This could only mean good news for the ever-expanding London Film Festival, which ended last week as the Best Film award to We Need to Talk about Kevin (here reviewed by Christopher Fraser). It’s an intense, provocative movie by Scots director Lynne Ramsay, who has now announced that her next picture will be an adaptation of Moby Dick set in outer space.

Appropriately, the other Brit sensations of the fortnight were similarly non-traditional versions of classic novels: Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights, featuring a black actor in the role of Heathcliff, and Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna, substituting Hardy’s Wessex of Tess of the d’Urbervilles for present day India.

Other British offerings at the LFF received less praise. Closing film The Deep Blue Sea failed to live up to the hype behind Rachel Weisz, rising star Tom Hiddleston and legendary auteur Terence Davies, with plenty of voices saying that its Terence Rattigan source play was too old-fashioned. The festival opener, continent-crossing ensemble drama 360, was also disparaged, despite a stellar cast that includes Weisz, Anthony Hopkins and Jude Law

No movie has been attacked as much as though as W.E. Directed by Madonna, it tells the story of Wallis Simpson (the woman for whom Edward VIII abdicated the throne) seen through the eyes of a modern-day, romantic New Yorker. Disregarding the film’s faults, you can’t help but detect a misogynist tint in some of the language that has been aimed towards a film made by and about women.

Despite such starry duds, the LFF hosted over 200 films from all over the world. Foreign-language highlights included Miss Bala, a brutal drama about the Mexico drug wars seen through the eyes of a smart, aspiring beauty queen, and Las Acacias, a love story whose Argentine director won the Sutherland Award for best debut feature. Hit documentaries included The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, Dreams of a Life and Werner Herzog’s Best Doc-winner Into the Abyss, at screenings of which industry and press delegates were turned away due to unexpectedly high demand for tickets.
At the awards ceremony, BFI Fellowships were awarded to Ralph Fiennes, whose modern-dress film of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus was given a last-minute extra screening due to its popularity, and David Cronenberg, who came to the festival with A Dangerous Method, the story of Carl Jung’s relationship with fellow psychoanalysts Sabina Spielrein and Sigmund Freud, played respectively by Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortensen. Fassbender also made a spectacular appearance in Shame alongside Carey Mulligan.

The festival’s highest-profile attendee, however, was George Clooney, supporting Alexander Payne’s Sideways follow-up The Descendants and The Ides of March, a political thriller which he starred in, directed and produced, shrugging off all suggestions in interviews that his was a vanity project. The festival has been criticised though for including Clooney’s film, since it already premiered at Venice and Toronto earlier this autumn, and has now been released in regular cinemas just as the festival has come to an end;

The selection arguably amounts to little more than extra publicity for the filmmakers and a sneak preview for a limited audience, as do the appearances of Anonymous and 50/50. It’s telling though that this view is rarely directed towards the more arthouse/independent selections about to appear in UK cinemas, like The Artist, a stylised tale of/homage to 1920s Hollywood, and Miranda July’s The Future, which turns the story of a couple adopting a cat into a surprisingly brave and inventive drama. Their nationwide releases might be imminent, but it doesn’t make their inclusion at the LFF any less essential.

The box office popularity of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and The Hangover: Part II has already testified to the willingness of audiences to repeatedly revisit characters and stories familiar from recent years. Even more sequels are destined for success as July draws nearer, including Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Pixar’s Cars 2. The most exciting of these is undoubtedly Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part Two, whose tantalising trailer has promised that from July 15th, the halls of Hogwarts will be filled with goblins, snakes, and dragons galore in a final showdown between good wizards and bad wizards. Most importantly, the wand-waving will be in 3D. Rupert Grint is currently one of the faces of an EU campaign that sees him sporting a milk moustache on the side of London buses. We can only hope that magical Weasley milk will be on sale next to the popcorn to help us get through its potentially gargantuan running time.

As X-Men: First Class has just shown us, adding a new episode to a long-running superhero franchise can pay off for both spectators and filmmakers alike. It’s no surprise, therefore, that 2011 welcomes the onscreen arrival of other legends of the Marvel Universe. Following on from the Easter hit Thor, July 29th sees the arrival of Captain America: The First Avenger, which contains the daft but exciting prospect of an alternative history of World War II fought by paranormally powerful superheroes and Nazi arch-nemeses. It stars the charming Chris Evans, star of the Fantastic Four movies, alongside the wonderful Tommy Lee Jones and Stanley Tucci, but carries the risky presence of Joe Johnston, director of The Wolfman and Hidalgo, who hasn’t had a real hit since Jumanji.

The more exciting superhero movie of the summer, therefore, is SUPER, which follows the attempts of a badly-paid cook (Rainn Wilson) to “Shut up crime!” by dressing up as the Crimson Bolt, a superhero that beats up wrongdoers with his wrench. It’s destined to be this year’s Kick-Ass but with far greater indie credentials – it stars Juno’s Ellen Page and was filmed over the space of a month on a miniscule budget – and relying more on wit than comic action sequences.

Whatever you do, don’t confuse it with the similarly titled Super 8, which is making a great profit in America right now, and judging from preview screenings in London last week, will be doing the same here in August as well. It’s written and directed by J.J. Abrams, the co-creator of Lost who re-booted the Star Trek franchise two years ago. But he would be the first to admit that the story is equally indebted to the film’s producer, Steven Spielberg: it follows the arrival of a mysterious, deadly monster and a malevolent branch of the American military in a small Ohio town. Like a cross between Jaws, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the action is seen through the eyes of a group of kids (who are trying to make a zombie movie) and a heroic local sheriff.

Spielberg has also produced Cowboys & Aliens, in which his favourite actor Harrison Ford must enlist Daniel Craig’s notorious outlaw, who has no memory of his crimes, to protect the Wild West town of Absolution from some nasty space invaders. The film is based on a popular graphic novel and helmed by Jon Favreau, director of the Iron Man movies, and could therefore be accused of maintaining the endless comic book movie trend. But this is not the greatest threat posed to the integrity of the film industry this summer, and neither is 3-Dementia, sequel-itis, or remakerrhoea. In fact it’s the curse of Handsome Men like Craig and Ford.

Whether it’s a remake, rom-com or an arthouse drama, Handsome Men are absolutely everywhere this summer: Brad Pitt in the Palme d’Or winner Tree of Life, Ryan Reynolds in The Change-Up, James Franco in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, newcomer Jason Momoa in Conan the Barabarian, and Justin Timberlake who we’re gradually forgetting was once a pop star, in both Bad Teacher and Friends with Benefits.

Thank goodness, then, for Bridesmaids, which is out this Friday. It’s about a maid of honour (Kristen Wiig) re-assessing her life and having to cope with a wealth of absurd problems at the wedding of her best friend (Maya Rudolph). From what’s being said in the USA right now, it’s one of those word-of-mouth comedies like Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin which will be adored for months on end. Much is being made of the fact that it’s driven by female actors and yet ten times better than the predictable frat party atmosphere of most recent comedies.

Bridesmaids is nevertheless part of a summer, (with the exception of Harry Potter), set to be dominated as always by American movies. But I can’t help but be more excited by some of the British movies that are coming this Autumn: We Need To Talk About Kevin, Jane Eyre, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. Make sure that the books all three of those are based on are on your summer reading list.

Before Snow White and Cinderella, one of Walt Disney’s earliest cartoons was a more minor version of another classic female character. In black and white, only 6 minutes long and completely silent, it was for years thought lost until a print of it was discovered in 1998.

Red Hot Riding Hood (1947)

This was Tex Avery’s cartoon of the fairytale, one of his most famous which parodied and adapted it for the twentieth century long before anyone else. In it, Red became a nightclub dancer, inspiring Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and The Mask. Much to the tuxedoed wolf’s disappointment, Red’s not interested, but Grandma’s more than happy to give him a kiss.

The Company of Wolves (1984)

An adaptation of an adaptation of a story told in many shapes and forms, Neil Jordan’s film was co-written with the short story writer (and novelist) Angela Carter. With Angela Lansbury as the grandmother, The Company of Wolves is the dream of its main character, warned away from wolf-like men but ultimately tempted by all things lupine.

Freeway (1996)

A violent, uncompromising and yet somehow funny take on Red Riding Hood set in modern-day Los Angeles, Freeway (pictured) stars Reese Witherspoon as Vanessa Lutz, an illiterate teenager on the road. Away from her prostitute mother and abusive stepfather, the serial killer, rapist and paedophile Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland) decides to give her a lift – but Vanessa doesn’t need any Woodsman to take care of this monster.

Hoodwinked! (2006)

An low-budget computer animation, Hoodwinked! tells the story from the point of view of police detectives interrogating the Wolf, the Granny, the Woodsman and Red herself. Its voice cast includes Anne Hathaway and Glenn Close, and a sequel is billed for release later this year.

It’s been 10 years since Donnie Darko made a star out of Jake Gyllenhaal, so it seems quite appropriate that his new film is also one where a realistic character type is put into a scenario that’s straight from the world of science fiction. Source Code sees Gyllenhaal at the height of his leading-man-powers, and like Darko it uses a plot device that means the film ends where it began.

It starts as Gyllenhaal wakes up, sitting opposite from Michelle Monaghan’s smiling face on a train as she says the words “I took your advice,” talking as if they’ve been in conversation for a while. He has no idea who she is or why she thinks that he’s a teacher on his way to work in Chicago. Before he has a chance to work out why the reflection he sees in a mirror isn’t his own, the train explodes.

He wakes up again, now enclosed in a strange sort of pod. A screen in front of him reveals an army official (Vera Farmiga) who knows that he is in fact a fellow captain named Colter Stevens. She won’t tell him why he isn’t still in Afghanistan and instead he goes back into Source Code – like The Matrix, except the only world it emulates is that of a teacher who has died onboard an exploding train. The soldier’s mission is to keep re-living the 8 minutes in the train until he can find the bomb and the person who put it there.

The film’s premise, written by relative unknown Ben Ripley, is brilliantly executed by Duncan Jones, the director of Moon, which also used sci-fi to provide claustrophobic thrills and emotional engagement, anchored around a sole character who’s being manipulated more than he realises. But where Moon saw Sam Rockwell waiting around, Source Code’s hero is given barely any time to compose his thoughts.

Jones and Star Wars editor Paul Hirsch combine this urgency with a fairly clear sense of how to steadily reveal just what it is that’s going on. The film’s biggest twist isn’t too surprising but no one’s pretending that it is, as Stevens works it out before we do. More important is what becomes of him afterwards: at times, a little bit cheesy, but, open to enough interpretations that it’s more ambiguous than it seems.

Source Code is made for bigger audiences than Moon, sometimes to its detriment. Luckily the romantic element it requires isn’t too serious, but when choosing how to characterise its villains, the film opts for a cartoonish approach that’s aware of the film as a thriller, rather than finding a way to incorporate its bomber and Machiavellian army figure into the intellectual questions the story asks.

The casting choice of Gyllenhaal, however, perfectly carries the film. Stevens has to convey naivety, charm and the ability to think ridiculously quickly at the same time, and Gyllenhaal’s personality manages this. It’s amazing to think that he’s played a military figure before, in Jarhead, and yet a blockbuster like this more convincingly analyses a soldier’s mentality. Summer seems to have come early, and Source Code is yet another action film that seems to have more intelligence than the boring dramas its cast are normally found in.

This film is showing in York at City Screen. Click here for more information.

Joanna Hogg’s Archipelago starts like her first film, Unrelated, with a group of people on holiday being joined by their final member; but just before this, we watch someone working on a painting of a landscape at the Isles of Scilly, where the story is set. Many films feature painters and writers, and whether they mean to or not, create confusing metaphors about the cinema’s relationship to more esteemed art forms. Archipelago’s claim to artistry is immediately bolder and more convincing: just like a painting fits onto a canvas, the camera shots, except on a couple of brief occasions, keep completely still throughout, recording the life and drama that goes in and out of the frame. Hogg’s writing and the excellent performances also maintain the feeling of control, and yet the result is what you might call one of the most realistic British films in recent years. It shows a world that feels undocumented: that is, both the beautiful surroundings of the archipelago and the discord that comes between the siblings vacationing there.

Whereas the ensemble of Unrelated played an assortment of family and friends, parents and children, in Archipelago we are reduced to following 5 characters: a brother and sister, a mother, her friend and Rose, a young woman working as a cook for them during their stay. During the two week holiday, all of the characters bar one have a kind of personal, emotional crisis, adding to the unspoken friction in a family whose children are no longer young and whose father doesn’t bother to say goodbye to the son about to go to Africa for a year. Our greatest sympathy is surely with Rose (Amy Lloyd), whose own father has recently died. She just wants to do her job and then get out of the rowing household who don’t know how to treat her. Or is there something else going on? She’s not there to express herself in her low position in the family and the film.

You can count the amount of close-ups on one hand and will be eminently thankful whenever the natural light sources happen to illuminate an actor’s expression. Archipelago will be a frustrating experience for some, especially those who are indifferent to the middle-class family’s problems. Some of its situations are perhaps over-written, such as a particularly uncomfortable visit to an empty restaurant. The audience I was with didn’t know whether to laugh at its absurdity or whether to share in one of the film’s awkward silences.

This kind of nuance is in fact what gives Archipelago extra force. Its own artistic figure (Christopher Baker) is extremely believable and I couldn’t decide whether I found his personality admirable or disagreeable, being the only source of comfort to the family but also the most bourgeois of them all. One of the last scenes, between him and Tom Hiddleston’s departing twenty-something, is very difficult to judge. More than any scene in the stylish and equally unique Submarine, it poses a real challenge to the tendencies and tropes of the coming-of-age genre. To anyone more likely to see Richard Ayoade’s film, I can’t recommend Archipelago more strongly as a great piece of British cinema.

This film is showing in York at City Screen. Click here for more information.

Part of Geoffrey Rush’s character in The King’s Speech involves him having once been a Shakespearean actor, seen auditioning as Richard III and later playing with his sons by pretending to be Caliban, a character from The Tempest, by stuffing a pillow in his jacket. Lionel Logue knows by heart the character’s most iconic speech, which describes the island setting of the play: full of “noises, sounds and sweet airs.”

It’s probably one of the few times that those words have been spoken to large cinema audiences in a straightforward manner. Whenever directors have turned to Shakespeare’s late play, their interpretations have been fairly surprising. The Tempest has been made into a 1950s sci-fi adventure, a yuppie era comedy-drama, and it’s had two great independent British filmmakers – Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway – come up with two completely different, astonishing pieces of work.

Julie Taymor, known mostly as a director on the American stage, boldly brought the violent revenge drama Titus Andronicus to the screen in 2000 as her first film, one which is shown to English students in York year after year during their first term and which leaves a lasting impression. When it was announced that for her next Shakespeare adaptation, the main character of Prospero from The Tempest would be played by Helen Mirren (and changed to Prosper-a), it might have suggested a similarly provocative approach. Instead, her take on the text is more likely to be watched as a fairly canonical, unsurprising film adaptation.

This comes with many benefits, as the story begins like it should, with a magical storm and a shipwreck; you couldn’t ask for a more cinematic opening from a Shakespeare play. Taymor makes the most of it as the camera moves between the soaked, shouting travellers and the islanders who are watching them: Helen Mirren’s impassioned, mad-eyed witch and her slightly terrified daughter (Felicity Jones). As the storm passes, so too does Prospera’s rage, and her explanations to Miranda, as well as setting the scene clearly, bear witness to a parent-child relationship performed tenderly and believably by the two actresses.

Many of the other characters then fail to mesh with the structure of this introduction. Actors like Alfred Molina and David Strathairn are well cast, and yet the sinister drunkard and the gloomy, heirless King don’t connect convincingly with their stranded cohorts, as their dialogue is given little interpretative flourish on the part of the director. Both Titus and The Tempest were directed by Taymor in the theatre before being brought to film, but where her vision of the former remained similar on both stage and screen, the powerful presence of an immensely watchable Mirren and the use of a stunning Hawaiian location make it the shoot seem underprepared.

This is clear when watching Russell Brand and Tom Conti provide comic relief; their delivery of the language would only be funny if the audience was in the room with them. More than being convenient alteration, the edits made to the play seem to have been made to save time and money. The visual dimension, which is kept too separate from the performances, is as oddly varied as the different manifestations of Ben Whishaw’s computer-enhanced Ariel.

The greatest success of the costume and make-up team is Caliban, played by Djimon Hounsou. He does an excellent job, convincing with those lines about the island’s sweet airs, but it’s a part that can’t help but be troubling, as Shakespeare’s character is an odd blend of monster and witch, of Algerian and “New World” native. Those who think that Taymor’s stage Lion King reinforces stereotypes about Africa might find Caliban’s characterisation just as politically incorrect. The master-slave dynamic between him and Prospera, however, is given a remarkable ambiguity in one of the most potent moments of the film, a simple exchange of glances between Mirren and Hounsou in the final scene. It signals the start of a mysterious ending that just about makes the piece a memorable one.

This film is showing in York at Reel cinema. Click here for more information.

Looking at its poster, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Unknown was a sequel to Taken, the absurd 2008 action-thriller produced by Luc Besson that saw Liam Neeson running around Paris trying to find the man responsible for kidnapping his daughter. Unknown sees Liam Neeson running around Berlin trying to find the man responsible for kidnapping his identity, and many of the film’s one-liners and fist-fights capitalise on the Irish actor’s newfound career playing American action heroes; but a good story makes the movie an enjoyable genre flick in a classic vein well suited to Neeson’s charms.

Upon arrival at an international biotechnology conference, Neeson’s scientist Martin Harris is involved in a car crash as his wife (January Jones) is checking into their Berlin hotel. After waking up from a coma, Harris discovers that his identity has been usurped by another man (Aidan Quinn) whilst his wife and colleagues have forgotten him. He eventually comes across the taxi driver involved at the accident (Diane Kruger) and seeks her help to try and figure things out.

Unknown seems pretty ordinary up to this point, and indeed watching Neeson look befuddled and upset can get pretty tiresome; but as the plot moves forward, the experience of predicting the events proves to be quite challenging. Based on a book by French novelist Didier van Cauwelaert, the screenplay tricks you into looking for an explanation before introducing a fantastic, out-of-the-blue plot twist that renders your search pointless, but well-founded nonetheless in the tradition of Hollywood thrillers.

Some will find this and the information that comes with it a bit too far-fetched, and at times it seems like Cauwelaert’s book perhaps deserved a different style of director. Jaume Collet-Serra’s will-they-won’t-they ending, however, hits home the most striking aspect of the plot, which adds together two Alfred Hitchcock-style stories in a fun and engaging way. Randy Newman protégé Alexander Rudd and John Ottman, who often collaborates with Bryan Singer, are the perfect composers to provide a score replete with pastiche but whose nostalgia for an earlier cinematic era is never overblown.

Collet-Serra employs his strong cast (which includes Bruno Ganz, Frank Langella and Sebastian Koch) as character actors instead of having his main star supported by anonymous faces, but on occasion uses their international credentials to give the film a conscience it doesn’t have. As well as its central twist, Unknown’s other great surprise is that the opening accident is just the first in a series of tense set-pieces, making the film an unusual balancing act, but an entertaining one.

Not to mention that, from Alfred Hitchcock to Ridley Scott, great British directors have for decades gone to Hollywood to maximise their potential instead of staying at home. Rest assured, however, that we’re getting revenge, hitting them where it hurts the most by taking over their blockbusters.

The superhero movie is without a doubt the biggest money-maker in the business, and it’s two Brits who gave 2010 its most intelligent takes on the genre: Matthew Vaughn’s Aaron Johnson-starring Kick-Ass, and Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Londoner Christopher Nolan has the highest-grossing comic book film to his name, with The Dark Knight’s success also creating a huge shadow over the entire film industry in the past few years.

Sweeter still, the tables have turned on Hollywood for how national heroes are cast. Christian Bale’s Batman was just the first in a series of bizarrely similar events. Andrew Garfield, star of The Social Network and Never Let Me Go, has been cast as the new Spider-man, taking over from Tobey Maguire in a new version of the Peter Parker franchise being helmed by (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb. Even more astounding was the news that the new Superman would be played by an even less famous Brit: Henry Cavill, whose credits include a part on TV series The Tudors and a role in Woody Allen’s Whatever Works.

Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man. The three great American superheroes are all being played by Brits, and with the production of The Dark Knight Rises now getting underway (in which BAFTA Rising Star winner Tom Hardy will be playing the villainous Bane), 2012 will see them do battle at the box office. Whether Superman: Man of Steel or The Amazing Spider-Man – as the films are currently titled – will take off in the way Nolan’s movie undoubtedly will remains to be seen.

The superhero movies that’ll be satisfying us until then, however, have even stronger Brit credentials. Coming out in April is Thor, the latest film from the Marvel universe. The movie’s trailer combines the modern day technological opulence of Iron Man with a Troy-like universe – where, of course, everyone has a British accent. Anthony Hopkins gives the story classical credentials alongside Australian actor Chris Hemsworth in the lead role, and the great Shakespeare adapter Kenneth Branagh is director. More exciting still is X-Men: First Class (pictured), largely filmed in Oxford, which, as well as featuring Nicholas Hoult, has Inglourious Basterds star Michael Fassbender and Atonement’s James McAvoy in the lead roles.

Fassbender and McAvoy, as Magneto and Professor X, will be filling the shoes of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in the 1960s-set prequel. Behind the camera is Matthew Vaughn, who quit during the pre-production of X-Men: The Last Stand due to artistic differences with 20th Century Fox. He’s now got the independence he needs to have a potentially massive hit on his hands. This is the first time that UK actors can pretend to be superheroes without having to play Americans.

If you go to Warner Bros’ website for The Rite, you can choose to visit two very different pages. The first is “True Stories,” which provides links to a number of respectable articles about the rising demand for exorcists in the Catholic world, particularly in the years since Pope John Paul II apparently asked each American bishop to appoint a priest to perform exorcisms. On the other webpage, you can go to “Exorcist Class” yourself, and find out mysterious facts about the rite of exorcism whilst looking at Polaroids of the possessed.

The film has its basis in a kind of realism, but is happy to mix this unashamedly with the modern horror movie’s love for exorcists, and turn it into a spectacle. The Rite was inspired by a book by Matt Baglio, who investigated the process of exorcism as taught in a Vatican-sponsored institution in Rome and as practiced by Californian priest Gary Thomas. The experiences that cemented the faith of both Thomas and Baglio are adapted into a relationship between the clerical sceptics Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue) and Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins), with a good-looking jourrnalist (Alice Brago) thrown in for good measure. Lucas is the most experienced exorcist in Rome, but his encounter with the young Kovak bring him his greatest task yet.

Their meeting in Rome catalyses a series of events that place the men in what’s either a profound spiritual journey or an awful nightmare: the film does make up its mind about which one of these gets priority, but with little authority. Mikael Håfström, who directed John Cusack in Stephen King adaptation 1408, knows how to pull off the jumps and chills of the story alongside its more sincere psychological investigation, helped by the Irish actor O’Donoghue’s lead performance. But Hopkins’ supporting turn ruins a lot of this work. Lucas is meant to be an enigmatic figure, and Hannibal Lecter certainly knows how to yell at spirits in Latin and go a bit crazy in the process. When the unorthodox priest is filmed in his private world, however, Hopkins’ supposedly casual delivery of his lines sounds feeble, and the whole scenario loses conviction.

He ends up fighting with the sound effects in the finale, as his character’s own mania is enacted at one point by Hopkins’ showboating accent, and at another by the post-production team. Rutger Hauer, Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds make up the rest of the main ensemble, but all of them would have done a better job than the starrier cast member had they landed his role.

This’ll come as no surprise to anyone vaguely familiar with the Oscar-winning performances of recent years, which include Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II, Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland, Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line, and many others. History is once again the basis of the films destined to win the most awards tonight: The Social Network, The King’s Speech, The Fighter and 127 Hours.

It’s also no secret that Hollywood loves nothing more than seeing huge personal struggles being overcome – whether they’re family struggles, society struggles, speech struggles, boxing struggles or right-arms-stuck-under-rocks struggles. The most prevalent character types, writes Levy, are victims, authority figures and eccentrics. Their trials and tribulations usually involve either having to be an outcast or having to maintain order/take on great responsibility.

The Best Actor nominees this year all play characters who fit quite nicely into these categories, from Jeff Bridges one-eyed, drunken patriarch in True Grit to Javier Bardem’s suffering father in Biutiful, via the unforeseeable success stories of 127 Hours and The Social Network. As George VI, bookies’ favourite Colin Firth has to both defy his domineering family and do what they expect of him: with a hint of irony and uncertainty, he’s an establishment figure and an outsider.

When it comes to the position of biopics in the Best Picture race, it’s films based on male figures that get priority, in one of many examples of a bias against actresses, not to mention female directors. Braveheart and A Beautiful Mind can win the biggest award of the ceremony, but The Hours and The Queen don’t stand a chance.

The characters played by Oscar-nominated actresses tend to follow as much of a repetitive pattern as male roles and last year was no exception, with The Blind Side, The Last Station, An Education and Julie & Julia all being stories based on real events. Of coure, being a glamorous, gorgeous star like Sandra Bullock or Natalie Portman is also a prerequisite for many major acting roles.

But actresses are bending the rules to a surprising degree in 2011. Where most male performers nominated for awards are playing historical figures, the characters played by leading ladies are mostly invented for the purposes of the film, the exceptions being the supporting figures in The Fighter and The King’s Speech. Michelle Williams’ part in Blue Valentine (pictured) simply can’t be categorised in the usual way, and the narratives she, Nicole Kidman and Helena Bonham Carter are placed in resemble plays just as much as they do films, arguably prioritising an actor’s work over the novelty of their playing a King or Queen.

Ranging from betrayed mothers to brave youngsters, some traditional character types amongst the actresses follow familiar paths of suffering and struggle, but their stories refuse to let them be tragic heroines. Except that is, for Natalie Portman, the favourite for the Best Actress award. This instance, however, might be the most powerful rebuff to female character stereotypes out of any film featuring in the ceremony. Black Swan is a claustrophobic portrait of what it means to be a star, in this case the lead ballet dancer of a prestigious New York company: striving for perfection, torturing oneself to be beautiful and, it’s implied, having to sleep one’s way to the top. Our ability to recognise Natalie Portman’s personality in the lead role is made to be as important as the few character details we receive about Nina Sayers, and Darren Aronofsky’s film addresses what it might mean to be a star. Or, maybe it’s just about a ballet dancer who goes crazy.

The category is arguably an odd, outdated one, as it requires a song – as opposed to a lyric-less piece of music – to be written specifically for a film. This was a frequent occurrence in Hollywood’s golden age, but with the advent of more realistic forms of cinema it nearly disappeared altogether. Now, it still happens in musicals like Tangled of course, in films about musicians like Crazy Heart and 8 Mile, and also when songwriters offer to release a song through a soundtrack rather than one of their own albums; Counting Crows, Elliott Smith and Bob Dylan have all done this in recent years for films ridden with pop songs.

Most nominations and even many winners are, however, from films whose producers have decided they want to increase their awards chances by shoving a song in the end credits, regardless of how good it is or how much it ruins the film’s atmosphere. Who on earth remembers An Inconvenient Truth’s I Need to Wake Up, or a song called Into the West that’s apparently in Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King? (Is it that tune that Viggo Mortensen sings in Elvish?) Why, oh why did Martin Scorsese ask U2 to write a song for the ending of Gangs of New York?

Occasionally this method does pay off. Céline Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ may by now have caused more indignation than it has moved people to tears, but it sure is memorable, just like Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ and heck, even Top Gun’s ‘Take My Breath Away,’ which nabbed the gong in 1987. It gave us ‘You’ve Got a Friend in me’ for Toy Story, which may have lost to a song from Pocahontas but provided Randy Newman with a new career writing tunes for kid’s movies. He now has a total of twenty Academy Award nominations, as does Disney maestro Alan Menken – whose eight wins are higher than any other recipient in the entire history of the awards.

Whereas last year the nominees were honoured with little ceremony, replaced by a dance sequence that used pieces of score from nominated films, performances are back for 2011, and Menken, Newman will be in attendance alongside 127 Hours’ A.R. Rahman. So, without any further ado, here are this year’s nominees.

“Coming Home” from Country Strong
(Music and Lyrics by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQEHV32WXGc

“I See the Light” from Tangled
(Music and Lyrics by Alan Menken, with extra Lyrics by Glenn Slater)

“If I Rise” from 127 Hours
(Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyrics by Dido and Rollo Armstrong)

“We Belong Togther” from Toy Story 3
(Music and Lyrics by Randy Newman)

Lastly, just for fun, here’s a clip of Robin Williams performing a clean version of ‘Blame Canada’ (from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut) in 2000.

What could have been quite a tedious night was far more enjoyable than usual. But when every year the British film establishment chooses to elevate particular filmmakers and actors, it’s not ceremony we should be most concerned with. It’s seems that The King’s Speech has such a hold on audiences that the idea of a less well-known film winning instead of it can cause a bizarre, self-righteous indignation, and the British Academy’s ongoing choice to mirror the Oscar awards format (instead of a national ceremony of the kind used in France) means that when British film has had a good a year as 2010, we tend to put all of our eggs in one basket instead of spreading the love. The phenomenal production story of Monsters, the ingenious, thought-provoking comedy of Four Lions and the independent, attention-grabbing creativity of Exit through the Gift Shop have all been overshadowed by a well-crafted, theatrical period drama.

The BAFTAs present an award for Best Film and another for Best British Film. The King’s Speech was nominated in both categories, and won both trophies. This may not seem surprising, but it’s actually a reversal of the usual trend whereby a British film big enough to win at the Oscars wins the first but not the second, despite being nominated for the two of them. Slumdog Millionaire took the biggest prize of the night in 2009, but Man of Wire was the Outstanding British Film of the year. The same thing happened with Atonement/This is England the year before and The Queen/The Last King of Scotland the year before that.

A few of the seven successes of The King’s Speech could have gone elsewhere, and no one would have really minded – not that Danny Boyle and Chris Morris really cared about what happened to 127 Hours and Four Lions on the night. It’s interesting nevertheless to see that for all the adulation surrounding the movie, there still seems to be anxiety, when it comes to the film industry, about how this country feels about its artists. The one award that the film didn’t get was Best Director (it went to The Social Network’s David Fincher). Surprising, since it’s probably Tom Hooper’s work behind the camera that’s most responsible for the accessibility and emotional pull of the story, rather than the historically confused screenplay or the fairly predictable performances.

The Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema confirmed this, being awarded to the Harry Potter franchise in general. Stephen Fry provided a surprisingly heartfelt speech, echoing Emma Watson’s self-professed British pride in an earlier moment of the night, and was followed by a montage of clips and interviews in which one figure went so far as to applaud how the Harry Potter movies have created jobs.

The irony about all this is that whilst Harry Potter is certainly of British origin and of a recognizably British setting, the lavish blockbuster status of the saga makes it appear more Hollywood than Pinewood. This is the position that’s been argued by Bertrand Moullier and Ian Christie, co-authors of UKFC report Stories We Tell Ourselves: The Cultural Impact of UK Film 1946-2006. In other European countries, it’s actually directors like Boyle, Ken Loach and Stephen Frears who, whether we like or not, with Trainspotting and The Queen, represent what good “British film” consists of. Works like Mike Leigh’s Another Year (pictured) were what the British Academy gave little credit to in 2011. Now, the pressure is on Hooper to show us if the gambles that have been taken on the future of British directing will pay off.

This film is showing in York at City Screen. Click here for more information.

True Grit has confirmed the Coen brothers as leading 21st century filmmakers. Just as last year’s Shutter Island was the biggest ever hit of an acclaimed director like Martin Scorsese, the pair normally associated with a non-conformist quirkiness have had their greatest box office success to date. They have their many awards nominations to thank, alongside a grand promotional campaign centred on the word “RETRIBUTION” (a word not used once in the film). With a learned Bible quote in every other scene, True Grit is by no means the Western-style revenge flick implied by a trailer that contains probably every single gunshot from the movie, but the very suggestion of this to audiences can play an important role in what the Coens have done with this story.

Joel and Ethan themselves have said in recent interviews that they think of one another as being at the heart of the mainstream now, and the origins of their new film might suggest they have little ownership of their work. True Grit is the name of a 1960s novel written by Charles Portis set in post-Civil War Arkansas and Oklahoma; narrated by elderly spinster Mattie Ross, the story recalls the search for the killer of the heroine’s father. Aged just fourteen, the precocious, rebellious Mattie hunts for the drifter Tom Chaney with a one-eyed, alcoholic Deputy U.S. Marshall called Rooster Cogburn and a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf. The book formed the basis of a popular John Wayne film, a fun but overlong Western that changed Portis’ ending and had Ross played by a twenty-two year old actress.

From a novel haunted by Huckleberry Finn and outlaw legends like Jesse James, who characters have met but is never part of the story, Cogburn then became a mythical figure in his own right. The Coen brothers have used Portis’ novel for much of the film’s script, creating comedy out of the biblical/legal language and polite, argumentative dialogue, and selectively picking from Ross’ narration for the more elegant notes of the tale. By casting 61-year-old Jeff Bridges in the role of Cogburn, however, the Coens’ are not just negotiating with Portis’ text, in which the Marshal is in his 40s, but also the character identified with an ageing John Wayne. Bridges’ Big Lebowski persona informs his growling take on Cogburn: he’s introduced off-screen and on the toilet. When we next meet him, however, he seems mythical and no longer mundane in a dimly lit, unreal courtroom.

A scene is invented for the film where Mattie writes to her mother just before leaving for the road to catch Chaney, typically saying “I’m about to embark on a great adventure.” That introduction to Cogburn, Mattie’s confrontation with Chaney and many other instances cleverly play with the girl’s expectations for how great her adventure is going to be; at times it’s worthy of all the heroism and excitement she could hope for, and at others her wishes are ruined by everything from feeble bickering to a great, cruel sense of mortality.

The film’s comedy and its handling of genre sees the Coens at the height of their powers, accompanied by some of their most reliable collaborators including the fantastic cinematographer Roger Deakins, and Bridges on sparkling form. Although her characterisation follows certain child-star conventions that the film’s executive producer Steven Spielberg would be proud of, lacking the wonderful, mysterious contradictions of Portis’ original narrator, Hailee Steinfeld’s turn as Mattie Ross carries the whole film.

Some of the casting choices – Matt Damon as LaBoeuf, Josh Brolin as Chaney, Barry Pepper as outlaw Lucky Ned Pepper (!) – seem a little weak, but no performance in the film turns out quite as you would expect, and Brolin’s father James puts in a nice cameo in the ending. This finale, which contains the end of Mattie’s adventure and an epilogue, is the most touching the Coens have made: deeply emotional without losing the clever, ambiguous tone of their work.

With a huge build up, there is an enormous buzz around the event. With not much speculation as to who will win, however, and several awards ceremonies already been and gone, there is quite a different atmosphere to previous years.

Colin Firth has reportedly made a record for the shortest BAFTA price ever at William Hill, and having already picked up the award for Best Actor at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Golden Globes, there is more of an anticipation for what he will say when he does get on stage, as opposed to whether or not he will make it up there. Having made by far the most interesting speech (perhaps even the only interesting speech) at last year’s BAFTAs accepting the same award for A Single Man, he will hopefully be someone to bank on for a injection of dry humour into an otherwise luvvy affair. Though by reaching a record of first actor to win in two consecutive years since 1968, who knows whether this will finally reduce him to the tears and wails of his fellow winners.

On the other hand, though Natalie Portman is not as dead cert to win as Colin Firth, she will most definitely have eyes and ears on her speech if she does continue her awards sweep for Best Actress (Black Swan). Unfortunately she will have to do quite a bit to redeem herself from the slightly embarrassing speech made at the Golden Globes, mentioning sex with her fiancée, “Mila ‘Sweet Lips’ Kunis”, and how being in a room with the rest of Hollywood’s greats was the most “meaningful” part of the Black Swan experience. However, given Carey Mulligan’s overtly gushing, faux-shocked explosion receiving the same award last year, she does not have much to beat.

However, there is plenty to be excited for, including Christopher Lee, token villain, picking up the Lifetime Achievement award. Despite the inevitable King’s Speech sweep, who knows who will pick up Editing, Cinematography, Best Supporting Actress?

The youngest actor to appear in the category this year is Aaron Johnson. The twenty-year-old began his career at the age of six in the theatre in Shakespeare plays and Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. Now, Johnson is best known as the hero of the sleeper success Kick-Ass, the boy with no superpowers whose desire to impress others leads him to dress up as a superhero. Johnson, whose other credits include The Illusionist and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, has also had the honour of playing a young John Lennon in the biopic Nowhere Boy. The film’s director, Sam Taylor-Wood, now lives with Johnson in London, and this summer gave birth to their daughter.

One of this year’s nominees is also the star of one of the most hotly-tipped films of the season. Andrew Garfield has only a handful of movie roles to his name, but his appearance in The Social Network, playing Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, has been enough to also see him nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and presumably lead him to get the main role in a forthcoming reboot of the Spiderman franchise. He’s garnered acclaim for the Red Riding TV trilogy, worked alongside Heath Ledger and Lily Cole in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and is about to appear in Never Let Me Go.

Another nominee for the award will also be featuring the new Spiderman film as Gwen Stacy. Emma Stone, the only American nominee this year, came to fame in 2007 in the smash hit Superbad, her first film role. She’s since been in a range of mainstream releases such as The House Bunny, Marmaduke and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, scoring a massive success in horror-comedy Zombieland in 2009. Her biggest role to date has been in Easy A, one of the biggest cult hits of last year. The high-school comedy follows Olive Penderghast, a teenager who, after lying about losing her virginity, finds herself offering unpopular friends the opportunity to pretend that they’ve slept with her. Stone received a Golden Globe nomination for her witty performance.

Tom Hardy, born in 1977, is far and away the eldest of the group. Hardy has had minor roles in movies since 2001, including Black Hawk Down, Layer Cake, Marie Antoinette and RocknRolla. It wasn’t until 2009 that he rose to prominence in two roles that couldn’t be more different from each other: the dashing Heathcliff in a TV miniseries of Wuthering Heights, and bareknuckle boxer Michael Gordon Petersen in Bronson. Now Hardy is most recognisable for his part in Christopher Nolan’s Inception, which has led him to be cast as Bane in Nolan’s next Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises.

Finally, the bookies’ current favourite to win the award is Gemma Arterton, the Quantum of Solace star who if she succeeds will join Casino Royale’s Eva Green as the second Bond Girl to be crowned as a BAFTA Rising Star. 2010 was a huge year for the St. Trinian’s and Tess of the D’Urbervilles heroine, with roles in: The Disappearance of Alice Creed, blockbusters Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Stephen Frears’ acclaimed adaptation of Posy Simmonds’ comic strip, Tamara Drewe. Arterton ended her year on the London stage in Ibssen’s The Master Builder, and is now set to star in Men in Black III.

Only Boyle and the Coens are getting much press right now, for 127 Hours and the forthcoming True Grit, films which in an ordinary year would be more than good enough to totally dominate the proceedings. But they have two cinematic behemoths to deal with, The King’s Speech and The Social Network: a film that’s taken a higher box office than any other British period drama, and another that’s uniquely managed to capture the zeitgeist without sacrificing its own integrity. Take a look at their ticket sales and it’s plain to see that these movies are getting a lot of love from the public; visit RottenTomatoes.com and you’ll find that journalists are equally enamoured.

Amazingly, other big names in awards season, like Black Swan and The Fighter, have similarly achieved that rare feat of obtaining both critical and commercial success. Two of the best hits of 2010 – Toy Story 3 and Inception – also follow this pattern, with the 1st and 5th biggest box office takings in America last summer, alongside spots on the Academy’s Best Picture shortlist.

This doesn’t necessarily indicate that audience taste has undergone a drastic change. With the exception of The Social Network, it’s still the stars that are bringing in customers. The faces of Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, and Christian Bale are probably more important to the popularity of The King’s Speech, Black Swan and The Fighter than the Golden Globes they’ve won. Instead, a form of stardom is becoming defined by the actor’s craft instead of surface appeal: almost all of the best film nominees both here and stateside are stories driven by performance. If good acting and good directing are in greater harmony than before, then that can only be a good thing.

This creates a picture of remarkable consistency, which in theory should make the results of the BAFTAs and Oscars all the more unpredictable. Yet this doesn’t seem to be the case. Having succeeded at the Globes and the Screen Actors’ Guild awards, it’ll be pretty surprising if Firth, Portman and Bale don’t increase their trophy count in the next month. Meanwhile the best film contest is set to be dominated by The Social Network and The King’s Speech, judging by the minor award ceremonies of the past month.

The odds seem to be more in favour of the latter than the former, but it’s impossible to say for sure how the American Academy’s vote will turn out. The biggest winner at the BAFTAs, however, is surely a foregone conclusion. If The King’s Speech doesn’t win Best Film next week, it’ll be the biggest possible blow for the movie’s Oscar campaign.

Yet it wouldn’t be unjustified, not only because of the great talent competing against it, but also because this consistency between critical and commercial success has translated extremely well to UK cinema. Last year’s token British Best Film was An Education, whose popularity is meagre compared not only to The King’s Speech, but also fellow BAFTA nominees Four Lions and Made in Dagenham.

Easy as it is to get overexcited during the media circus of awards season, it seems reasonable to say that the 2011 BAFTAs and Oscars are genuinely looking like the most exciting of this century. Critics and audiences are largely in agreement this year about the English-language films that we should be celebrating.

This film is showing at York’s City Screen cinema. Click here for more information.

With Hereafter, Clint Eastwood joins Ron Howard, Peter Weir, Paul Haggis and Edward Zwick as a multiple-Academy Award winner or nominee whose latest film is not really a part of the awards circus this year, despite having an awards season release date. Hereafter has received an Oscar nomination for its special effects; bizarrely, since its only effects-based sequence is the film’s opening. In this scene, a French TV journalist (Cécile de France) in Thailand is caught up in the 2004 tsunami, dies and then miraculously returns to life, but not before experiencing a glimpse of what might be an afterlife.

The journalist’s experience is paralleled with that of other figures: a reluctant psychic in San Francisco (Matt Damon) and a pair of twins who undergo a family tragedy in London (Frankie and George McLaren). There’s a kind of irritating novelty factor to how very International the story is, when in fact it’s only Damon’s character that convinces – alongside strong support from Bryce Dallas Howard – in a performance particularly damaged by the twist-of-fate union of the characters in the finale.

This is unusual territory for both Eastwood and writer Peter Morgan, and for the most part their ideas are restrained and well-intentioned, wisely not attempting to explain the Hereafter. For me however, the shadow of the tsunami hangs heavy over the film (as does the incorporation of the 7/7 bombings into the plot). If it succeeds at all, this story made for a mass audience is more comforting for someone who had to read about the death of 230,000 strangers than it is for anyone more directly affected.

The Golden Raspberries coincide with the Oscars to reward the ‘Worst’ films of the year, and the nominees this year include blockbuster smashes (Eclipse, Sex and the City 2, Clash of the Titans), commercial bombs (Jonah Hex) and critical failures (Vampires Suck, Little Fockers).

Several actors and actresses have received nominations for multiple performances; these include Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner (pictured), Jessica Alba, Ashton Kutcher and Jennifer Aniston.

The Razzies will be awarded on February 26th.

WORST PICTURE
THE BOUNTY HUNTER (Columbia Pictures/Relativity Media)
THE LAST AIRBENDER (Paramount/Nickelodeon Movies)
SEX AND THE CITY 2 (Warner Bros/New Line/HBO Pictures)
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE (Summit Entertainment)
VAMPIRES SUCK (20th Century-Fox/Regency Enterprises)

WORST ACTOR
Jack Black / GULLIVER’S TRAVELS
Gerard Butler / THE BOUNTY HUNTER
Ashton Kutcher / KILLERS and VALENTINE’S DAY
Taylor Lautner / THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE and VALENTINE’S DAY
Robert Pattinson / REMEMBER ME and THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE

WORST ACTRESS
Jennifer Aniston / THE BOUNTY HUNTER and THE SWITCH
Miley Cyrus / THE LAST SONG
Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis & Cynthia Nixon / SEX AND THE CITY 2
Megan Fox / JONAH HEX
Kristen Stewart / THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jessica Alba / THE KILLER INSIDE ME, LITTLE FOCKERS, MACHETE and VALENTINE’S DAY
Cher / BURLESQUE
Liza Minnelli / SEX AND THE CITY 2
Nicola Peltz / THE LAST AIRBENDER
Barbra Streisand / LITTLE FOCKERS

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Billy Ray Cyrus / THE SPY NEXT DOOR
George Lopez / MARMADUKE, THE SPY NEXT DOOR and VALENTINE’S DAY
Dev Patel / THE LAST AIRBENDER
Jackson Rathbone / THE LAST AIRBENDER and THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE
Rob Schneider / GROWN UPS

WORST EYE-GOUGING MIS-USE OF 3-D (Special Category for 2010)
CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE
CLASH OF THE TITANS
THE LAST AIRBENDER
THE NUTCRACKER 3D
SAW 3D

WORST SCREEN COUPLE / WORST SCREEN ENSEMBLE
Jennifer Aniston & Gerard Butler / THE BOUNTY HUNTER
Josh Brolin’s Face & Megan Fox’s Accent / JONAH HEX
The Entire Cast of THE LAST AIRBENDER
The Entire Cast of SEX AND THE CITY 2
The Entire Cast of THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE

WORST DIRECTOR
Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer / VAMPIRES SUCK
Michael Patrick King / SEX AND THE CITY 2
M. Night Shyamalan / THE LAST AIRBENDER
David Slade / THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE
Sylvester Stallone / THE EXPENDABLES

WORST SCREENPLAY
THE LAST AIRBENDER Written by M. Night Shyamalan, based on the TV series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Brian Konietzko
LITTLE FOCKERS, Written by John Hamburg and Larry Stuckey, based on Characters Created by Greg Glenna & Mary Roth Clarke
SEX AND THE CITY 2, Written by Michael Patrick King, Based on the TV Series Created by Darren Star
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE, Screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, Based on the Novel by Stephenie Meyer
VAMPIRES SUCK, Written by Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer

WORST PREQUEL, REMAKE, RIP-OFF or SEQUEL (Combined Category for 2010)
CLASH OF THE TITANS
THE LAST AIRBENDER
SEX AND THE CITY 2
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE
VAMPIRES SUCK

Other films that have been nominated include 127 Hours, Inception, The Kids Are Alright and Alice in Wonderland, all of which have been popular in awards season so far. The Social Network – which was the biggest winner at the Golden Globes last weekend – will be competing in six categories. Made in Dagenham, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the forthcoming Coen Brothers film True Grit, all of which were absent from the Golden Globe shortlist, feature prominently in acting and design categories.

The announcement was made at BAFTA’s headquarters this morning by actors Dominic Cooper and Talulah Riley. The academy’s Chief Executive, Amanda Berry, called it a “really exciting list of nominations this year,” commenting that “three out of the five director nominees are Brits, and I think that just proves that British talent works throughout the world.”

The ceremony will be hosted by Jonathan Ross on February 13th.

BEST FILM
BLACK SWAN
INCEPTION
THE KING’S SPEECH
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
TRUE GRIT

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
127 HOURS
ANOTHER YEAR
FOUR LIONS
THE KING’S SPEECH
MADE IN DAGENHAM

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
THE ARBOR Clio Barnard (Director), Tracy O’Riordan (Producer)
EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP Banksy (Director), Jaimie D’Cruz (Producer)
FOUR LIONS Chris Morris (Director/Writer)
MONSTERS Gareth Edwards (Director/Writer)
SKELETONS Nick Whitfield (Director/Writer)

DIRECTOR
127 HOURS Danny Boyle
BLACK SWAN Darren Aronofsky
INCEPTION Christopher Nolan
THE KING’S SPEECH Tom Hooper
THE SOCIAL NETWORK David Fincher

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
BLACK SWAN Mark Heyman, Andrés Heinz, John McLaughlin
THE FIGHTER Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson
INCEPTION Christopher Nolan
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
THE KING’S SPEECH David Seidler

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 HOURS Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Rasmus Heisterberg, Nikolaj Arcel
THE SOCIAL NETWORK Aaron Sorkin
TOY STORY 3 Michael Arndt
TRUE GRIT Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
BIUTIFUL Alejandro González Iñárritu, Jon Kilik, Fernando Bovaira
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Søren Stærmose, Niels Arden Oplev
I AM LOVE Luca Guadagnino, Francesco Melzi D’Eril, Marco Morabito, Massimiliano Violante
OF GODS AND MEN Xavier Beauvois
THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES Mariela Besuievsky, Juan José Campanella

ANIMATED FILM
DESPICABLE ME Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
TOY STORY 3 Lee Unkrich

LEADING ACTOR
JAVIER BARDEM Biutiful
JEFF BRIDGES True Grit
JESSE EISENBERG The Social Network
COLIN FIRTH The King’s Speech
JAMES FRANCO 127 Hours

LEADING ACTRESS
ANNETTE BENING The Kids Are All Right
JULIANNE MOORE The Kids Are All Right
NATALIE PORTMAN Black Swan
NOOMI RAPACE The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
HAILEE STEINFELD True Grit

SUPPORTING ACTOR
CHRISTIAN BALE The Fighter
ANDREW GARFIELD The Social Network
PETE POSTLETHWAITE The Town
MARK RUFFALO The Kids Are All Right
GEOFFREY RUSH The King’s Speech

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
AMY ADAMS The Fighter
HELENA BONHAM CARTER The King’s Speech
BARBARA HERSHEY Black Swan
LESLEY MANVILLE Another Year
MIRANDA RICHARDSON Made in Dagenham

ORIGINAL MUSIC
127 HOURS AR Rahman
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Danny Elfman
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON John Powell
INCEPTION Hans Zimmer
THE KING’S SPEECH Alexandre Desplat

CINEMATOGRAPHY
127 HOURS Anthony Dod Mantle, Enrique Chediak
BLACK SWAN Matthew Libatique
INCEPTION Wally Pfister
THE KING’S SPEECH Danny Cohen
TRUE GRIT Roger Deakins

EDITING
127 HOURS Jon Harris
BLACK SWAN Andrew Weisblum
INCEPTION Lee Smith
THE KING’S SPEECH Tariq Anwar
THE SOCIAL NETWORK Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter

PRODUCTION DESIGN
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Robert Stromberg, Karen O’Hara
BLACK SWAN Thérèse DePrez, Tora Peterson
INCEPTION Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias, Doug Mowat
THE KING’S SPEECH Eve Stewart, Judy Farr
TRUE GRIT Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh

COSTUME DESIGN
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Colleen Atwood
BLACK SWAN Amy Westcott
THE KING’S SPEECH Jenny Beavan
MADE IN DAGENHAM Louise Stjernsward
TRUE GRIT Mary Zophres

SOUND
127 HOURS Glenn Freemantle, Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Steven C Laneri, Douglas Cameron
BLACK SWAN Ken Ishii, Craig Henighan, Dominick Tavella
INCEPTION Richard King, Lora Hirschberg, Gary A Rizzo, Ed Novick
THE KING’S SPEECH John Midgley, Lee Walpole, Paul Hamblin
TRUE GRIT Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, Peter F Kurland, Douglas Axtell

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Nominees TBC
BLACK SWAN Dan Schrecker
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 Tim Burke, John Richardson, Nicolas Ait’Hadi, Christian Manz
INCEPTION Chris Corbould, Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Peter Bebb
TOY STORY 3 Nominees TBC

MAKE UP & HAIR
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Nominees TBC
BLACK SWAN Judy Chin, Geordie Sheffer
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 Amanda Knight, Lisa Tomblin
THE KING’S SPEECH Frances Hannon
MADE IN DAGENHAM Lizzie Yianni Georgiou

SHORT ANIMATION
THE EAGLEMAN STAG Michael Please
MATTER FISHER David Prosser
THURSDAY Matthias Hoegg

SHORT FILM
CONNECT Samuel Abrahams, Beau Gordon
LIN Piers Thompson, Simon Hessel
RITE Michael Pearce, Ross McKenzie
TURNING Karni Arieli, Saul Freed, Alison Sterling, Kat Armour-Brown
UNTIL THE RIVER RUNS RED Paul Wright, Poss Kondeatis

THE ORANGE WEDNESDAYS RISING STAR AWARD
GEMMA ARTERTON
ANDREW GARFIELD
TOM HARDY
AARON JOHNSON
EMMA STONE