BAFTA 2014 Nominations

BAFTA 2014 nominations are in with Gravity leading the way followed closely by 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle. I've already placed my bets with William Hill for who I think will win even though I have not seen the films I picked. I'm taking the safe option and going with the clear favourites.

I've highlighted those I've seen already and made a note of those I need to see before the ceremony on Feb 16th. The ones I think will win are helpfully written in red. If the film title is underlined, then click it to check out my review. Without further ado, here are the nominees:

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

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
Colin Carberry (Writer), Glenn Patterson (Writer) Good Vibrations
Kelly Marcel (Writer) Saving Mr. Banks
Kieran Evans (Director/Writer) Kelly + Victor
Paul Wright (Director/Writer), Polly Stokes (Producer) For Those in Peril
Scott Graham (Director/Writer) Shell

DIRECTOR
Steve McQueen - 12 Years A Slave
David O. Russell - American Hustle
 Paul Greengrass - Captain Phillips
 Alfonso Cuarón - Gravity
Martin Scorsese - The Wolf Of Wall Street

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell - American Hustle
Woody Allen - Blue Jasmine
Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón - Gravity
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen - Inside Llewyn Davis
Bob Nelson - Nebraska

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
John Ridley - 12 Years A Slave
Richard LaGravenese - Behind The Candelabra
Billy Ray - Captain Phillips
Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope - Philomena
Terence Winter - The Wolf Of Wall Street

LEADING ACTOR
Bruce Dern - Nebraska
Chiwetel Ejiofor - 12 Years a Slave
Christian Bale - American Hustle
Leonardo DiCaprio - The Wolf of Wall Street
Tom Hanks - Captain Phillips

LEADING ACTRESS
Amy Adams - American Hustle
Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine
Emma Thompson - Saving Mr. Banks
Judi Dench - Philomena
Sandra Bullock - Gravity

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Barkhad Abdi - Captain Phillips
Bradley Cooper - American Hustle 
Daniel Bruhl - Rush
Matt Damon - Behind the Candelabra
Michael Fassbender - 12 Years a Slave

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jennifer Lawrence - American Hustle
Julia Roberts - August: Osage County
Lupita Nyong'o - 12 Years a Slave
Oprah Winfrey - The Butler
Sally Hawkins - Blue Jasmine

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
The Act Of Killing
Blue Is The Warmest Colour
The Great Beauty
Metro Manila
Wadjda

DOCUMENTARY
The Act Of Killing
The Armstrong Lie
Blackfish
Tim's Vermeer
We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks

ANIMATED FILM
Despicable Me 2
Frozen
Monsters University

ORIGINAL MUSIC
12 Years A Slave - Hans Zimmer
The Book Thief - John Williams
Captain Phillips - Henry Jackman
Gravity - Steven Price
Saving Mr. Banks - Thomas Newman

CINEMATOGRAPHY
12 Years A Slave - Sean Bobbitt
Captain Phillips - Barry Ackroyd
Gravity - Emmanuel Lubezki
Inside Llewyn Davis - Bruno Delbonnel
Nebraska - Phedon Papamichael

EDITING
12 Years A Slave - Joe Walker
Captain Phillips - Christopher Rouse
Gravity - Alfonso Cuarón, Mark Sanger
Rush - Dan Hanley, Mike Hill
The Wolf Of Wall Street - Thelma Schoonmaker

PRODUCTION DESIGN
12 Years A Slave - Adam Stockhausen, Alice Baker
American Hustle - Judy Becker, Heather Loeffler
Behind The Candelabra - Howard Cummings
Gravity - Andy Nicholson, Rosie Goodwin, Joanne Woodlard
The Great Gatsby - Catherine Martin, Beverley Dunn

COSTUME DESIGN
American Hustle - Michael Wilkinson
Behind The Candelabra - Ellen Mirojnick
The Great Gatsby - Catherine Martin
The Invisible Woman - Michael O’Connor
Saving Mr. Banks - Daniel Orlandi

MAKE UP & HAIR
American Hustle - Evelyne Noraz, Lori McCoy-Bell
Behind The Candelabra - Kate Biscoe, Marie Larkin
The Butler - Debra Denson, Beverly Jo Pryor, Candace Neal
The Great Gatsby - Maurizio Silvi, Kerry Warn
The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug - Peter Swords King, Richard Taylor, Rick Findlater

SOUND
All Is Lost - Richard Hymns, Steve Boeddeker, Brandon Proctor, Micah Bloomberg, Gillian Arthur
Captain Phillips - Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor, Mike Prestwood Smith, Chris Munro, Oliver Tarney
Gravity - Glenn Freemantle, Skip Lievsay, Christopher Benstead, Niv Adiri, Chris Munro
Inside Llewyn Davis - Peter F. Kurland, Skip Lievsay, Greg Orloff 
Rush - Danny Hambrook, Martin Steyer, Stefan Korte, Markus Stemler, Frank Kruse

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
Gravity - Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, David Shirk, Neil Corbould, Nikki Penny The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug - Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, Eric Reynolds
Iron Man 3 - Bryan Grill, Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Dan Sudick
Pacific Rim - Hal Hickel, John Knoll, Lindy De Quattro, Nigel Sumner
Star Trek Into Darkness - Ben Grossmann, Burt Dalton, Patrick Tubach, Roger Guyett

Rising Star nominee Will Poulter and I

THE EE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public)
Dane DeHaan
George McKay
Lupita Nyong'o
Will Poulter
Lea Seydoux

What do you think of this year's nominees?

Saving Mr. Banks Review

Is it supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or will it take more than a spoonful of sugar to make this medicine go down? Saving Mr. Banks tells the impossibly boring sounding story of Walt Disney's attempts to get author P.L. Travers to relinquish the rights to her beloved Mary Poppins so that he can make an all singing, all dancing Disney adaptation of the book. Travers is a miserable, jaded and stuck up Emma Thompson and Disney is nice guy Tom Hanks. What a surprise; Saving Mr. Banks is produced by none other than Disney.

Saving Mr. Banks is not a bad film. Thompson peels away the layers until we start to see the sympathetic soul beneath the icy exterior of Travers while the supporting cast of Paul Giamatti and Colin Farrel are superb. When Travers gets lured to Hollywood due to financial problems, Disney attempts to woo her with Sherman brothers songs, delicious sugary treats, a tour of Disneyland and even her own personal driver. Travers hates all the confectionery, the rooms full of Disney merchandise and the sugar coated songs but most of all she hates animation.

With flashbacks to her childhood in Australia humanising this hard to like figure and a developing relationship between (most poignantly) her and her driver played by Giamatti, Disney's film wins you over in the end, much like Disney himself ends up winning Travers over. That is all well and good; a nice little yarn about a woman learning to loosen up and forgive her self and at the same time a sweet, if slightly dubious, message about the power of movies to bring joy to people's lives.

I went home wondering if all this was true or how much the writers made up. So I did some exhaustive and extensive research (well I looked on Wikipedia) and found out that Travers was indeed an adviser to the production for two weeks and one of the real Sherman brothers who got the pleasure of working with her insists she was even worse than how she is portrayed in the film. 'She disapproved of the dilution of the harsher aspects of Mary Poppins' character, felt ambivalent about the music, and so hated the use of animation that she ruled out any further adaptations of the later Mary Poppins novels.'

In Saving Mr. Banks she does not get invited to the premiere but requests a ticket from Disney herself. This is true but instead of crying and tapping her feet and Disney and her parting ways on fond terms, this is what apparently really happened: 'she reportedly approached Disney and told him that the animated sequence had to go. Disney responded by walking away, saying as he did, "Pamela, the ship has sailed."' Whatever happened, she never agreed to let Disney adapt any more of her novels again.

I get the feeling that Travers would have hated Saving Mr. Banks for its sugar coating of her story and I doubt much that Disney would have approved much of the way it softens her. It's a sweet movie with solid performances but forget a spoonful of sugar, take it with a pinch of salt.

More reviews at I Love That Film:

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Don Jon

Machete Kills, The Conspiracy, Snitch and more

Ender's Game

Sunshine on Leith

How I Live Now

Filth

The Call

Rush

The Lone Ranger