Awards Season 2013: WGA, Independent Spirit and Razzies Results

Awards season is nearly over for another year (I hear some sighs and a lot of relief). There's just one more to go- the big one- the 85th Annual Academy Awards which is tonight (February 24th). It can be viewed on a dedicated Sky Movies channel in the UK and on ABC in the US. But before I turn my eyes to the Oscars, here's a round-up of the rest of the awards ceremony that have taken place in the last week. 

WRITERS' GUILD AWARDS

The WGA Awards- which honour both television and film writing, were presented on Sunday February 17th. Here are the film winners.

Original Screenplay: Zero Dark Thirty

Adapted Screenplay: Argo

Documentary Screenplay: Searching For Sugar Man

Both Zero Dark Thirty and Argo are nominated in their respective writing categories for the Oscars, so wins here will bolster their chances for winning at the Academy Awards. There is no category for documentary writing at the Oscars but Searching For Sugar Man has had a lot of recognition at various awards ceremonies so stands a good chance tonight.

INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS

Yesterday- Saturday 23rd February- saw the handing out of the Independent Spirit Awards. These honour films made (partly or wholly) outside the major film studio system. Some of the winners are below.

Best Feature: Silver Linings Playbook

Best Female Lead: Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)

Best Male Lead: John Hawkes (The Sessions)

Best Supporting Female: Helen Hunt (The Sessions)

Best Supporting Male: Matthew McConaughey (Magic Mike)

Best Director: David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)

Best Screenplay: Silver Linings Playbook

Best First Screenplay: Safety Not Guaranteed

Best Cinematography: Beasts Of The Southern Wild

Best First Feature: The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

Best International Film: Amour

Best Documentary: The Invisible War

John Cassavetes Award: Middle Of Nowhere

The John Cassavetes Award is given to the creative team of a film budgeted at less than $500,000. As an aside, I like the fact that most of the films mentioned on this list have had widespread cinema release. It's proof that independent film-making is not only alive and well but is breaking out of the niche that it's often put in. The full list of winners can be found here.

THE RAZZIES

As is traditional, last night (the night before the Oscars ceremony) also saw the 33rd Annual Golden Raspberry Awards. Dishonouring the worst in film in 2012, there was one overwhelming 'winner' among the ten categories awarded.

Worst Picture: Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Worst Actor: Adam Sandler (That's My Boy!)

Worst Actress: Kristen Stewart (Snow White And The Huntsman and Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2)

Worst Supporting Actor: Taylor Lautner (Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2)

Worst Supporting Actress: Rihanna (Battleship)

Worst Screen Ensemble: The Entire Cast of Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Worst Director: Bill Condon (Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2)

Worst Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel: Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Worst Screen Couple: Mackenzie Foy and Taylor Lautner (Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2)

Worst Screenplay: That's My Boy!

So that's pretty much covered the rest of the awards given out. But who will win the Oscars? My predictions for the winners of the Big Six, coming up soon.

Tez

Awards Season 2013: BAFTA and Razzie Award Nominations

This week's a pretty busy one when it comes to the awards season. The Golden Globes will be announced on Sunday (13th January), whilst the nominations for the Producers' Guild Awards, Director's Guild Awards and Writers' Guild Awards have been announced.

Today saw the nomination announcement of two very different film awards.

Firstly, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) announced their film award nominations. Here are some of their choices:

BEST FILM

Argo

Les Miserables

Life of Pi

Lincoln

Zero Dark Thirty

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM

Anna Karenina

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Les Miserables

Seven Psychopaths

Skyfall

LEADING ACTOR

Ben Affleck - Argo

Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook

Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln

Hugh Jackman - Les Miserables

Joaquin Phoenix - The Master

LEADING ACTRESS

Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty

Marion Cotillard - Rust and Bone

Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook

Helen Mirren - Hitchcock

Emmanuelle Riva - Amour

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Alan Arkin - Argo

Javier Bardem - Skyfall

Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Master

Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln

Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams - The Master

Judi Dench - Skyfall

Sally Field - Lincoln

Anne Hathaway - Les Miserables

Helen Hunt - The Sessions

DIRECTOR

Ben Affleck - Argo

Kathryn Bigelow - Zero Dark Thirty

Michael Haneke - Amour

Ang Lee - Life of Pi

Quentin Tarantino - Django Unchained

A full list can be found here. 

There are some interesting choices here- notably Ben Affleck as Best Actor for Argo (in all other award nomination, he's been up for Best Director), the choice of Michael Haneke for Best Director and Javier Bardem and Judi Dench in the Supporting categories for Skyfall. As you can imagine, there is often a skew towards British films and talent in these nominations (it is the British Academy, after all).

The BAFTA Film Awards will be handed out on Sunday 10th February.

* * *

Today also saw the nominations announced for the Golden Raspberry Awards (a.k.a. Razzies). 

Dishonouring the very worst in cinema in 2012, these nominations seem strangely familiar yet oddly comforting at the same time. The Razzie panel have always taken a fairly extreme dislike to a) Adam Sandler; b) Eddie Murphy; c) The Twilight franchise and d) Nicolas Cage, and this year's been a banner year for all of them.

Worst Picture

Battleship

The Oogieloves in Big Balloon Adventure

That's My Boy

A Thousand Words

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Worst Director

Sean Anders - That's My Boy

Peter Berg - Battleship

Bill Condon - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Tyler Perry - Good Deeds / Madea's Witness Protection

John Putch - Atlas Shrugged: Part II

Worst Actress

Katherine Heigl - One for the Money

Milla Jovovich - Resident Evil: Retribution

Tyler Perry - Madea's Witness Protection

Kristen Stewart - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II / Snow White and the Huntsman

Barbra Streisand - The Guilt Trip

Worst Actor

Nicolas Cage - Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance / Seeking Justice

Eddie Murphy - A Thousand Words

Robert Pattinson - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Tyler Perry - Alex Cross / Good Deeds

Adam Sandler - That's My Boy

Worst Supporting Actress

Jessica Biel - Playing For Keeps / Total Recall

Brooklyn Decker - Battleship / What to Expect When You're Expecting

Ashley Greene - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Jennifer Lopez - What to Expect When You're Expecting

Rihanna - Battleship

Worst Supporting Actor

David Hasselhoff - Pirannha 3-DD

Taylor Lautner - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Liam Neeson - Battleship / Wrath of the Titans

Nick Swardson - That's My Boy

Vanilla Ice - That's My Boy

Worst Screen Ensemble

Battleship

The Oogieloves in Big Balloon Adventure

That's My Boy

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Madea's Witness Protection

Worst Screenplay

Atlas Shrugged Part II

Battleship

That's My Boy

A Thousand Words

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Worst Remake, Rip-Off, or Sequel

Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance

Pirannha 3-DD

Red Dawn

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Madea's Witness Protection

Worst Screen Couple

Any two cast members from Jersey Shore in The Three Stooges

Mackenzie Foy and Taylor Lautner in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Tyler Perry and his drag in Madea's Witness Protection

Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg, Leighton Meester, or Susan Sarandon in That's My Boy

It's quite a surprise not to see John Carter or Prometheus on the list as they were both pretty dreadful. Anyway, the Razzies will be handed out on Saturday 23rd February (the day before the Oscars, as is traditional).

* * *

The 85th Academy Award nominations will be announced tomorrow (Thursday 10th January) so it's time for me to get off the fence and work out my Official Oscar Nomination Predictions. I'll post them shortly.

Tez

Review: Battleship (UK Cert 12A)

First off, I love blockbusters.

I even love them when you disengage your brain, you eat your popcorn and you don't care ridiculous the script is, how stupid the woman role is, how OTT macho the lead men are and even when the explosion soundtrack makes my ears bleed. BUT! This film is just beyond belief – it's all the above and still you can't forgive it and say ‘oh well, it’s a blockbuster, it’s not Shakespeare!’

So, let's begin this warning… yes, this is not a review – this is a WARNING! I'm warning you and also saving you all from wasting two of your life! From the get go, this film is awful! Not ‘it’s that bad, it’s good’, not a ‘guilty pleasure’ – just an abomination on the cinema landscape.

The film is based on the board game of the same name. Yes, it’s based on a board game, which is now owned by Hasbro. Some bright spark at Hasbro decided their next venture into film after the success of Transformers would be… a board game! Come on! Barbie The Movie would have been a better idea – and me saying I would prefer to watch Barbie The Movie screams how bad this film is! Now, you can make a successful film based on a board game – a case in point is Clue (based on Cluedo) but then again Dungeons & Dragons is the yin to that yang! But I digress.

So, the premise: the annual get together of all the Navies of the world – a military expo- is happening and we meet character upon character of annoying cliché drivel. Very near by, there’s a space signal monitoring station where, it just so happens, a few years previous a message was sent out to a newly found planet which is likely to be a close resemblance to Earth! Aliens invade, trap three battleships in a massive force field and a battle commences – you see, the Aliens need the communication dishes that are conveniently near by, because their communication ship crashlanded in Hong Kong, killing twenty thousand people! Yeah.

This movie has a terrible plot, the dialogue might as well be written on the back of a playing card and the cast are just the worst actors on Earth – oh, and on top of that, the lead of this film has had not one but two massive flops this year: Taylor Kitsch (who also starred in Disney's John Carter). We even have Rihanna in this film and you know a film is pants when a pop singer turns up (Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome anyone?) Not even Liam Neeson can save this film; his role is blatantly there so his name can be on the poster and Liam Neeson on the poster gets us him playing the Admiral who, for the entire movie, is on the other side of the forcefield, unable to do anything which makes his payday easy (as he literally does nothing in this movie!)

The worst moment of this film however is a scene where there trying to be all Das Boot and use low lighting, have the characters in a 'silent running' mode of combat, all looking at one another with tense (yawn inducing) close ups! But what do they do? Well, you see, because of the forcefield and Alien tech that surrounds them, all radar is not working and they can’t lock on without co-ordinates. So they devise a plan- thanks to a Captain of a Japanese vessel (don't ask!), they’ve been using a clever tracking system. They bring up all the buoys in the area then overlay with a map- thus creating a grid. With this grid, they can lock on to a target. So we see characters all tense-looking as they lock onto A4 and FIRE… then we wait to see if it’s a MISS or a HIT! Yes, they actually try to make playing Battleship tense and dramatic!

The film.... no, I refuse to call it a film… The giant advert has no redeeming features in any form and should under no circumstances be watched.

I will give it..... 0.00000000000000000000001 out of 5

Rhys