Slumdog Millionaire – 7
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 3
Hunger – 1
In Bruges – 1
The Duchess – 1
I’ve Loved You So Long – 1
Man On Wire – 1
Vicky Cristina Barcelona – 1
The Dark Knight – 1
The Reader – 1
The Wrestler – 1
September – 1
Wallace And Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death – 1

Now who won what (in order)…

Music

Slumdog Millionaire
A.R. Rahman

Sound

Slumdog Millionaire
Glenn Freemantle, Resul Pookutty, Richard Pryke, Tom Sayers, Ian Tapp

Production Design

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo

Make Up & Hair

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Jean Black, Colleen Callaghan

Cinematography

Slumdog Millionaire
Anthony Dod Mantle

Adapted Screenplay

Slumdog Millionaire
Simon Beaufoy

Outstanding British Film

Hunger
Laura Hastings-Smith, Robin Gutch, Steve McQueen, Enda Walsh

Outstanding British Contribution to Film

Pinewood and Shepperton Studios

Original Screenplay

In Bruges
Martin McDonagh

Costume Design

The Duchess
Michael O’Connor

Film not in the English Language

I’ve Loved You So Long
Yves Marmion, Philippe Claudel

The Carl Foreman Award

Man On Wire
Simon Chinn

Best Supporting Actress

Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Penelope Cruise

Special Visual Effects

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Eric Barba, Craig Barron, – Nathan McGuinness, Edson Williams

Best Supporting Actor

The Dark Knight
Heath Ledger

Orange Rising Star Award

Noel Clarke

Best Director

Slumdog Millionaire
Danny Boyle

Leading Actress

The Reader
Kate Winslet

Lead Actor

The Wrestler
Mickey Rourke

Best Picture

Slumdog Millionaire
Christian Colson

Fellowship

Terry Gilliam

Short Film

September
Stewart le Marechal, Esther May Campbell

Short Animation

Wallace And Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death
Steve Pegram, Nick Park, Bob Baker

Editing

Slumdog Millionaire
Chris Dickens

Animated Film

Wall-E

I’m so happy Danny Boyle is best director! :D!!! And Rourke and Winslet, great results!

Here’s a little vid of Twelve Monkeys (1995) one of my favourite films and (in my humble opinion) one of Gilliam’s best:

First of all, Terry Gilliam gets this year’s Academy Fellow, this is a given (and well deserved, I’d say). There’s a pretty cool article about him on the BAFTA website here.

Also, pinewood and Shepperton Studios get the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema award.

“They been home to some of the most successful, critically acclaimed and award winning feature films ever made such as The African Queen, David Lean’s Great Expectations, Dr Strangelove, Superman, Alien, The Shining, Ghandi, and most recently The Bourne Ultimatum and 20 of the 22 Bonds including Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.”
- From the BAFTA site.

Will The Dark Knight be in for a BAFTA or nine?

Now onto the nominations…

Most award nominations go to:

• Slumdog Millionaire 11
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 11
• The Dark Knight 9
• Changeling 8
• Frost/Nixon 6
• The Reader 5

Click here for a list of all of this years nominees.

My thoughts

• I’d like Slumdog to get outstanding British film. At the very least I want Danny Boyle to win best director.
• I’d love Rourke to win best actor for The Wrestler but he’s up against some stiff competition from the likes of Sean Penn in Milk and Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
• Kate Winslet deserves to do well!
• I reckon music-wise it should be A. R. Rahman for Slumdog or Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard for making the Joker’s Dark Knight theme so unsettling.
• Special Visual effects could go to pretty much anyone, although I think Benjamin Button might tip the balance for using cutting-edge technology (and possibly more impactful in the eyes of cinema-goers than The Dark Knight’s use of IMAX cams). I very much doubt Quatum of Solace would pick up this award when it is up against the likes of cgi-centric pictures like Iron Man.
• In reality I think Benjamin Button will dominate both the BAFTAs and the Oscars. I’m sure it’s a great film (still not freakin released til tomorrow here!) but it’ll be a shame if a film like Slumdog misses out.

The BAFTA’s will be hosted by Jonathan Ross on Sunday 8 February 2009 in London’s Royal Opera House.

Check out last year’s film award winners here.

So, what are your predictions and who would you like to see winning awards?

Expect a feature on The Wrestler (which I saw yesterday) shortly.

“There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.”

Who can say they feel like that now? I don’t know, perhaps some people can. It’d be nice to feel like that. These days the creative floodgates are open, you can fly anywhere in the world and technology gives us the knowledge of the entire planet at our fingertips. Yet most things these days feel recycled, and we’re too P.C. for our own good.

Other times I think there’s a lot of good in the world, and while I’m still struggling to define what the “noughties” are all about (I hate this decade’s nickname by the way) there have been some really good films and iconic characters popping up in the last few years. Now that the nineties are looking and feeling richer and a little more historic, I expect in a few years I’ll also look back at the ’00s and see some sense of identity and nostalgia. At least that’s what I hope!

Here’s my list of five of cinema’s best villains from the last ten years. Feel free to comment and add your own in reply. I’d be interested – especially if you can suggest great villains in films I have yet to see! OK, here I go…

Top five villains of the ‘00s

The Pale Man, Pan's Labyrinth

5) The Pale Man (Doug Jones) – Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

I love old monster movies with stop-motion, and while I like some cgi, it can be and often is, overdone. I thought the nosferatu-esque Reavers in Blade 2 were cool, so when Pan’s Labyrinth popped up I went to see more Del Toro monsters. What I got was the Pale Man in one of the coolest, scariest and most well-executed sequences in modern cinema.

This horrible villain is cool because he’s basically a man in a suit playing an emaciated ghoul who eats children.

A mythology is created for him in mere seconds, and if you let him, he’ll stay with you long after the lights snuff out at night.

Anton Chigurh, No Country for Old Men

4) Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) – No Country For Old Men (2007)

Whatever you think of the ending, Chigurh is a damn scary villain. Sporting a questionable haircut and beefy custom-weapons, Chigurh is a cold-hearted killed played excellently by Bardem, who gives an equally brilliant performance as a charming paraplegic in The Sleep Inside.

Combo, This is England

3) Combo (Stephen Graham) – This is England (2006)

Combo exercises his demons in this beautifully crafted piece of cinema. Combo is an intense, misunderstood, uncontrollable monster who thinks he knows love.

Charlie, 3:10 to Yuma

2) Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) – 3:10 To Yuma (2007)

While 3:10 to Yuma focusses on the struggle between the outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) and out-of-pocket family man Dan Evans (Christian Bale), it is Charlie Prince that really shines as Wade’s second in command – a cold blooded mad-dog. While it is difficult to place why he makes such an excellent villain – is it his cold eyes and cool clothes, his uncaring mannerisms and his calm, nasal voice or all of the above? Charlie really brings with him a sense of impending doom, he is equal parts scary and unstoppable – a potent combo.

Joker, The Dark Knight

1) The Joker (Heath Ledger) – The Dark Knight (2008)

There’s little to say about the clown prince of crime apart from that he makes for a great villain. Ledger’s unique performance is both deeply disturbing and very funny. He’s both completely mad and logical. A super villain.

Other notable cinema villains in the past few years.

John, Saw

Jigsaw/John (Tobin Bell) – Saw (2004)

Even with three gun dots trained on his heart and cancer killing him, John Kramer still manages a mocking look.

The Operative, Serenity

The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) – Serenity (2005)

A well-spoken man of honour who is cool and calm. He knows exactly what he is – a monster.

Woo-jin Lee, OldBoy

Ji-tae Yu – OldBoy (2003)

Dae-su (Min-sik Choi) was a whisker away from getting his name up here as the film’s best anti-hero/villain, but the obsessive, homicidal Woo-jin Lee (Ji-tae Yu) stole it from under his nose.