WGA winners!

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Chris Terrio, Argo

WGA predix.

WGA tonight. Zero Dark Thirty will finally get its due.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Chris Terrio, Argo

Berlin Film Festival Winners!

It's good to see David Gordon Green back in action.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Best film (Golden Bear)
"Child's Pose", directed by Calin Peter Netzer, Romania

Jury Grand Prix (Silver Bear)

"An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker", directed by Danis Tanovic, Bosnia

Best Director (Silver Bear)
U.S. director David Gordon Green for "Prince Avalanche"

Best Actress (Silver Bear)
Paulina Garcia for Chilean film "Gloria"

Best Actor (Silver Bear)
Nazif Mujic for Bosnian film "An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker"

Best screenplay (Silver Bear)
Jafar Panahi and Kamboziya Partovi for Iranian film "Closed Curtain"

Outstanding artistic contribution (Silver Bear)
Kazakh cameraman Aziz Zhambakiyev for "Harmony Lessons"

Alfred Bauer Prize (honouring innovation)

- "Vic + Flo Saw a Bear", directed by Denis Cote, Canada.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

BAFTA Winners!

*BAM* JUSTICE *BAM*       BAFTA emitting too much intelligent voting. 

Django might now be the Original Screenplay frontrunner... unless one considers impulsive ballot filling for Zero Dark Thirty, since it is the only frontrunner contending for WGA. So happy for Christoph Waltz, I honestly hope he wins again.

BEST FILM: Argo

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM: Skyfall

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER: The Imposter

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: Amour

DOCUMENTARY: Searching For Sugar Man

ANIMATED FILM: Brave

DIRECTOR: Argo - Ben Affleck

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Django Unchained - Quentin Tarantino

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Silver Linings Playbook - David O. Russell

LEADING ACTOR: Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln

LEADING ACTRESS: Emmanuelle Riva - Amour

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway - Les Miserables

ORIGINAL MUSIC: Skyfall - Thomas Newman

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Life Of Pi - Claudio Miranda

EDITING: Argo - William Goldenberg

PRODUCTION DESIGN: Les Miserables - Eve Stewart, Anna Lynch-Robinson

COSTUME DESIGN: Anna Karenina - Jacqueline Durran

MAKE UP & HAIR: Les Miserables - Lisa Westcott

SOUND: Les Miserables - Simon Hayes, Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson, Jonathan Allen, Lee Walpole, John Warhurst

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS: Life of Pi - Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer

SHORT ANIMATION: The Making of Longbird - Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson

SHORT FILM: Swimmer - Lynne Ramsay, Peter Carlton, Diarmid Scrimshaw

THE EE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public): Juno Temple

OUTSTANDING BRITISH CONTRIBUTION TO CINEMA: Tessa Ross

THE BAFTA FELLOWSHIP: Alan Parker

An Interview with Academy-Award nominee Jessica Chastain! (sort of).

click the image for magnification.

So when you're busy churning out the year's best performance, you ain't got much time for anythin' else.

As a student who's second calling is film and blogging, I have very limited resources. In December, the ambition in me decided to ask for this interview, but across a video or something. Plans fell out, and the interview was held off for a month. I then decided to just throw my questions right on Facebook and get them answered this way.

I got a response, but a cryptic one. xxjess.

BAFTA predictions.

BAFTA's are one thing I unfortunately have been undermining in my prognostication career. The BAFTA's this year could quite possibly be the turning point for three of the big categories this year- Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor. As lazy as I am, I have decided not to predict in every category. Like most teens, I am simply too lazy.

The winners will be...

BEST FILM- Argo
BEST BRITISH FILM- Les Miserables (boo boo! Skyfall 4 LYFE!)
BEST DIRECTION- Ben Affleck, Argo
BEST ACTOR- Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
BEST ACTRESS- Emmanuelle Riva, Amour (If Chastain wins, I will be happy because she did have the best performance of the year. If Riva wins, I'll be happy for a correct prediction. How cynical of me.)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR- Since BAFTA really liked Django, then it is Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS- Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY- Michael Haneke, Amour (In reality, I think Zero Dark Thirty will take either of Amour's two big prizes. This is about predicting, and I'm playing it safe with Amour winning both)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY- Chris Terrio, Argo (boo boo! Lincoln!)
BEST FOREIGN FILM- Amour (duh!)

a legitimate mess: The Best supporting Actor race.

I still have faith that Chastain will win BAFTA, so this year's Best Actress race is as messy as ever. Even messier is the Best Supporting Actor race, where everyone has legitimate reasons that they could win. Any name announced on the 24th (that is incorrectly predicted) would be a real slap to the head. "Oh, yeah, they were gonna win all along!"

Right now I would say Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones, Robert De Niro, Christoph Waltz, and Alan Arkin are the ones in order to win. The order I listed is in likelihood of winning. De Niro was supposed to win SAG, but didn't. Just because he is doing this random bout of press interviews doesn't mean he'll win. I think Hoffman was the strongest supporting performance this year. It has the distinct advantage of being a lead, which benefited Helen Hunt's nomination. Hoffman dominates the film, and he SINGS!

Jones was good in Lincoln, but I must be blind or something because nothing truly stuck out. Waltz could win, but something speaks to me about Django's controversial side toward violence. Seriously, action figures will NOT help your campaign. Arkin was good, but he could've easily been excised from the film and I wouldn't have noticed any difference. The film would lack its wit, but still, he wasn't a pivotal character or anything.

WEINSTEIN v. WEINSTEIN v. WEINSTEIN

Hoffman, De Niro, and Waltz are all performances held under the Weinstein company. Weinstein is obviously campaigning for De Niro, which gives Waltz and Hoffman a distinct disadvantage. Still, I think Hoffman is going to win the BAFTA, and possibly win the Oscar.

I won't be surprised though if Jones wins the BAFTA, then the Oscar.

Director's Guild Winners.

Now who will win the Oscar?!

BEST DIRECTOR:
Ben Affleck, Argo

BEST DOCUMENTARY DIRECTION
Searching for Sugar Man

The Master (2012)- On a slow boat to loneliness. (4 Stars)

The Master is film about two men who are two halves that complete one another. One man is Freddie Quell, a WWII vet who moonshines and lives off nomadic loneliness. The other is Lancaster Dodd, the leader of a new religion called The Cause. His philosophy is messy and is soft-spoken during his first meeting with Freddie.

When did the frontrunners fall?

2010. The Social Network is poised to win the PGA. But in a sudden upset, it loses to The King's Speech. Every year brings out the big upsets, and this year is no exception.

Argo- It fell right after the Oscar nominations were announced... and then something miraculous happened. Globes, SAG, PGA, and soon-to-be PGA and BAFTA. That was the second fall.
The first fall for Argo was the sudden buzz for Les Miserables. The Academy screening that garnered praise more overblown than Elizabeth Banks' Hunger Games hairdo.

Les Miserables- Mixed critical reception. 'nuff said.

Zero Dark Thirty- The film that should win Best Picture will not because of torture controversy that is fortunately falling apart right before the Oscars. Also, the lack of a SAG nomination was a bad sign right from the beginning.

Lincoln- The lack of a BAFTA best director nom was ignored because Lincoln nabbed the most total noms at the ceremony. It's getting the nominations, but not the wins.

The Master- PT Anderson's revenge, a film riddled with hype and attention all summer. I don't know how it fell so quickly. Bad box office, I guess.

Silver Linings Playbook- Fell out of the conversation a little bit due to the expansion-release-style. It was all part of Weinstein's plan, the film did nab four acting nominations, so the fall was almost intentional.

And when fall, one must rise. Ergo, Argo.