
With our America-centric media industrial complex, it’s easy to forget that in addition to all the regular movie awards – the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the SAGs, the People’s Choice (the Rolls Royce of movie awards) – our cousins across the pond also hold their own little awards show, called the BAFTAs. The Bartleby Applewick Foxhunt of Thropwichshire Aristocrats, so named for a family of 15th century English lords who would honor the peasant with the finest turnips by naming him “fox” for the day and hunting him. These days, the BAFTAs choose a “barristre of ceremonies,” – past BCs have included Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, and Peter Postlethwaite – who then dons the ceremonial wig and does an elaborate drag number before presenting the best films and actors of that year with a yorkshire pudding. It’s all very traditional.
This year’s nominees include:
BEST FILM
ARGO Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney
LES MISÉRABLES Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Cameron Mackintosh
LIFE OF PI Gil Netter, Ang Lee, David Womark
LINCOLN Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy
ZERO DARK THIRTY Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow, Megan Ellison
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
ANNA KARENINA Joe Wright, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster, Tom Stoppard
THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL John Madden, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Ol Parker
LES MISÉRABLES Tom Hooper, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Cameron Mackintosh, William Nicholson, Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer
SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS Martin McDonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin
SKYFALL Sam Mendes, Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan
OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
BART LAYTON (Director), DIMITRI DOGANIS (Producer) The Imposter
DAVID MORRIS (Director), JACQUI MORRIS (Director/Producer) McCullin
DEXTER FLETCHER (Director/Writer), DANNY KING (Writer) Wild Bill
JAMES BOBIN (Director) The Muppets
TINA GHARAVI (Director/Writer) I Am Nasrine
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