2015 BAFTAs

This year's BAFTAs mark the last major event before Oscar weekend. The Independent Spirit Awards as they historically do, take place the night before the Oscars but are two weeks away. Stephen Fry hosted for the tenth time and seamlessly has his very British way of hosting down pat, no surprises. His one blunder was calling Patricia Arquette by her sister Rosanna's name in his opening monologue. The first award, Outstanding British Film, was presented by David Beckham and The Theory of Everything won. Special Visual Effects for Interstellar, the second award of the evening, was presented by the star of The Theory of Everything, Felicity Jones, and Stephen Hawking himself. Beautiful in purple, Reese Witherspoon presented Best Supporting Actor to JK Simmons for Whiplash. Simmons, Arquette and Moore seem locked to win the Oscars in their categories. Moore has also been flawless thus far on the red carpet. Redmayne has the edge over Michael Keaton for the Oscar for Best Actor, though it is still quite close. Best Film went to Boyhood. Birdman and Boyhood remain in an almost too close to call race for the Best Picture Oscar statue. The full list of BAFTA winners follows.

BEST FILM Boyhood
LEADING ACTRESS Julianne Moore, Still Alice
LEADING ACTOR Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
DIRECTOR, Richard Linklater, Boyhood
EE RISING STAR Jack O’Connell
COSTUME DESIGN The Grand Budapest Hotel
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY The Theory of Everything
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Ida
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER Stephen Beresford (Writer), David Livingstone (Producer) Pride
CINEMATOGRAPHY Birdman 
SUPPORTING ACTRESS Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
SUPPORTING ACTOR JK Simmons, Whiplash
SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS Interstellar
ANIMATED FILM The Lego Movie
SOUND Whiplash
EDITING Whiplash
BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION The Bigger Picture
BRITISH SHORT FILM Boogaloo and Graham
PRODUCTION DESIGN The Grand Budapest Hotel
MAKE UP AND HAIR The Grand Budapest Hotel
DOCUMENTARY Citizenfour
ORIGINAL MUSIC The Grand Budapest Hotel, Alexandre Desplat
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM The Theory of Everything
BAFTA FELLOWSHIP Mike Leigh

Entertainers of the Year 2014

Chris Pratt
2014 was Chris Pratt's year. The awesome body, The Lego Movie, the top grossing Guardians of the Galaxy. Then on tv he hosted the SNL season opener and before the year end holidays, Parks and Rec wrapped its final season. Next up for Pratt, Jurassic World hits theaters June 2015.

Reese Witherspoon 

Witherspoon produced Gone Girl, produced and starred in Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild for which she has already received Golden Globe, SAG and Critics' Choice nominations. She is likely to obtain an Oscar nomination. While a much more under the radar film, her performance in The Good Lie was excellent. She also appeared in the awards fodder flick Inherent Vice, which reunited Witherspoon with her Walk the Line costar Joaquin Phoenix. Next year in May, Witherspoon costars with Sofia Vergara in the buddy pic, Don't Mess With Texas. 

Mark Ruffalo
Three superb roles across big and small screens. Ruffalo was heartbreakingly amazing in HBO's the Normal Heart. His performance earned him Emmy, Golden Globe, Critics' Choice TV and SAG nods. Begin Again with Keira Knightley was an indie delight. For his most recent work in Foxcatcher, Ruffalo received SAG, Critics' Choice Movie and Golden Globe nominations. An Oscar nom for Foxcatcher is likely. 2015 will have Ruffalo in the Avengers sequel in May and another indie in January.

Cameron Diaz
Diaz had the surprise spring hit The Other Woman and authored a wildly successful book about the female body. She was sitting pretty to weather the mediocre reception of Sex Tape in the summer. She hosted SNL for the fourth time just before the release of holiday pleaser, the Annie revamp. Diaz was on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon four times in 2014 and she even has her own door onto his set. Diaz produced the tv adaptation of Bad Teacher and it is rumored that Bad Teacher 2 will film in 2015.

2014 Hollywood Film Awards

The Hollywood Film Awards were televised for the first time Friday, November 14th. A little known precursor to awards season, nominees were not announced, only winners presented. All the winners knew ahead of time. This was the 18th annual ceremony for the Hollywood Film Awards and it has previously been a private Hollywood event.

Awards season's opening ceremony, self proclaimed Official Launch of the Award Season -- trademark -- it is the first stomp on the campaign trail to the Oscars. The number of A List actors in attendance and presenting awards seemed confusing for an event with little prestige. Almost as confusing was when the "winners" would say what an honor it was to receive the award. There does seem to be plenty of easily googled photographic evidence of previous awards seasons' top winners appearing at the Hollywood Film Awards first.

Angelina Jolie was a combination of sincere and stern as she described casting Jack O'Donnell in the film Unbroken, which she directed. Johnny Depp was completely wasted when he presented the best documentary winner to Shep Gordon.

A bright spot was Geena Davis' introduction to Michael Keaton's career achievement award and the accompanying montage. The minimum of three shots of Ben Affleck seeming to worry if he'd be a good enough Batman the whole time was also quite amusing. Keaton's performance in Birdman looks to have strong traction for an Academy nod.

All the films and roles honored have good early buzz for awards season. The event seemed like the epitome of Hollywood's self congratulating and endless award shows that many criticize. Great movie montages though. It looks to be as strong of a season as any.

A list of the winners follows the red carpet looks. Best Dressed goes to Reese Witherspoon in J Mendel.

HOLLYWOOD FILM Gone Girl
HOLLYWOOD ACTOR Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER Guardians of the Galaxy
HOLLYWOOD DOCUMENTARY Mike Myers, Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
HOLLYWOOD ACTRESS Julianne Moore, Still Alice
CAREER ACHIEVEMENT Michael Keaton 
HOLLYWOOD ANIMATION How to Train Your Dragon 2
HOLLYWOOD COMEDY FILM Chris Rock, Top Five
NEW HOLLYWOOD Jack O'Connell, Unbroken
HOLLYWOOD ENSEMBLE Foxcatcher
HOLLYWOOD DIRECTOR Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game
HOLLYWOOD SONG Janelle Monae, "What is Love?" Rio 2
HOLLYWOOD SCREENWRITER Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
HOLLYWOOD BREAKOUT PERFORMANCE ACTOR Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
HOLLYWOOD BREAKTHROUGH DIRECTOR Jean-Marc Vallee, Wild
HOLLYWOOD Supporting Actress: Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
HOLLYWOOD BREAKOUT PERFORMANCE ACTRESS Shailene Woodley, The Fault in Our Stars
HOLLYWOOD SUPPORTING ACTOR Robert Duvall, The Judge
HOLLYWOOD CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman
HOLLYWOOD INTERNATIONAL AWARD Jing Tian
HOLLYWOOD VISUAL EFFECTS AWARD Scott Farrar, Transformers: Age of Extinction
HOLLYWOOD FILM COMPOSER AWARD Alexandre Desplat, The Imitation Game
HOLLYWOOD COSTUME DESIGN AWARD Milena Canonero, The Grand Budapest Hotel
HOLLYWOOD EDITING AWARD Jay Cassidy and Dody Dorn, Fury
HOLLYWOOD PRODUCTION DESIGN AWARD Dylan Cole and Gary Freeman, Maleficent
HOLLYWOOD SOUND AWARD Ren Klyce, Gone Girl
HOLLYWOOD MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING David White (Special Makeup Effects) and Elizabeth Yanni-Georgiou (Hair Designer and Makeup Designer), Guardians of the Galaxy

This Means War

I was happily surprised by this movie. How the concept was executed had everything to do with making or breaking the flick. The movie maintains it comedy and action throughout. Reese Witherspoon and her dueling CIA operative suitors Chris Pine and Tom Hardy each act convincingly and Chelsea Handler delivers in her role as the comic relief best friend to the lead. There are many laughs, special effects and thinking about which guy is the better of the two. The movie was a nice popcorn diversion from my Oscar homework.

Several trailers before This Means War stood out and it was my first time seeing each. The quirky, genre combining comedic-apocalyptic movie Seeking A Friend For the End of the World starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley is out June 22nd. The second, Think Like A Man, is a rom com spun from Steve Harvey's relationship advice book. Unlike He's Just Not That Into You, the movie features Harvey and acknowledges the existence of the book. It arrives in theaters April 20th. Also, the intriguing Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was previewed. It also arrives June 22nd.  



Water for Elephants

Pre-movie items: the trailer for Anonymous is crazy-good! I highly recommend seeing it in theaters but enjoy it here if you like. Excellent song selection, may just make the trailer. The movie will be released September 30th.

I saw Water for Elephants with Laura who had read the book. When I saw a trailer with her for it, she said that while reading it, it seemed like it would make a good movie. She also said that she pictured the main character as Tobey Maguire. Take that Twilighters. Honestly, I think Robert Pattinson seemed more age appropriate for the role. Interestingly enough, Tobey Maguire's next two movies are book adaptations. The Great Gatsby remake, and as a journalist in Life of Pi.

The movie was well done, no complaints. I think if I had been a bigger fan of the actors, I would have been more into the movie. That is really my only explanation for a less than stellar review. It certainly was much better than the review in Entertainment Weekly made it out to be. The world of the circus and the costumes from the depression era were visually captivating. I enjoyed the scenes most with the main character telling the story as an old man, played by Hal Holbrook. Paul Schneider (previously of Parks & Rec) was great in his scenes with Holbrook.

There is some darkness and violence to the movie, but it is rated PG-13 so it is not too rough. My interest was held and I was entertained, wanting to know how the story ended. The score was also excellent. The old fashioned style credits were also a nice touch. Laura also said that the movie remained true to the book.

How Do You Know

Similar to how I missed Life As We Know It in theaters, I missed How Do You Know during the holiday season. Reviews from real people that I heard were quite weak (as was the box office and critic's reviews).

That said, I really enjoyed the movie! I thought it showcased quality work from the actors in the type of roles that they shine best inhabiting -- Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Jack Nicholson and Owen Wilson. Also, supporting actress Kathryn Hahn has great give and take with Rudd. You may recognize her from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, A Lot Like Love or Win a Date With Tad Hamilton. She was pregnant while filming the movie. The movie does not follow a generic, predictable rom com plot line though I am fairly certain it was marketed as one. I am a fan of James L Brooks less successful movies. For instance, I LOVE Spanglish with Adam Sandler and Téa Leoni. How Do You Know follows an unconventional plot movement, I think to its success. The movie does not lag, it holds your attention. It is laugh-out-loud funny and has very touching moments as well.  

Thanks for being such a great host Emily, I love the Skillet Gnocchi with Spinach and Italian Sausage!