61st Berlin Film Festival

This is just a post to explain the relative lack of activity on this blog over the next two weeks. Tomorrow I'm flying off to spend 12 nights in Berlin so I can take in this year's film festival. I'll be writing multiple reviews every day which you will be able to find at Obsessed With Film, which will cover (hopefully) every single "in competition" film as well as a number of high profile premières. I add "hopefully" because I have no idea right now how this festival works. In Venice you just rock up to each screening, join the queue and wait to see the movie, though I've heard that Berlin requires you to get tickets in advance, which may complicate things. I'll see what happens and try my best to review every film I can.

There may be some articles and links to my work at OWF up here over the coming days, but I can't guarantee it as I'll be writing everything on my Blackberry (as in Venice) and I'll only be able to properly edit this blog if and when I get to a computer. Regardless, there will be lots of stuff up here about my experience of the festival when I return - so do remember to check back nearer the end of this month.

Until then, auf wiedersehen.

'The Mechanic' review:

Homo-erotic muscular toplessness? Manly scenes of unnecessary car maintenance? Evil South American drug lords? Homophobic, racist and sexist sub-text (and in many cases text)? A plot revolving around the theme of revenge? A lack of all humanity and compassion? A cruel sense of humour? Insanely violent and yet wonderfully creative martial artistry? It must be this month's Jason Statham actioner, this time 'Con Air' director Simon West's 'The Mechanic' - a remake of a 1972 Michael Winner movie starring Charles Bronson, which I have never heard of and will probably never see.

Like much of The Stath's output, 'The Mechanic' alternates between the intentionally and accidentally hilarious as its functionary plot serves to get its functionary leading man from set-piece to set-piece within a tidy 93 minute running time. The story is as follows: when the shady international assassination company he works for requires him to kill his friend and mentor (Donald Sutherland), "Mechanic" Arthur Bishop (Statham) attempts to soothe his crisis of conscience by adopting his mentor's bereaved son Steve (Ben Foster) and teaching him - in what seems like a couple of days - to become a world class contract killer. But will Steve find out who really killed his father? Will he be forced to kill his new found mentor and friend? Will the killing ever stop?!



Like everything from 'The Transporter' to 'Crank', 'The Mechanic' is at once brilliantly brainless and utterly repugnant. Our oddly charismatic meat-puppet of a hero gruffly whispers what lines he is given and uses his full acting range, going from quite pensive to extremely pensive - often within the same scene. There is one amazing bit of shared screen time for Statham and Sutherland in which the former looks thoroughly confused and slightly disorientated by what amounts to standard fatherly chatter. But it's hard, nay impossible, not to like Statham. To quote Randy Newman, "he may be a fool but he's our fool" after all and I really enjoy watching this slightly naff, extremely ordinary looking British guy in American movies. He's like the Beverly Hills version of a Mitchell Brother, with his designer sunglasses and leather jacket.

The world of 'The Mechanic' is the stuff of reactionary right-wing tabloid fantasy. At one point Steve decides he wants to kill a car-jacker (don't ask) so he parks his car in a poor neighborhood for a few hours and waits until a black guy duly turns up and puts a gun to his head. One target is a super-hard rival hitman, but he has one weakness: he is a total gay. This means that all Steve needs to do is sit near him in a cafe and wait to be hit on. That is seriously the plan... and, in this twisted, paranoid reality, it works. Then there is the film's opening murder (sorry, I mean "job") which takes place in "Colombia, South America", as with last summer's 'The Expendables' and 'The A-Team' South Americans mean bad news. The cavalcade of stereotypes and thinly veiled bigotries doesn't end there. Every woman seen in the film immediately propositions our heroes and beds them within about ten seconds, usually for pay. (Yes, it really is shocking that those Sky Sports presenters were so backwardly sexist in this day and age - because most of our mainstream entertainment is so enlightened and mature, no?)



Arthur is (of course) a cultured killer though. We know this because he listens to classical music and has a swanky modern house. He has his own code and method of doing things (like every other hitman in the last hundred years of cinema before him) that stops him from being just a nasty murderer. Only, doesn't such cold methodology make him a psychopath? Not if you get paid for it, apparently: then it's just business. Maybe that's intended as a satirical comment on the inherent madness of an economic system that forsakes the spiritual and metaphysical for cold market forces... though probably not. It's probably just rubbish, hackneyed nonsense. But it's got tits in it and guns and explosions and The Stath. Got to love The Stath.

'The Mechanic' proves how sodding hard it is to get an '18' certificate from the BBFC these days. Statham threatens to put a young girl's arm in a food processor whilst interrogating her father - in a scene that was genuinely pretty frightening - and the film generally shows you the moments of violent impact most movies forgo in the name of sanitised palatability. We see a man get his head smashed in by an oncoming car. We see a man hit the ground after a fall. We see loads of blood coming out of each gunshot wound. Only it's strangely not particularly visceral or gory because it's all so silly and so clearly CGI. Maybe that's why they get away with the '15'.



For all my flipplantness, 'The Mechanic' is as solidly made - from a production value and direction point of view - a Jason Statham vehicle as there has ever been this side of 'Snatch'. Ben Foster and Donald Sutherland are both good to watch, although the latter isn't in the film for more than five minutes, and (as I've already said) the fight choreography is often impressive, even thrilling. I laughed a lot as I watched it, even if often for the wrong reasons and I was never bored. If you don't care whether a film's heart is in the right place and if you don't mind if the lead actor can't act on even the most basic level, then you might just end up loving the sheer lunacy of this latest explosive, stunt-filled Statham-fest.

'The Mechanic' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is out in the UK now.

'The Fighter' review:

It is easy to dismiss David O. Russell's boxing biopic 'The Fighter' as riddled with sports movie clichés. It's the story of an ageing boxer working towards his last shot after years of wasting his potential. Sounds more than a little like 'Rocky'. In fact, based on the original trailer, it seemed that the film was more than a little similar to Darren Aronofsky's 2008 film 'The Wrestler' too, with a similar grainy, documentary aesthetic and with Amy Adams replacing Marisa Tomei as the sexy "white trash" confidant of the fighter pushing himself to the physical limit. Seeing Aronofsky's name attached to the film as an executive producer did little to allay this fear that 'The Fighter' would be nothing more than a derivative (and probably inferior) version of a story we've all seen a thousand times before.

Happily this prejudice, whilst not completely unfounded, only tells part of the story: 'The Fighter', it turns out, is a terrifically good film. It can't escape the trappings of the genre narratively or formally (as felt keenest in the obligatory training montage), but the acting is of such a high standard that you overlook its minor trespasses and enjoy what is an entirely entertaining yarn. The film follows the true story of welterweight boxer "Irish" Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and we witness the highs and lows of his relationship with his older half-brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), a drug-addicted former pro and Micky's trainer. It is the web of relationships between Micky, his brother, his mother (Melissa Leo) and his girlfriend (Adams) that is the focus of this drama, which spends comparatively little time in the boxing ring.



This is probably a wise decision as it is outside of the ring that the interest lies as we see Ward pulled between the different forces in his life who all project their hopes and aspirations on the meek and sensitive brawler. Wahlberg is superb in the main role, playing a character so painfully reluctant to express himself or fight his own corner, but the more obvious show-stopper is Bale. Christian Bale not only took himself to the physical limit to embody the part, again losing a lot of weight as he had for roles in 'Rescue Dawn' and 'The Machinist', but he completely loses himself in the character. At times he could seem close to going too far, but he never does and the film's most tragic, poignant moments of emotional honesty fall to him - none more effecting than his realisation that he no longer his brother's idol.

Melissa Leo is also impressive as a terrifying matriarch who holds an uncomfortable sway over her nine adult children and who transparently favours her eldest son - the town hero due to his former glory. The film doesn't judge its characters, all of whom are varying degrees of messed up, but if anything it gives Leo's character an easy ride. She assaults her husband in an act of domestic abuse that is played as slightly comic - in a way that would be unthinkable were roles reversed - and there is more than a suggestion that she is willing to put Micky in harms way if she can make money from it (it appears that Micky's bouts pay for his mother's upkeep) though she is never held to account for that, or even shown to be especially apologetic. Yet Leo imbues the role with flashes of vulnerability - or at least self-delusion - to ensure that she is much more than just a monster.



Amy Adams, as Micky's girlfriend, is equally brilliant in the opposite regard. Her character Charlene is for most of the film a positive counterpoint to Micky's possessive family: she helps him to break away from them and act in his own interests. Yet there is more than a hint in Adams' performance - and in the film's screenplay - that she is potentially just as damaging and manipulative a force in his life. The relationship drama at the heart of this movie isn't about good and bad or right and wrong, but about reconciliation between both sides. Micky, in eventually asserting himself, tries to bring everybody together rather than abandon his family for Charlene or go it alone - a more emotionally mature and complex resolution than we are used to seeing, though it may spring more from the fact that the film is based on real life events than the ingenuity of the writers.

The writers do deserve a lot of credit though, as there are some smart and funny lines in the film. Such as when Eklund tries to con a family of Cambodians with a pyramid scheme and is defended against the charge of racism by a friend who says, assures them that "white people do over white people all the time". There is a really nice and subtle exchange between Micky and Charlene too after he picks up on her talking about a former roommate by saying "the army?" before she corrects him with "college" - the idea that someone from his poor neighborhood could go to college being so unexpected. It's a piece of social commentary in a film that makes a feature of America's oft-derided white poor whilst never becoming mawkish or condescending.



'The Fighter' warrants its Oscar nominations, though it justly only stands a chance at winning in the supporting actor categories, where Bale and Leo are surely favourites to win. It is a fairly generic film enlivened by its committed cast, but in some ways that is its principle joy: it is a straightforward, comforting underdog story during which you'll want to punch your fist into the air and cheer on the hero.

'The Fighter' is out now in the UK and has been certified '12A' by the BBFC.

How to win an Oscar: "It's good to be the king!"

As Mel Brooks always says, "it's good to be the king" and so it might prove for Best Actor hopeful Colin Firth at this month's Academy Awards in Los Angeles. Firth was unlucky not to win last year for his understated performance in Tom Ford's 'A Single Man', being beaten to the prize by Jeff Bridges. But though Bridges is again nominated alongside the Englishman this time around, the circumstances surrounding the "race" couldn't be more different. This year it is Firth who has been earning all the major gongs en route, including the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild award (pictured above). Both are reliable Oscar indicators, but the latter is more significant having gone to the eventual Oscar winner on the last six occasions. In fact since its founding year in 1994, the winner of the SAG Best Actor award has gone on to win the equivalent Academy Award on twelve occasions out of sixteen - one of the "mistakes" being when Benicio Del Toro won in 2000 for 'Traffic' and he ended up winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar that year for the same role anyway.

Yet being the winner of the SAG award isn't the only bit of history which suggests Academy Award glory for Colin Firth on February 27th. There is also the matter of what he is nominated for: 'The King's Speech' in which he plays stammering reluctant-monarch George VI. After all, actors portraying British royalty have form when it comes to the Academy Awards. Judi Dench infamously won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1998 for what amounted to an eight minute cameo as Elizabeth I in 'Shakespeare in Love'. Her success in winning that award was attributed by many as a sympathy vote for having been snubbed the previous year for her role as Queen Victoria in 'Mrs. Brown', for which she had been nominated in the Best Actress category. Helen Mirren finally sealed her place among the Academy Award winners in 2006 for her performance as Elizabeth II in 'The Queen', whilst Australian Cate Blanchett was nominated for her breakthrough role as Elizabeth I in the 1998 film 'Elizabeth' and again in 2007 for the film's sequel.



This love affair with the Royals doesn't end there either: Charles Laughton won his Oscar in 1933 for the starring role in 'The Private Life of Henry VIII' and Richard Burton was nominated for playing same monarch in 1969 for 'Anne of the Thousand Days'. One of Peter O'Toole's eight nominations (without a single win) was for playing Henry VII in 1964 film 'Becket' and Kenneth Branagh was nominated for his portrayal of Henry V from his 1989 film of the same name. Indeed Helen Mirren was previously nominated for portraying Queen Charlotte in 1994's 'The Madness of King George', with Nigel Hawthorne also nominated for his role as the titular loon. Don't forget that this year also sees Helena Bonham Carter nominated for her role in 'The King's Speech' playing the late Queen Mother.

Of course, many of those mentioned didn't win the ultimate prize - although I most definitely think Colin Firth will - but they still prove that, if you want to be recognised by the Academy, playing a member of the British royal family has never hurt anybody's chances. I predict that when the inevitable film about Princess Diana is made that role will be one of the most coveted in all of Hollywood for this very reason. So Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Emily Blunt and all the other young British actresses need to start pestering producers and getting their names out there now if they want a golden statuette of their very own - for a feature that is practically guaranteed fourteen Oscar nominations and destined to be the toast of middle-England somewhere in our not-too-distant future.



Why this is is open to debate, but I think it has something to do with the assumption across the Atlantic that clipped Britishness is synonymous with "class" - that is in terms of style and not just social standing - and that British actors are automatically brilliant screen actors due to their inherent stagecraft, brought with them from the birthplace of the Bard. A good example of this curious assumption can be seen in the fact that Laurence Olivier was nominated for nine acting Oscars, winning one, despite the fact that he was as hammy a screen actor as there has ever been. It is the reason why it's OK to nominate Sir Ian McKellen for playing a wizard in 'Lord of the Rings' and Alec Guinness for playing a space-wizard in 'Star Wars' despite the fact the Academy wouldn't traditionally nominate those types of movies in acting categories. "Doesn't he speak beautifully?" Academy voters must say to one another all the time as they cast their votes.

It is ironic then that Colin Firth is nominated for playing an upper-class monarch without the usual eloquence. But don't be fooled by the stammer, Firth's King George has still been afforded a much nicer, cleaner British accent than his arrogant, playboy brother Edward VIII (Guy Pearce) who has a much more gratingly posh (and more realistic) aristocratic accent. It could also be said that the principle joy of 'The King's Speech' is born from the unusual sport of watching a man learning how to speak so pleasingly - and to the great approval of cheering crowds. This pleasure, when married to assumptions of British class and stagecraft and applied to the gravitas of playing royalty (which comes imbued with vaguely Shakespearian overtones by default), in part explains why 'The King's Speech' is not only an Oscar favourite: it is a highly exportable commodity for those in the former colonies basking in an unseemly collective nostalgia.

'Rabbit Hole' review:

'Rabbit Hole', starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as a married couple going through the motions eight months after the tragic death of their four year old son, is a surprising and deeply effecting experience. Kidman has earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance - and deservedly so - but Eckhart should not be overlooked as he is equally superb in a rare relationship drama which mostly manages to avoid being cloying and calculated despite revolving around such an emotive event. The film pulls this off by virtue of the subtlety of the two lead performances, made all the more remarkable by the fact that the dialogue is often not of the same abundant class.

David Lindsay-Abaire's screenplay, adapted from his own award-winning 2006 stage play of the same name, is mostly decent but weighed down by some cliché lines, such as "what do you want from me?" and "I can't do this any more!" Yet Kidman and Eckhart invest each moment with such raw intensity and emotional honesty that the film is never less than captivating, never more so than when the two share screen time. Likewise John Cameron Mitchell's direction is unpretentious and respects the ability of the actors to hold our attention without distracting camera tricks and rapid cutting (take note Danny Boyle). The director and his stars are helped by the fact that 'Rabbit Hole' as a dramatic piece refuses to take the same well-beaten path of other relationship dramas. They are also beneficiaries of a writer who has crafted well-rounded characters, both of whom we are able to empathise with even though they try to overcome grief and maintain their marriage in completely different ways - something which reminded me of 'Blue Valentine' even though that film is about a very different and more commonplace emotional turmoil.



'Rabbit Hole' differs from 'Blue Valentine' however when it comes to the film's resolution, which is as melancholic as one would expect, but far less despairing. There is a light at the end of the tunnel in shared grief, but the suggestion is not that there is any quick fix to the emotional damage we have witnessed. The characters don't do anything silly either; they don't get involved in any irritating misunderstandings - any "baby, it's not what it looks like" moments. The film also differs from a lot of American tales about grief in that it doesn't bend over backwards to placate the religious in the audience. Kidman's character is critical of those in a child death support group who insist that the death of their child is "part of God's plan". She laughs at the suggestion openly and it turns her against taking part. When she has an argument with her mother (Dianne Wiest) about disliking the use of religion as a coping mechanism, her mother comes back with all the familiar platitudes yet she isn't forced to back down and change her mind as the film takes an intriguing turn.

The thing I liked best about 'Rabbit Hole' was the fact that Kidman's character doesn't have to go on a journey to "make peace with God" and find that "faith" is the answer to all life's trials and tribulations. The opposite is instead true: possibly for the first time in any film I've seen, science is mooted as a cause for optimism and as a means of comfort, specifically the quantum physics idea of parallel universes. You could argue that this is just another belief system and one requiring the same leap of faith as religious belief. Yet parallel universes are a widely accepted scientific possibility (based on measurable, testable data) and the fact is that this character pointedly finds hope in science rather than superstition. Eckhart's arc is similarly refreshing and pleasing if for entirely different, trend-bucking reasons. He is a rare mature, emotionally sensitive male character in American cinema who is not governed by his libido - even if his desire for sex is a contributing factor in the worsening of relations with his wife.



The film's one grating, uncomfortable moment falls to Dianne Wiest who has to deliver a monologue to her daughter about her own journey in dealing with the loss of a son. When asked if the hurt ever goes away, Wiest says that it becomes bearable but that it turns into something you "carry around like a brick in your pocket. And you... you even forget it, for a while. But then you reach in for whatever reason and - there it is." This moment is just a little florid and stagy when compared with the rest of the film and it doesn't strike me as being very true to the way people actually talk: does anyone really ever come up with overwrought, bafflingly counterintuitive metaphors like that in real life? Who puts a brick in their pocket anyway? Can you even fit a brick in a pocket? Why can't you just take the brick out of the pocket? It's just a rubbish way of explaining and simplifying grief.

But the script only finds itself lacking in a few isolated moments. Most of the film is solidly crafted and the performances are gripping. I shed more than one tear - and at little moments too, such as when Kidman throws her son's clothes in a charity bin, pausing for a moment afterwards as if to contemplate the fact that she can't get them back out again. The film is at it's most emotional when it isn't trying to hard. In the latter case it can feel manipulative. It is true that the supporting characters are thinly drawn props only there to provide added emotional complication to our leads, such as Kidman's irresponsible younger sister (Tammy Blanchard) who falls pregnant and the couples's best friends who have failed to keep in contact out of awkwardness, but these characters do the job and provide a necessary foil for our protagonists. It's all about Kidman and Eckhart and they elevate an interesting, diverting drama into an outside Oscar hopeful.

'Rabbit Hole' is rated '12A' by the BBFC and is out on Friday the 4th of February.

'Brighton Rock' review:

It can be a thankless task adapting a beloved novel to the screen. It is then a doubly thankless task when you choose to adapt a beloved novel which has already spawned an equally beloved film. Though first time director and several-time writer Rowan Joffe - whose previous screenwriting credits include '28 Weeks Later' and 'The American' - has undertaken this very task with his updated version of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. 'Brighton Rock' is the story of a criminal named Pinkie who murders a rival gang member and is forced to cover his tracks in order to avoid a grim death by hanging. The only witness to his crime is a young innocent named Rose, who Pinkie decides to romance in order to ensure her silence.

When I say "updated" I simply mean that Joffe has moved the story from its 1930s setting to the mid-1960s and has set the action amongst the "mods and rockers riots" of the era, made famous on the silver screen by the 1979 film 'Quadrophenia' - a cinematic reference the film alludes to with its relocation of the climax from Peacehaven (or the Palace Pier in John Boulting's 1947 version) to Beachy Head. Sam Riley, best known for playing Ian Curtis in 'Control', stars as Pinkie, a role made famous by Richard Attenborough. Andrea Riseborough plays the naive waitress Rose, whilst the supporting cast is more impressive, boasting Helen Mirren, John Hurt and Andy Serkis as the debonair crime boss Mr. Colleoni. A thankless task re-makes may be, but there were signs that this stellar cast, coupled with the film's vibrant new context, could make this new adaptation something unique and edgy.



Sadly, Joffe's film suffers not only in comparison with the film of old, but also with just about any film currently in cinemas. It is poor. Very poor in fact. Bearing the brunt of this cinematic train wreck is Sam Riley, whose performance is embarrassingly one-note. His Pinkie seems to be in the mould of Phil Mitchell, as he speaks in a gravelly half-whisper for the entire film. The representation of his relationship with Rose is even worse. The history of cinema is littered with female characters who fall in love with gangsters and psychopaths; it is a well-worn idea and one that has been handled far better in a hundred different movies. Usually the guy is shown to have a lighter side, for example in the films of James Cagney: he is often smooth, funny and charismatic, only showing his darker side when pushed or challenged. Indeed Attenborough's Pinkie had an undercurrent of vulnerability to him and even sweetness if you knew where to look.

Riley's Pinkie, by contrast, has no light to complement the shade. He is unremittingly horrid from the first time he meets Rose until the last. As a result you care nothing for him, not even as a brooding anti-hero, and you wonder why Rose would ever be drawn to him in the first place. I saw an old interview with the great Peter Ustinov the other day in which he said that “it’s never worth playing a hero without a weakness or a villain without a heart, a character must have three dimensions and some sort of inner contradiction to make it interesting”. This is, in my opinion, true and it is the greatest failing of Joffe's 'Brighton Rock' that all of the characters are thinly drawn, though Mirren, Serkis and Hurt gamely try their best with the material (albeit with an air of deliberate camp). Riseborough succeeds at injecting her character with a warmth found nowhere else in the film, yet the script is so lacking in nuance and the central relationship so lacking in credibility that it is another thankless task.



'Brighton Rock' 2011 has few redeeming qualities other than the score by Martin Phipps and the fact that it gives people from Brighton and Eastbourne (where much of it was shot) the chance to see their town on a cinema screen. The film's clifftop climax is so badly done it's almost comical, whilst Joffe's direction verges on the amateurish and his evocation of overused mod imagery (such as Pinkie on a scooter) feels contrived and cynical. I'm not blithely dismissive of re-makes and adaptations by nature. They can be cracking fun and sometimes even brilliant cinema (all of Kubrick's films are literary adaptations, for instance). However, if you have nothing to add to the original besides a slight change of setting - and if you can't even adequately get across the core dynamic of that earlier work - then you have no business making that film.

'Brighton Rock' is out in the UK from Friday 4th February and can be seen at Brighton's Duke of York's Picturehouse. The film is rated '15' by the BBFC.

Oscar nominations in...

The 2011 Academy Award nominees were revealed today, a week after I made my own predictions. I'm happy to say that I was mostly right in my guesses, though not entirely. I got 9/10 Best Picture nominations correct, but was wrong when I said 'Monsters' might be in with a shot. I went so far as to list a number of alternate picks that I thought might be included if one from my list were not. But even among all of those I never saw the nomination for 'Winter's Bone' coming. It shouldn't have been too big a surprise though, as the film was met with overwhelmingly strong reviews and touted as an awards contender when it was released last year. I guess the fact that I didn't personally like it all that much forced it out of my mind.

I fared less well in the other categories. I got 3/5 Best Actor nominees, as I thought Ryan Gosling ('Blue Valentine') and Mark Wahlberg ('The Fighter') were certainties. But rather it was last year's victor Jeff Bridges ('True Grit') and previous winner Javier Bardem ('Biutiful') who got the nod. I got 4/5 Best Actress picks right, with my only mistake being to include Julianne Moore ('The Kids Are All Right') over Nicole Kidman ('Rabbit Hole').



I was close with my predictions for Best Director. Though my pick of 'The Kids Are All Right' director Lisa Cholodenko over Joel and Ethan Coen ('True Grit') was a mistake - though not an unhappy one. In the supporting categories I got 6/10 right - but as I said before, those categories are probably the hardest main awards to call. Anyone can get nominated for almost anything. Case in point, Australian film 'Animal Kingdom' gets its sole major nod in the Best Supporting Actress category with Jacki Weaver listed. The young star of 'True Grit' Hailee Steinfeld was also a surprise inclusion. Best Supporting Actor seemed like it might be less problematic, but I also got two of those names wrong. Michael Douglas didn't get his widely expected nod for 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps', but Jeremy Renner ('The Town') and John Hawkes ('Winter's Bone') were included.

I've posted the main categories below (as stolen from Deadline). I've emboldened those who I think will win on the night:

BEST PICTURE
127 HOURS (Fox Searchlight)
An Hours Production Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
A Protozoa and Phoenix Pictures Production Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
INCEPTION (Warner Bros)
A Warner Bros. UK Services Production Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
A Relativity Media Production David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
An Antidote Films, Mandalay Vision and Gilbert Films Production Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
THE KING'S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co)
A See-Saw Films and Bedlam Production Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
A Columbia Pictures Production Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
TOY STORY 3 (Walt Disney)
A Pixar Production Darla K. Anderson, Producer
TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
A Paramount Pictures Production Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
WINTER'S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
A Winter's Bone Production Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

BEST ACTOR
JEFF BRIDGES - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
JAVIER BARDEM - BIUTIFUL (Roadside Attractions)
JESSE EISENBERG - THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
COLIN FIRTH - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)
JAMES FRANCO - 127 HOURS (Fox Searchlight)

BEST ACTRESS
ANNETTE BENING - THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
NICOLE KIDMAN - RABBIT HOLE (Lionsgate)
JENNIFER LAWRENCE - WINTER’S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
NATALIE PORTMAN - BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
MICHELLE WILLIAMS - BLUE VALENTINE (The Weinstein Co) -though never write off the lobbying power of the Weinstein's!

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
CHRISTIAN BALE - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
JOHN HAWKES - WINTER’S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
JEREMY RENNER - THE TOWN (Warner Bros)
MARK RUFFALO - THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
GEOFFREY RUSH - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
AMY ADAMS - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
HELENA BONHAM CARTER - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)
MELISSA LEO - THE FIGHTER (Paramount) -he's the favourite, but I'm backing Adams at the third attempt
HAILEE STEINFELD - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
JACKI WEAVER - ANIMAL KINGDOM (Sony Pictures Classics)

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (DreamWorks Animation)
TOY STORY 3 (Walt Disney)
THE ILLUSIONIST (Sony Pictures Classics)

BEST DIRECTOR
DARREN ARONOFSKY - BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
DAVID FINCHER - THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
TOM HOOPER - THE KING'S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co.)
JOEL AND ETHAN COEN - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
DAVID O. RUSSELL - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
ANOTHER YEAR, Mike Leigh (Sony Pictures Classics)
THE FIGHTER, Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson, Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson (Paramount)
INCEPTION, Christopher Nolan (Warner Bros)
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg (Focus Features)
THE KING'S SPEECH, David Seidler (The Weinstein Co)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 HOURS, Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy (Fox Searchlight)
TOY STORY 3, Michael Arndt, Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich (Walt Disney)
THE SOCIAL NETWORK, Aaron Sorkin (Sony Pictures)
WINTER'S BONE, Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini (Roadside Attractions)
TRUE GRIT, Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Paramount)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Algeria, Hors la Loi (Outside the Law) (Cohen Media Group) - A Tassili Films Production
Canada, Incendies (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Micro-Scope Production
Denmark, In a Better World (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Zentropa Production
Greece, Dogtooth (Kino International) - A Boo Production - I want this to win!
Mexico, Biutiful (Roadside Attractions) - A Menage Atroz, Mod Producciones and Ikiru Films Production

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) - Matthew Libatique
Inception (Warner Bros.) - Wally Pfister
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) - Danny Cohen
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) - Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit (Paramount) - Roger Deakins

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Exit Through The Gift Shop (Producers Distribution Agency) A Paranoid Pictures Production Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz
Gasland - A Gasland Production Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
Inside Job (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Representational Pictures Production Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
Restrepo (National Geographic Entertainment) - An Outpost Films Production Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
Waste Land (Arthouse Films) - An Almega Projects Production Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley