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To just get this out of the way right at the start before delving into the awards that count was the small matter of the public-voted Rising Star award. Awards like this always prove why the public can not be counted on to make an inspired judgement with this being awarded to Twilight’s Kristen Stewart. In a category that featured three highly talented actors (Carey Mulligan, Nicholas Hoult and Un Prophète’s Tahar Rahim) it was an unwelcome surprise to see that they were all denied the honour. You have to appreciate however that she knew exactly who to thank in her acceptance speech.
The major acting awards both went to the British hopefuls for the Oscars with both Colin Firth and Carey Mulligan picking up gongs. In terms of performances these were both well deserved and it is refreshing that these awards have chosen to reward someone different. In their acceptance speeches it was obvious that both were surprised by such a nod with Firth thanking his fridge repairman and Mulligan wishing she had a story about a fridge repairman to share (and probably still reeling at her slip-up when presenting Un Prophète with their accolade for Best Film in a Foreign Language) .
The supporting awards went, as expected, to Christopher Waltz for Inglorious Basterds and for Mo’Nique’s star-turn in Precious. Also, going with the already established pattern of the previous awards, we saw Up pick up awards for Best Animated Feature and Jason Reitman’s writing partnership with Sheldon Turner culminating in the Best Adapted Screenplay award for Up In The Air.
The story of the night, however, has to be the six awards picked up by the ‘little film that could’ and critical darling The Hurt Locker. With three technical awards and three of the big five (Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay) Kathryn Bigelow must surely be fancying her chances at Oscar glory. This splitting of gongs between her film and ex-husband James Cameron’s Avatar over different ceremonies does beg the question as to what these awards mean Oscar-wise in a few weeks.
Well, this year marks an unusual split in opinion between BAFTA and The Golden Globes for all major awards (except the awards for supporting performances and screenplay). In cases such as this it is almost unknown for the Oscars to choose BAFTA winners over the Golden Globes which means that despite BAFTA arguably making the better choice, one still has to favour James Cameron’s chances in a fortnight.
Despite this sad eventuality, BAFTA were able to pull off a great awards ceremony, with a personal highlight being Mickey Rourke having considerable trouble with the tele-prompter, with many awards going to a mixture of critical favourites and deserving talents.
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