film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

GettyImages-920018630 (1).jpg

2018 BAFTA Winners - Boy, What A Feast of Meh

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | February 18, 2018 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | February 18, 2018 |


GettyImages-920018630 (1).jpg

So that was all a bit disappointing, eh?

Here’s the thing about the BAFTAs — watching them is almost pointless. If you’re a Brit like me, you got the edited version of the show the BBC do every year, filmed about 90 minutes in advance and edited to a barely recognizable display of what they think is nobility. So by the time we actually see who has won, the world already knows, because the BBC have announced the results, both on their site and on Twitter! And that’s the only way you’ll get a full picture of what’s happened because the technical winners get shunted to a brief montage at the end of the show. So you get 20 minutes of bad comedy skits, celebrity schmoozing and a weird Cirque du Soliel performance, but we can’t see the winner of Best Cinematography give a full speech or enjoy their moment. Priorities, BAFTAs! It’s insulting to the industry, it’s insulting to viewers, and it’s utterly unfair to the winners. It’s a quiet Fuck You to anyone who isn’t a big celebrity. When they actually showed the Best Production Design and Visual Effects winners, I nearly keeled over in shock. Actually, compared to some other years, we got to see a few tech winners, but that also served to highlight how weird it was when other categories got the chop.

It didn’t help that the show itself offered so few surprises. The big winners were all the stuff you expected to win, and that offered little in terms of supporting British cinema outside of the major names. This was a show that had the opportunity to award Paddington 2 but chose not to. We could have had Best Supporting Actor for Hugh Grant but nope!


BEST FILM: THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonagh)

BEST DIRECTOR: GUILLERMO DEL TORO - THE SHAPE OF WATER

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM: THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (Martin McDonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin)

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER: I AM NOT A WITCH (Dir. Rungano Nyoni)

BEST ACTOR: GARY OLDMAN - DARKEST HOUR

BEST ACTRESS: FRANCES MCDORMAND - THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: SAM ROCKWELL - THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: ALLISON JANNEY - I, TONYA

EE RISING STAR AWARD: DANIEL KALUUYA

ORIGINAL MUSIC: THE SHAPE OF WATER (Alexandre Desplat)

BEST MAKE UP & HAIR: DARKEST HOUR (David Malinowski, Ivana Primorac, Lucy Sibbick, Kazuhiro Tsuji)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: PHANTOM THREAD (Mark Bridges)

BEST ANIMATED FILM: COCO (Dir. Lee Unkrich)

BEST EDITING: BABY DRIVER (Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss)

BEST SOUND: DUNKIRK (Richard King, Gregg Landaker, Gary A. Rizzo, Mark Weingarten)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: BLADE RUNNER 2049 (Roger Deakins)

BEST DOCUMENTARY: I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO (Dir. Raoul Peck)

BEST BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION: POLES APART (Paloma Baeza, Ser En Low)

BEST BRITISH SHORT FILM: COWBOY DAVE (Colin O’Toole, Jonas Mortensen)

BEST FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: THE HANDMAIDEN (Dir. Park Chan-wook)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (James Ivory)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (Martin McDonagh)

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: THE SHAPE OF WATER (Paul Austerberry, Jeff Melvin, Shane Vieau)

BEST SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS: BLADE RUNNER 2049 (Gerd Nefzer, John Nelson)

BAFTA FELLOWSHIP AWARD - SIR RIDLEY SCOTT


(Header photograph from Getty Images)