2010 BAFTA awards ceremony

It was The Hurt Locker all the way at the BAFTAs last night. Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘tough little war film’ won best picture, Kathryn herself snagged best director and Mark Boal was awarded best original screenplay. The Hurt Locker also won awards for best cinematography, editing and sound. Upset-wise, Colin Firth trounced favourite Jeff Bridges to grab the best actor gong.

The BAFTAs were held at The Royal Opera House, against a backdrop of rain, rain and more rain. Nominees picked their way down a sodden red carpet and used every drop of their acting skills to pretend they were delighted to be in London at the lag-end of February.

We reckon the big battle between Avatar and The Hurt Locker will take place at the Oscars. As far as the BAFTAs was concerned, there was no contest. Avatar took two awards, one for special visual effects (the evening's no-brainer) and one for best production design, which we guess must cover digital design these days.

As we said, the big surprise of the evening was that Colin Firth took home best actor. But we suppose that’s the advantage of a home fixture. He saw off the the mighty talents of Jeremy Renner (whose brilliant portrayal of a bomb disposal expert went unrewarded – the only Hurt Locker nomination to do so) and Jeff Bridges (whose Crazy Heart is this year’s The Wrestler – only not as good) plus smoothie Clooney and Andy Serkis (who had the disadvantage of being in a film that no-one had yet seen).

Also, in a very strong year, Fish Tank took the award for Outstanding British Film, seeing off fine contenders An Education, In The Loop, Moon and Nowhere Boy. It’s nice to see Fish Tank getting some home-grown praise. The film got a good response when it was in competition in Cannes last May – and won the Jury Prize – but by the time of its September release, the buzz had fizzled and not enough people got out to see it. Hopefully, this will inspire some folks to check out this very beautifully crafted film.

We were delighted to see Mo’nique recognised for her role in Precious and predict that this is one award we’ll see replicated at the Oscars.

The most awkward moment of the night has to go to Kristen Stewart’s winning of the baffling and somewhat inappropriate ‘rising star’ award, which is voted by the public. (Inappropriate because surely if her star rises any higher we will all die in a blinding fireball of screaming teens and cold hard cash.) The globally famous multimillionare who starred opposite Jodie Foster in Panic Room at the age of 12 looked both awkward and shy as she tried to credit her Twilight fans with the award and downplay it at the same time. (Some commentators have suggested she was genuinely emotional – I read it as extreme embarrassment.) Nonetheless, she was very charming when interviewed backstage and told that previous winner Noel Clarke was ‘passing the baton on’ to her. Presumably, this baton represents starring in quite small British films that no-one outside of this soggy island has ever heard of for a relatively small fee, so I guess she has a lot to look forward to.

(UPDATE: Apologies all round. I offended a few people with this post, which was by no means intentional. I was merely trying to highlight the ridiculousness of giving a hugely famous actor a rising star award. Personally, I have nothing against either Noel Clarke or Kristen Stewart.. I maintain, however, that the island we live on is soggy.) 

Best film
Winner: The Hurt Locker
Avatar
An Education
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Up In The Air

Outstanding British film
Winner: Fish Tank
An Education
In The Loop
Moon
Nowhere Boy

Director
Winner: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Neill Blomkamp, District 9
Lone Schefig, An Education
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Leading actor
Winner: Colin Firth, A Single Man
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up In The Air
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Andy Serkis Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

Leading actress
Winner: Carey Mulligan, An Education
Saoirse Ronan, The Lovely Bones
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
Audrey Tautou, Coco Before Chanel

Supporting actor
Winner: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Alec Baldwin, It’s Complicated
Christian Mckay, Me And Orson Welles
Alfred Molina, An Education
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones

Supporting actress
Winner: Mo’nique, Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire
Anne-Marie Duff, Nowhere Boy
Vera Farmiga, Up In The Air
Anna Kendrick, Up In The Air
Kristin Scott Thomas, Nowhere Boy

Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer
Winner: Duncan Jones Director - Moon
Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock, David Pearson Directors, Producers - Mugabe And The White African
Eran Creevy Writer/Director - Shifty
Hazeldine Writer/Director - Exam
Sam Taylor-Wood Director - Nowhere Boy

Duncan Jones blubs, loves Sam Rockwell:

Original screenplay
Winner: The Hurt Locker, Mark Boal
The Hangover, Jon Lucas, Scott Moore
Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino
A Serious Man, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Up, Bob Peterson, Pete Docter

Adapted screenplay
Winner: Up In The Air, Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner
District 9, Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
An Education, Nick Hornby
In The Loop, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire, Geoffrey Fletcher

FIlm not in the English language
Winner: A Prophet
Broken Embraces
Coco Before Chanel
Let The Right One In
The White Ribbon

Animated film
Winner: Up
Coraline
Fantastic Mr Fox

Music
Winner: Up
Avatar
Crazy Heart
Fantastic Mr Fox
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

Cinematography
Winner: The Hurt Locker
Avatar
District 9
Inglourious Basterds
The Road

Editing
Winner: The Hurt Locker
Avatar
District 9
Inglourious Basterds
Up In The Air

Production design
Winner: Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Inglourious Basterds

Costume design
Winner: The Young Victoria
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
An Education
A Single Man

Sound
Winner: The Hurt Locker
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek
Up

Special visual effects
Winner: Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Star Trek

Make up and hair
Winner: The Young Victoria
Coco Before Chanel
An Education
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Nine

Short animation
Winner: Mother Of Many
The Gruffalo
The Happy Duckling

Short film
Winner: I Do Air
14
Jade
Mixtape
Off Season

The Orange rising star award (voted by the public)
Winner: Kristen Stewart
Jesse Eisenberg
Nicholas Hoult
Carey Mulligan
Tahar Rahim

And here’s Kristen giving her acceptance speech.