Awards Season 2014: BAFTA Nominations

For those who may have been wondering (not very many of you, I expect), the slight delay in putting up this post comes from a move of house. But fear not, trusty award season aficionados (all 3 of you), I am now well and truly internet-ted up and can post away. Joy unbounded, eh?

Anyway, Awards Season is well and truly in full swing: it's Golden Globes weekend, and the nominations have been announced for the Producers Guild Awards, the Directors Guild Awards, and the Writers Guild Awards. Next week will see the announcement of the Razzies (on Wednesday 15th) before the Oscar nominations are announced on Thursday 16th. I will, as last year, put my official Oscar nomination predictions up the day before the announcement.

My main reason for posting, though, is that earlier this week- Wednesday 8th January, to be precise- the nominations were announced for this years BAFTA Film Awards. Here's a selection of the nominations:

BEST FILM

12 Years A Slave

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Gravity

Philomena

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM

Gravity

Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom

Philomena

Rush

Saving Mr. Banks

The Selfish Giant

LEADING ACTOR

Christian Bale (American Hustle)

Bruce Dern (Nebraska)

Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf Of Wall Street)

Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave)

Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips)

LEADING ACTRESS

Amy Adams (American Hustle)

Sandra Bullock (Gravity)

Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)

Judi Dench (Philomena)

Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks)

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)

Daniel Bruhl (Rush)

Bradley Cooper (American Hustle)

Matt Damon (Behind The Candelabra)

Michael Fassbender (12 Years A Slave)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)

Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)

Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)

Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years A Slave)

Oprah Winfrey (The Butler)

DIRECTOR

Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)

Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips)

Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave)

David O. Russell (American Hustle)

Martin Scorsese (The Wolf Of Wall Street)

A full list can be found here.

There's a few interesting additions and omissions here, mostly Matt Damon's nomination for Behind The Candelabra. Both he and Michael Douglas gave great performances but, as it didn't get a cinema release in the US, it's ineligible for a lot of the major awards. However, it was released in the cinema here. A lot of the usual names have been mentioned, but in some categories- mostly Leading Actor and Supporting Actress- there are a few lesser mentioned names which could make for an interesting curve-ball or two come the Oscar nominations. I'd absolutely love to see Sally Hawkins get an Oscar nod for Blue Jasmine.

Interestingly, the five nominations for Best Director tally directly with the Directors Guild Awards so I would expect to see all five names mentioned on Thursday. 

Next up for Awards Season will be Golden Globe results on Monday.

Enjoy your weekend.

Tez

Review: Rush (UK Cert 15)

The story of the 1976 Formula 1 Grand Prix season is stranger than fiction and may well have been dismissed as contrived fancy if it didn't actually happen. Central to the drama of the season was the intense rivalry between British driver James Hunt and Austrian driver Niki Lauda, which had been brewing for years since their first meeting in a Formula 3 race in 1970. The Hunt/Lauda story is the basis for Rush, directed by Ron Howard from a screenplay by Peter Morgan. Howard and Morgan previously worked together on the frankly brilliant Frost/Nixon, so my hopes were high going in to it.

The film is anchored by a pair of superb central performances. Hemsworth is brilliant as Hunt, coming across as charismatic and charming without ever appearing sleazy. Hunt was no saint and the film doesn't shy away from showing his excesses (womanising, drinking and the like)- but, crucially, doesn't judge him for them either. Hunt comes across as a pleasure-seeker and risk-taker, occasionally reckless in life and on the track but a thoroughly magnetic presence. There's also an element of the underdog to Hunt which makes him empathetic. 

Bruhl's performance as Lauda is the polar opposite, incredibly minimal and almost insular but affecting. Lauda comes across as fastidious and almost fanatical, clinicial in his appraisal of the cars and of his life. The mantra of twenty percent risk and not one percent more follows him through. Lauda doesn't come across as the most likeable of people (certainly not compared to the charismatic Hunt) but Bruhl's performance utilises that aspect to his advantage. 

Other performances are decent enough. This is very much a Boys' Own Adventure so the female characters are a little shortchanged. Olivia Wilde doesn't get much to do but look pretty and get insulted by Hemsworth as Hunt's wife Suzy, whilst Alexandra Maria Lara gets more of a story as Lauda's wife Marlene. Her scenes with Bruhl in the latter stages of the film are emotionally affecting and poignant, without being saccharine or sentimental. Elsewhere, there are strong supporting performances by Christian McKay, Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt.

The racing scenes are painstakingly reconstructed with a real pulse-pounding verve, especially the fateful race at the Nurburgring and the final, rain-soaked Grand Prix in Japan. Even if you know the outcomes of these races (and the impact they have on the characters), there's still a palpable sense of tension wrought out of both situations- survival and success. 

My only niggle was the decision to use archive footage of the real Hunt and Lauda at the end. To me, it didn't seem necessary and bizarrely helped to shatter the illusion that the previous helped to create. It may seem a little disingenuous to complain that a fiction is undermined by bringing in fact but the world that Rush creates is so compelling and so engaging that it was a little jarring to be brought back to life.

If you're a fan of F1, you'll undoubtedly get more out of the film than if you're not. I am not a F1 fan by any stretch of the imagination but Rush swept me along into an involving and engaging story of intense rivalry and, ultimately, a mutual respect between two giants of the racing world.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Tez