Oscar Watch has all the BAFTA Nominations and there's love for the usual suspects particularly The Queen (10 nominations), Babel (7 noms) and The Departed (6 noms). But the "rock on" award is definitely BAFTA's Best Actor nomination for our new James Bond, Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. Sweet.Talking Points
* Babel did well but received not one acting nomination.
* Their makeup list includes Marie Antoinette, The Queen, Devil Wears Prada, and Dreamgirls (none of which appear on Oscar's finalist list) reminding us that it's really only the Oscar branch that thinks makeups only means prosthetics.
* Their costume design list includes 2 contemporary features (The Queen and The Devil Wears Prada). I'd love to think this means Oscar would wake up to the reality that modern films have costumes but I'm not going to hold my breath. Oscar used to know this in past decades but since oh about the 80s onward it's no go. The last contemporary costume nominee was the drag queen spectacle The Adventures of Priscilla... (1994)
* Pan's Labyrinth (7 nominations) did very well and Children of Men (3 nominations) was honored in technical categories. BUT... they've had time to build in the UK: Pan's opened in November and Children in September. What were the US distributors thinking?
* Charismatic James McAvoy shows up in the awards race for the first time in The Last King of Scotland --too bad it's in a fraudulent category. If you've seen the movie you'll know that he is actually the leadiest lead ;) -- it's not Forest Whitaker.
