big winners included best actor Philip Seymour Hoffman (whose mantle must be getting awfully full in its own right), best actress Reese Witherspoon, and non-Bond girl Thandie Newton, who was named best supporting actress for her work in Crash.

The BAFTA (don't worry about what it stands for - basically, they're the British Oscars) nominations were announced this morning in London, thus reducing the shortlists of 15 down to five finalists in each category. Leading the pack was The Constant Gardener - the John le Carré adaptation received ten nominations including best picture, best director (Fernando Meirelles) best actress (Rachel Weisz), and best actor (Ralph Fiennes). The gay cowboys also continued to do well for themselves, as Brokeback Mountain came away with a total of nine nominations, among them one each for Heath Ledger (best actor), Jake Gyllenhaal (best supporting actor), and Golden Globes best director Ang Lee. Crash also was nominated nine times, competing in both the best picture and best director categories. Memoirs of a Geisha, which had the most shortlist nominations, ended up with only a handful of mentions, including one for Zhang Ziyi as best supporting actress.

The BAFTA awards (the complete list of nominees is here) will be handed out on February 19, less than a month before the Academy Awards ceremony.

Despite the controversy over Spielberg's political leanings (not to mention the wishy-washy press "embargo"), Munich has thus far failed to make as much of an impact on the awards scene as many earlier predicted. That situation was not helped by yesterday's news that voters for the BAFTAs (Britain's version of the Oscars) were sent DVD screeners that most members could not watch.

It all ties into piracy paranoia. Remember months ago when the studios started signing up with Cinea to encode their DVD screeners? The idea was that voters would be sent special DVDs that could only play on Cinea-specific players, which would also be provided. This seems to have gone off without a hitch in most cases, but a customs snafu kept the screeners out of the hands of voters past the January 3 deadline for early voting. Universal issued an apology, promising that voters would get their screeners in time for the final deadline, and issuing a vaguely threatening warning: "Do not vote without seeing this extraordinary film." Numbers are not yet in in regards to how many voters actually obeyed this command, but those that did probably did not vote at all – when the screeners did arrive, they were encoded as Region One, which only works in the US and Canada, presumably Cinea-player be damned. As the film is not yet in British theaters, those who have not recently gone cinemagoing in the US will be unable to vote for it (if they choose to disobey Universal's orders and vote at all).

I think Eric Bangeman at Ars Technica sums this up best: "Region encoding is stupid, and like many of the other steps taken by the content-creation industry to protect its interests, it hurts consumers, he writes. "I'm wondering what the fallout from the situation withMunich and BAFTA will be. Spielberg is a major player in Hollywood, and I can't imagine he's pleased that his masterpiece will be ineligible for consideration for the British awards." "Masterpiece" might be stretching it, but what good are piracy regulations if keep the films in question from getting awards recognition, which is in itself primarily useful for its ability to jack up box office?

BAFTA (The British Academy of Film and Television Arts) announced the "longlist" for their British Academy Film Awards, and something clearly went terribly wrong. While Brokeback Mountain did receive 13 nominations (as did The Constant Gardener and Good Night, and Good Luck), it was beaten out by Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha, which led the pack with 15 total mentions. Um, BAFTA? Did you not hear? Gay cowboys are supposed to win everything, and besides, Memoirs of Geisha really isn't very good at all. Come on, people - get with the program.

There's still hope, however, that the natural order of things will be restored. BAFTA's longlists consist of the 15 films in each category that made it through the first round of voting. A second round - completed on January 12 - will narrow the groups down to five finalists. Sadly, things can only get worse for both Munich, which was late in getting screeners out and is on only two lists (for best director and adapted screenplay) and The New World, which failed to receive a single mention.