BAFTA Winners & Gowns

Since they aren't broadcasting the ceremony live across the pond -- we'll get an edited tape-delayed version -- we aren't watching. We'll only give BAFTA its due once it joins us in the 21st century. If you're waiting to be "surprised" during the tape delay abridged stuff, don't click to continue this post. If you are as unwilling to care about things you can't watch live as we are, and don't even value themselves enough to include the audience (even in the UK it's not live), than click away to read the winners with some commentary. 

And gowns!

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More Prizes for Best Pic Nominees: 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, & Her

From the USC Scripter nominees we discussed Friday the group chose 12 Years a Slave as the best adapted screenplay of the year. Since their prize goes to both the screenwriter and the original author that means John Ridley gave the acceptance speech but Solomon Northup was also a winner. He's been dead for 151 years so one wonders where his prize goes? I hope to the Faces of Solomon group.

But it wasn't all good news for the masterful slavery drama. It lost its Art Direction, Period  prize to the much showier Baz Luhrmann film The Great Gatsby. Catherine Martin, Baz's wife and creative collaborator is drowning in such prizes. She's won the ADG and the Oscar both before in this category for Moulin Rouge!

ADG AWARDS FILM

So pleased this won it's prize! K.K. Barrett is a marvel

Contemporary Film K.K. Barrett, Her
Fantasy Film Andy Nicholson, Gravity
Period Film Catherine Martin, The Great Gatsby

It's worth noting that all three of those production designers are Oscar nominated as well. They're competing against Adam Stockhausen for 12 Years a Slave and Judy Becker  for American Hustle.

Television & Special Extra Film Prizes are after the jump...

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Box Office: I, Failure

Amir here, with the weekend’s box office report.

It was a quiet weekend for new releases, with only one film opening wide, and it might as well have not bothered at all. I, Frankenstein opened to a catastrophic $8m on a $65m budget. By next weekend, it will most likely be out of the top ten and most definitely out of our collective memory. I really don’t have much to add the pile of ridicule that’s already been heaped on the film, chiefly because I can’t figure out what the hell it’s even about despite the good half an hour I spent this morning researching its advertisements. I will just leave you with this brilliant tweet instead:

Worst part of I, FRANKENSTEIN flopping is that we'll never get treated to @NickPinkerton's hilarious sequel title: II, FRANKENSTEIN.

— Bilge Ebiri (@BilgeEbiri) January 25, 2014

Ride Along remained at the top of the chart after its strong opening weekend, though it’s sure to be dethroned when the bizarrely titled That Awkward Moment opens next week. Meanwhile, Frozen broke yet another record this week and became the highest grossing original animated film of all time. That is a fantastic feat for Disney and an indication that despite what the studios continue to believe, female protagonists can sell as many as tickets as their boy counterparts – though I don’t mean to insinuate in any way that Frozen’s appeal is limited to gender or age; it’s been successful precisely because it’s drawing everybody in. Next weekend it gets a sing-along version in theaters.

BOX OFFICE
RIDE ALONG $21.1m (cum. $75.4m)
LONE SURVIVOR $12.6 (cum. $93.6m)
THE NUT JOB $12.3m (cum. $40.2m)
FROZEN $9m (cum. $347.8m)
JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT $8.8m (cum. $30.1m)
I, FRANKENSTEIN $8.2m new
AMERICAN HUSTLE $7.1m (cum. $127m)
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY $5m (cum. $26.5m)
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET $5m (cum. $98m)
DEVIL’S DUE $2.7m (cum. $12.8m)

On the Oscar front, Hustle and Wolf are still going strong, while Nebraska, Dallas Buyers Club and 12 Years a Slave all expanded (or re-expanded, as in the case of the latter) and did modest business. Not enough has been written about the box office success of Steve McQueen’s film, but I personally think $43 is a really solid number for a film that has been constantly dubbed 'brutal' and 'unwatchable' in the media. Irrespective of how well the nominees do in the remainder of their theatrical run, the sum total of their gross will remain the second lowest in the post-5 best picture era after 2011, when only one film (The Help) sold more than $100m.

I didn't hit the theatres this weekend but dedicated my time to some classics instead. What did you watch?

Cuarón Takes DGA

In non-surprising awards news Alfonso Cuarón has won the Directors Guild of America prize for his long-in-the-making sci-fi epic Gravity. Though I've long been predicting him to win the Oscar, the Best Picture race still seems competitive. It's insane that 12 Years a Slave, a magnificent film and a historically significant drama in several ways, isn't steamrolling but it isn't. My guess is that even if Gravity sweeps the craft categories, Best Picture will be a nail biter down to the last envelope opening. The most famous 'dominated the Oscars but still lost Best Picture' year is, of course, 1972. Cabaret won 8 Oscars but The Godfather beat it in two of the top 8 categories Adapted Screenplay & the big kahuna Best Picture. The end result: they were both winners. Cabaret took home a lot of Oscars and has the impressive distinction of being the biggest winner among all Best Picture losers. (There are some who think that 2002 was heading toward a similar outcome had The Pianist had another month to gain momentum on Chicago) 

Will we see another split year? No predominantly black film has ever won Best Picture which is depressing and bad news for 12 Years a Slave but no sci-fi film has won either which isn't exactly points in Gravity's favor. 12 Years has to convince voters who are resisting it to see the picture (if you ask me, AMPAS voters who won't watch all the Best Picture nominees each year before voting really ought to have their memberships revoked) and it needs to find a second wind with the media who have a predictable way of turning on frontrunners each year. I fear a Brokeback Mountain situation where the less evolved voters just won't give a seminal work its due because of the subject matter. Am I too pessimistic?

Gravity has the potentially easier task in that it only needs to convince voters that it isn't lightweight and that it won't age poorly (I'm not convinced on the latter). And, since it hasn't truly been the frontrunner at any point, it doesn't have much backlash to conquer. I'm leaning toward predicting Gravity to just (nearly) sweep the whole thing.

PGA Shocks With a Best Picture Tie

My head is spinning as fast as Sandra Bullock's  tiny white spacesuit body during Gravity's terrifying opening calamity. The Producers Guild of America, which could have ended the Oscar race with a win for American Hustle, which had been gaining strength via high profile Globe and SAG wins, opted out. They looked elsewhere, two elsewheres to be specific: Gravity and 12 Years a Slave tied for their top prize. [more...]

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