Although Call Me By Your Name went into the award season as one of the top contenders, at the larger ceremonies it’s tended to be muscled out by other movies. However, at the BAFTAs it did at least pick up one award, with James Ivory nabbing Best Adapted Screenplay. It’s the veteran gay filmmaker’s first competitive BAFTA since winning Best Film for Howards End back in 1992.
The big winner of the night was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which was named Best Film and Outstanding British Film (despite being set in the US, it was made with largely British and Irish money and expertise), with Martin McDonagh winning Original Screenplay, Sam Rockwell taking Supporting Actor, and Frances McDormand receiving the BAFTA for Leading Actress. It cements its position as the frontrunner for the Oscars.
However, while it will probably do well at the Academy Awards and seems an increasingly strong contender for the Best Picture Oscar, it is unusual for getting fairly little love for McDonagh as the Director (he wasn’t even Oscar nominated in that category). As at several other ceremonies, Best Director went elsewhere, with Guillermo Del Toro picking up the gong for The Shape Of Water. That film also saw Alexandre Desplat collect the Original Music award, and it picked up Best Production Design.
Gary Oldman won Leading Actor for Darkest Hour; the film also won the award for Make Up & Hair, while Supporting Actress went to Allison Janney for her role as Tonya Harding’s mother in I, Tonya. Roger Deakins won his fourth BAFTA for Cinematography for Blade Runner 2049, which also won for Special Visual Effects.
Sadly, of the other LGBT nominations, God’s Own Country failed to win Best British Film, and the movie’s star, Josh O’Connor, lost out to Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya for the EE Rising Star award. On the plus side, I Am Not Your Negro, about gay activist and writer, James Baldwin, won Best Documntary.
Take a look below for the full list of winners. [Read more…]
If the studios were hoping for some four-day holiday New Year’s cheer at the box office, they didn’t get a huge amount, with Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol the only real bright spot. The overall box office was down over last New Year, but Ghost Protocol added another $38 million to take its total to $14 million in the US and $361 million worldwide. It’s a decent hit but not astounding.
The Christmas US box office is slightly unusual, as while it was a holiday four-day weekend, rather than releasing movie on a Friday, many of the studios decided to either release their movie early or wait until Christmas itself, largely because they now Christmas Eve always tends to be an unsually weak day (whereas Saturday is normally the best day of the week). The result is that while some of these new films movies got off to decent starts, they couldn’t beat out previously released flicks.