Gravity Wins Big at B.A.F.T.As!

Yes the British Academy of Film and Television Arts award show was held last night and the winners were quite a surprise to say the least. But before we take a look at who took home the treasure golden face, lets take a look at the show itself.

Yet again, British author and comedian Stephen Fry hosted the festival and his performance was a little...underwhelming to say the least. He just wasn't really that funny and kept using odd phrases such as 'spank your palms together'. How where the celebrities that opened the envelopes and read out the winners? Ok, I guess. There was nothing too remarkable about them. Oh, and Oprah Winfrey (an American) presented the award for Outstanding British Film. Wrong. But before I start going off topic, lets see what everyone actually cares about; the winners.

As you may have guessed from the title, Alfonso Cuarons big budget space thriller Gravity won a good chunk of the awards which were Outstanding British Film, Best Director, Cinematography, Original Music, Sound and Visual Effects. Why don't you just go ahead and give it Best Film! Seriously, it won Best Director, along with all those other awards, and you give it to a film that only has 1 other win! Sometimes, awards really confuse me.

Of course, the big one went to Steve McQueen's historical drama 12 Years a Slave which is the film I was actually rooting for. It's just the only other award it won was Best Actor for Chiwetel Ejiofor and not Best Adapted Screenplay or Best Supporting Actress, two awards in which it was the frontrunner to win! But I am glad it won Best Film, I would have just liked it to win a few more others.

In the other awards, American Hustle won Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Lawrence, Original Screenplay and Hair and Makeup. The Great Gatsby took home Costume and Production Design. Meanwhile Blue Jasmine, Captain Phillips, Philomena, Rush, Frozen, The Great Beauty and The Act of Killing all won 1 each. Overall I am pleased with the more minor awards but less delighted with the slightly more major ones.

That's The Animated Kid, over and out.

Animation Awards Round Up

Well as you probably know, recently the full list of the Academy Awards, or more commonly known as the Oscars, have been released! And I certainly have a few things to say about them...In this post I will give my opinions on the awards news over the previous month and unveil a new exciting project.

The Oscars

WHY!?! Well, it's not all bad. Gravity (pictured) and American Hustle both got 10 nominations each and 12 Years a Slave garnered 9. I personally think the latter will win best picture. But one of my favourite films of the year, Saving Mr Banks only got ONE nomination! ONE! And that was only for best score! A major snub in Emma Thompson not getting nominated for best actress.

In the best animated feature category we have the perfect five: Frozen, The Wind Rises, Ernest & Celestine, Despicable Me 2 and The Croods. Wait, what! The Croods! Instead of Monsters University! A major snub there! I was furious when I read that, as Monsters University is clearly better than The Croods. Oh well... However I'm very glad that the French hand-drawn animated film Ernest & Celestine that tells the heartwarming story of a bear and a mouse got nominated as we need more diversity to the category. And I think Frozen will win.

Golden Globes

On January the 12th the 71st Golden Globe Awards were held and I'm pretty pleased with the results. Not that I'm pleased with only that, Despicable Me 2 and The Croods getting nominated for best animated film (THE CROODS AGAIN!), but Frozen won. Which is good. I haven't got much else to say about the results as they were all pretty good. Moving on!

The British Academy Film Awards

On the 8th of January, the full list of nominations for the British Academy Film Awards were announced. As we know only 5 films are nominated for best picture and one of them was Philomena. Maybe it's just me but I don't recall that one getting such good reviews compared to other films that were left out. But it has Judi Dench in it, so they immediately nominated it.

The B.A.F.F.ies

What, I hear you cry, are the B.A.F.F.ies? Well they are Billy's Animated Film Festival and my excuse at an awards show! It will nominate the best and worst animated films of 2013 and I will try to make the winners be everyones general opinion. I hope the post will come soon but for now that's The Animated Kid, over and out.