So ...
Best movie shortlist
Winner: Toy Story 3
Judge's Comments: a very strong choice of movies that were well made, well produced, well acted and (crucially) in which I had no idea where they might be going. For instance: movies where it is not a given that the hero(es) will survive. But in the end it had to be Toy Story 3. How many of these would I get on DVD and re-watch? Exactly.
Best actor shortlist:
- Tom Cruise (Collateral)
- Chiwetel Ejiofor (Kinky Boots)
- Lotso Hugs (Toy Story 3)
- Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
- Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, The Third Man)
Judge's comments: Lotso wins because, despite the handicap of being a CGI animation with no actual physical form, from the moment he appears he manages to come across as genial and friendly and slightly creepy and threatening, all of which he in fact is. Chiwetel Ejiofor gets an honorable mention for so spectacularly not being the Operative from Serenity in his portrayal of a transvestite club singer. And his songs are pretty darn toe-tapping.
Best SF short list
Winner: Moon
Judge's Comments: Not such a strong list of contenders, frankly. Moon would have stood out in any year but neither of the other two really deserve an urgent repeat viewing. Very cleverly done, yes, but ... but. Moon however has a standout performance by one actor playing two men, and an old-school approach to practical, model-based special effects that is a huge relief after endless vistas of CGI.
Best thriller shortlist
Winner: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Judge's Comments: Another clutch of well-made movies where you really didn't know what was going to happen or who would live and die. The Girl has to waltz off with the prize, however. What else could you do with a movie where the lead character has her probation officer tied up naked, is forcing objects inside him via the bodily orifice that isn't the mouth, forcing him to watch a video of him raping her so she can blackmail him into releasing her from probation ... and that's just character background?
Best paranoid conspiracy theory
Winner: Defence of the Realm
Judge's Comments: The judges surprise themselves on this one, expecting The Ghost to be the shoe-in due to its topicality and dislike of Tony Blair. Defence of the Realm came up from behind. It was made in the eighties, which only occasionally shows, but is still just as taut and unexpected as, say, State of Play. In fact, without Defence of the Realm there might have been no State of Play. Or indeed The Ghost.
Best Swedish Film
Winner: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Judge's Comments: Okay, so the field was limited to two choices anyway - but even so. See comments above about the winner. Arn suffered a little from trying to compress a quite long trilogy into one 2 hour movie and from a certain Swedishness along the lines of: "oh look, something exciting is happening over there / has just happened here." Mind you, I was at school with one of the villains which gives it a notch up.
Best comedy
Winner: The Big Lebowski
Judge's Comments: Ooh, this was a hard one. The Big Lebowski scrapes it, just, but a very honorable mention to Tamara Drewe, not least for all the writer jokes.
And finally, some one-offs - categories of one which still deserve a mention because that single category was so noticeable.
Best facial hair
This movies features players like Longstreet, Lee, Chamberlain, Armistead and Pickett, so the facial hair was always going to be key. As it turns out, their beards and whiskers were present at one of the most important battles of modern history and prove well up to the challenge.
Worst waste of Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy as a hitman. So much promise ...
Best use of a screen legend
Michael Caine continues to prove that his one-style-fits-all acting method really does fit all. The man is a marvel.
Until next year, then!
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