_189832_bafta_award_300With the guild awards piling up and the Oscars set to announce nominees in the morning, the awards season is coming into focus. Blissfully, this will all be over in less than two months.

Today brought along the announcement of the BAFTA awards, which are of course the major British film awards. Like the Academy, they give out a robust batch of awards across many categories, and are a feather in the cap of any awards-contending film, even if their Oscar prediction value is dubious at best. With the nominees being announced well after the Academy has submitted ballots and with a change in their voting system, it would be foolish to read to much prognostication from these across-the-pond nods.

The choices this year were largely unsurprising, though a few interesting anomalies did pop up. Foremost among them is the very interesting ommission of both Steven Spielberg and Tom Hooper from the Best Director categories, despite their respective films leading the overall nominations: Lincoln with 10 and Les Misérables with 9. Life Of Pi also managed 9 nominations, but Ang Lee ended up on the director’s slate as he did yesterday with the DGA nominations.

ASC-logoQuentin Tarantino and Michael Haneke were the directorial discrepancies with the DGA yesterday, and fine choices they both are (even if Spielberg is the last name I would have dispensed with to include them). Another interesting tidbit is that Skyfall only made the specifcally British Best Picture list, despite a heap of overall nominations.

Along with the BAFTAs (which I’ve reproduced the full list via Deadline below) came the ASC nominations today, with the cinematography guild choosing the five candidates for the big honor:

Anna Karenina, Seamus McGarvey, ASC, BSC
Les Miserables, Danny Cohen, BSC
Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda, ASC
Lincoln, Janusz Kaminski
Skyfall, Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC

I’m still behind on seeing Anna Karenina, but I can say with certainty that all the rest of the selections are beautiful films. I’m also every-s0-slightly cheered by the fact that people who actually know what the hell they’re talking about have endorsed the bold visual approach to Les Misérables. Still, this is likely Deakins or Miranda’s award to lose, and though I’m crossing my fingers that Deakins stunning, groundbreaking digital cinematography in Skyfall takes every visual award possible in the next two months, I’d be fine with any of these efforts being honored.

Keep an eye out for the big nods tomorrow morning. They’ll be waiting for you right here at CHUD when you log on in the morning!

BAFTAS Nominees:

BEST FILM

ARGO Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney
LES MISÉRABLES Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Cameron Mackintosh
LIFE OF PI Gil Netter, Ang Lee, David Womark
LINCOLN Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy
ZERO DARK THIRTY Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow, Megan Ellison

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM

ANNA KARENINA Joe Wright, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster, Tom Stoppard
THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL John Madden, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Ol Parker
LES MISÉRABLES Tom Hooper, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Cameron Mackintosh, William Nicholson, Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer
SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS Martin McDonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin
SKYFALL Sam Mendes, Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER

BART LAYTON (Director), DIMITRI DOGANIS (Producer) The Imposter
DAVID MORRIS (Director), JACQUI MORRIS (Director/Producer) McCullin
DEXTER FLETCHER (Director/Writer), DANNY KING (Writer) Wild Bill
JAMES BOBIN (Director) The Muppets
TINA GHARAVI (Director/Writer) I Am Nasrine

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

AMOUR Michael Haneke, Margaret Ménégoz
HEADHUNTERS Morten Tyldum, Marianne Gray, Asle Vatn
THE HUNT Thomas Vinterberg, Sisse Graum Jørgensen, Morten Kaufmann
RUST AND BONE Jacques Audiard, Pascal Caucheteux
UNTOUCHABLE Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache, Nicolas Duval Adassovsky, Yann Zenou, Laurent Zeitoun

DOCUMENTARY

THE IMPOSTER Bart Layton, Dimitri Doganis
MARLEY Kevin Macdonald, Steve Bing, Charles Steel
McCULLIN David Morris, Jacqui Morris
SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN Malik Bendjelloul, Simon Chinn
WEST OF MEMPHIS Amy Berg

ANIMATED FILM

BRAVE Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman
FRANKENWEENIE Tim Burton
PARANORMAN Sam Fell, Chris Butler

DIRECTOR

AMOUR Michael Haneke
ARGO Ben Affleck
DJANGO UNCHAINED Quentin Tarantino
LIFE OF PI Ang Lee
ZERO DARK THIRTY Kathryn Bigelow

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

AMOUR Michael Haneke
DJANGO UNCHAINED Quentin Tarantino
THE MASTER Paul Thomas Anderson
MOONRISE KINGDOM Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola
ZERO DARK THIRTY Mark Boal

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

ARGO Chris Terrio
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin
LIFE OF PI David Magee
LINCOLN Tony Kushner
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK David O. Russell

LEADING ACTOR

BEN AFFLECK Argo
BRADLEY COOPER Silver Linings Playbook
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS Lincoln
HUGH JACKMAN Les Misérables
JOAQUIN PHOENIX The Master

LEADING ACTRESS

EMMANUELLE RIVA Amour
HELEN MIRREN Hitchcock
JENNIFER LAWRENCE Silver Linings Playbook
JESSICA CHASTAIN Zero Dark Thirty
MARION COTILLARD Rust and Bone

SUPPORTING ACTOR

ALAN ARKIN Argo
CHRISTOPH WALTZ Django Unchained
JAVIER BARDEM Skyfall
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN The Master
TOMMY LEE JONES Lincoln

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

AMY ADAMS The Master
ANNE HATHAWAY Les Misérables
HELEN HUNT The Sessions
JUDI DENCH Skyfall
SALLY FIELD Lincoln

ORIGINAL MUSIC

ANNA KARENINA Dario Marianelli
ARGO Alexandre Desplat
LIFE OF PI Mychael Danna
LINCOLN John Williams
SKYFALL Thomas Newman

CINEMATOGRAPHY

ANNA KARENINA Seamus McGarvey
LES MISÉRABLES Danny Cohen
LIFE OF PI Claudio Miranda
LINCOLN Janusz Kaminski
SKYFALL Roger Deakins

EDITING

ARGO William Goldenberg
DJANGO UNCHAINED Fred Raskin
LIFE OF PI Tim Squyres
SKYFALL Stuart Baird
ZERO DARK THIRTY Dylan Tichenor, William Goldenberg

PRODUCTION DESIGN

ANNA KARENINA Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer
LES MISÉRABLES Eve Stewart, Anna Lynch-Robinson
LIFE OF PI David Gropman, Anna Pinnock
LINCOLN Rick Carter, Jim Erickson
SKYFALL Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock

COSTUME DESIGN

ANNA KARENINA Jacqueline Durran
GREAT EXPECTATIONS Beatrix Aruna Pasztor
LES MISÉRABLES Paco Delgado
LINCOLN Joanna Johnston
SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN Colleen Atwood

MAKE UP & HAIR

ANNA KARENINA Ivana Primorac
HITCHCOCK Julie Hewett, Martin Samuel, Howard Berger
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY Peter Swords King, Richard Taylor, Rick Findlater
LES MISÉRABLES Lisa Westcott
LINCOLN Lois Burwell, Kay Georgiou