Awards Show Round Up: BAFTAs 2024

We are rolling into a busy last few weeks of awards season (I’m still not used to SAG being this late in the year? I wonder if they’ll ever go back to their pre-Covid January slot, but I guess the strikes probably delayed things this year…)

Once again, the BritBox app on my television refused to let me watch this?! But thankfully it worked on my laptop, still wishing for a return to the BBC America broadcast, but since even the SAG Awards are moving to streaming this year it seems that is most likely a pipe dream.

Anyway, enough logistical griping, it was a pretty fun show! I wish they didn’t keep quite so many awards off broadcast, especially since it is on streaming and they could just…let the show be long, but I really enjoyed David Tenant as host (never not enjoyed him in anything to be honest) and though I wasn’t surprised by any of the winners, there are still some races that feel a little open, which is fun. Here are my highlights:

Enjoyed the whole dog bit, and have always enjoyed Michael Sheen and David Tenant’s dynamic. (Side note, while Hamish was pretending to be frozen, Tim and I were trying to cast my laptop onto the TV and I literally couldn’t tell if it was working, which was a funny little meta moment.)

I reiterate that Justine Triet is the coolest person this awards season, and her partner is also hilarious:

The one win that truly shocked me was Cord Jefferson for Adapted Screenplay, not because it’s not deserved, it totally is, but because the BAFTAs don’t tend to go for things like movies with “America” in the title. (Though Tim did suggest that it may be because it makes a mockery of America, which, might be right.) Either way, thrilled about this. But, hilariously, Cord’s speech is one of the very few (maybe the only?) not currently uploaded to the BAFTA YouTube, so trust me…he won and was charming, but very American.

Robert Downey Jr. is going to win an Oscar, and he’s been giving good speeches all season:

Also – everything he keeps saying about being in the MCU is infinitely more damning than any criticism Scorsese or any other “auteur” has leveled against comic book movies.

Also going to win an Oscar Da’Vine! And I just adore her:

Zone of Interest won both Foreign Language Film and British Film which is…funny? I don’t know, it’s hard to say anything related to that film is funny, but the silliness of categories is fun to point out. Anyway, this speech isn’t funny, but it is important:

Really wish I could find a clip of Hugh Grant looking miserable while he recites an Oompa Loompa poem to present this award to Chris Nolan, but that’s fine:

Also the younger brother he mentions in this, ended up going to high school in Chicago, and sounds very American, and then they have another brother who is a con man and is (or at least was) in prison, and I don’t really have a point, I just need you all to know it, because I have SO MANY QUESTIONS about the Nolan family and neither Chris nor Jonathan seem likely to ever talk about it, but I would love to see a Nolan film about the Nolan family.

Samantha Morton is wonderful, and her Fellowship is very well deserved, but it is weird to watch her generation of actors age into lifetime achievement awards, because I remember when she was young and cool. (To be clear, she is still very cool, but you know what I mean.)

Mia McKenna-Bruce is great in How To Have Sex, and she was adorable winning Rising Star:

Best Actor is still an open race I think, and though I’m leaning toward Paul, Cillian was apparently the first Irish-born actor to win a Best Actor BAFTA, which is insane:

The fact that the British Academy didn’t even nominate Lily Gladstone, means that to me, this Best Actress race was completely illegitimate, and if people use it to say that Emma has “momentum” towards her second Oscar I will scream at them. (More accurately, I will scream at Tim, who has nothing to do with this and doesn’t deserve it, but that’s what being married to me is like.)

Emma is great in Poor Things even though I don’t love that movie, and I find her very charming, this is not about hating her, it is about loving Lily.

Always great to see Michael J. Fox:

And then Oppenheimer won, which, I think at this point isn’t a surprise to anyone, and though it’s not my pick for Best Picture, it’s definitely not one that’s going to make me angry:

Also, apparently, a guy on stage with them was not in any way affiliated with the film which is funny, because he didn’t do anything?

Fashion wise, it was kind of a snooze fest, a lot of black, with occasional red, and lots of open backs that connected to cut outs I didn’t particularly care for. There was some sparkly fun though. Here were my favs: