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Thursday, February 25, 2010

AND THEY'RE HEADING FOR THE FINISH LINE: The BAFTAs and the WGA announce their winners

The BAFTAs and WGA Awards have come and gone so now it’s pretty much over but the waiting. It’s not unusual for the BAFTAs to match up with the Oscars (they gave the best actress award to Marion Cotillard, for example, when many, including moi, expected it to be Julie Christie), even though the voting bloc only partially overlaps. I think this year, their awarding Best Picture, Director and Screenplay to The Hurt Locker pretty much seals the deal for Bigelow and company. However, I think Best Actor will not go to Colin Firth (as it did at the BAFTAs, though common wisdom had it that Firth was going to win the Oscar until Crazy Heart was rushed to an earlier release), but to Jeff Bridges. And Carey Mulligan will also not win Best Actress (as she did at the BAFTAs). That should still go to Sandra Bullock (who wasn’t nominated for a BAFTA; The Blind Side hasn’t opened in England); even if it didn’t go to Bullock, the Oscar would probably go to Meryl Streep.

The WGA awards went to the expected winners of the Oscars: The Hurt Locker for original screenplay and Up in the Air for adapted. It is true that some screenplays nominated for Oscars, like Inglorious Basterds and In the Loop, weren’t eligible for WGA awards. But The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air were the expected winners long before the WGA nominations were even announced. The Hurt Locker should now win Best Picture and Director, which means it should win the screenplay award as well. Up in the Air, which for some time was expected to win Best Picture until it peaked too early, should get the adapted screenplay as the consolation prize.

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