Out on a limb: Oscar picks 2015

Sunday night's ceremony looks like it could feature a few big upsets (hopefully). And a new host in Neil Patrick Harris also means that the show itself will be less predictable. Apart from the acting categories, several races seem too close to call this year, which always makes the ceremony more fun to watch. My groans will be loudest if Birdman wins either film or actor, and my biggest cheer will be if anything other than Big Hero 6 wins animated feature.

I'll be watching the ceremony at the official Ampas Oscar party in London this year - it starts at 11pm and goes until 5am, shortly after Best Picture is announced. Then I can go home and take a long nap!

Here are my choices and predictions - I doubt I'll do as well as last year, when I only missed one...

PICTURE
Will/should win: Boyhood
Could win: Birdman
Dark horse: American Sniper

DIRECTING
Will win: Alejandro G Inarritu - Birdman
Could/should win: Richard Linklater - Boyhood

ACTOR
Will/should win: Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything
Could win: Michael Keaton - Birdman
Dark horse: Bradley Cooper - American Sniper

ACTRESS
Will/should win: Julianne Moore - Still Alice

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Will win: J.K. Simmons - Whiplash
Should win: Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Will/should win: Patricia Arquette - Boyhood

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Will win: Ida
Should/could win: Leviathan

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Will win: Big Hero 6
Could win: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Should win: How to Train Your Dragon 2

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Will/should win: Citizenfour
Could win: Virunga

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Will win: The Imitation Game - Graham Moore
Could win: American Sniper - Jason Hall
Should win: Inherent Vice - Paul Thomas Anderson

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Will/should win: The Grand Budapest Hotel - Wes Anderson, Hugo Guinness
Could win: Birdman - Alejandro G Inarritu, et al

PRODUCTION DESIGN / COSTUMES 
Will/should win: The Grand Budapest Hotel

MAKEUP
Will win: Foxcatcher
Could win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Should win: Guardians of the Galaxy

ORIGINAL SCORE
Will/should win: Johann Johannsson - The Theory of Everything
Could win: Alexandre Desplat - The Grand Budapest Hotel

ORIGINAL SONG
Will win: Glory - Selma
Should win: Everything Is Awesome - The Lego Movie

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Will win: Birdman - Emmanuel Lubezki
Could win: Mr Turner - Dick Pope
Should win: Ida - Ryszard Lenczewski, Lukasz Zal

SOUND EDITING / SOUND MIXING
Will/should win: American Sniper

VISUAL EFFECTS
Will win: Interstellar
Could win: Guardians of the Galaxy
Should win: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

FILM EDITING
Will/should win: Boyhood
Could win: Whiplash
Dark horse: American Sniper

Critical Week: Bafta celebrates Boyhood

It was the biggest night in the UK film calendar, as the British Academy Film Awards were handed out at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Richard Linklater's Boyhood emerged as the big winner, taking Film, Director and Supporting Actress. Pictured above is the movie's attending cast and crew, plus Tom Cruise, who presented Best Film. Alas, Linklater was absent due to the Directors Guild Awards the previous night in Los Angeles.

The other big winner was Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, which took home five Baftas: Original Screenplay, Score, Production Design, Costumes and Make-up & Hair. Other triple winners were The Theory of Everything (British Film, Actor, Adapted Screenplay) and Whiplash (Supporting Actor, Editing and Sound). Pictured at the right is Best Actress winner Julianne Moore with presenters Henry Cavill and Chris Evans, and Best Actor winner Eddie Redmayne with the person he played in the film, Stephen Hawking.

Bafta is always a strange one, because the BBC refuses to broadcast it live, waiting a few hours and chopping it down to two hours to show later at night - meaning there are several "awards presented earlier" bits in the closing credits. This butchers the ceremony's flow and momentum, leaving it feeling oddly dry and dull. It doesn't help that Stephen Fry has been hosting just a bit too long - he's still timely and pithy, but offers nothing remotely new from year to year.

As for other awards, Bafta usually gets to present at least one worthy winner that Oscar ignored, and Sunday night's was The Lego Movie, which won Animated Feature. It was also great to see Ida win Foreign-Language Film and Pride's writer and producer win the Outstanding Debut award. Finally, it was no surprise that Jack O'Connell won the Rising Star Award - he's had an awesome year with Starred Up, '71, Unbroken and even 300: Rise of an Empire.

Meanwhile, Screenings this past week were all rather low-key titles, including the strikingly involving transgender comedy-drama Boy Meets Girl, the enjoyable British indie alien invasion adventure Robot Overlords, the astonishing Ukrainian deaf-gang drama The Tribe and the eye-opening narrative documentary The Man Who Saved the World. I also got a chance to see Blade Runner: The Final Cut on a big screen for the first time in advance of its re-release in a couple of months.

This coming week's collection will include the event movie Fifty Shades of Grey, Will Smith in Focus, Chris Hemsworth in Blackhat, Francois Ozon's The New Girlfriend, the Kiwi drama The Dark Horse and the acclaimed doc Dreamcatcher.

35th London Critics' Circle Film Awards: words & pics

My third year as chair of the London Critics' Circle Film Awards at times felt like it might do me in, but after all the work, the night was another triumphant celebration of the year in cinema. On Sunday 18th January we gathered at The May Fair Hotel for our annual ceremony and party, joined by a smattering of wonderful guests.

Our ceremony hosts this year were Alice Lowe and Steve Oram (below left), who won our Breakthrough Filmmaker award two years ago for their Sightseers screenplay. They set the tone for the ceremony perfectly: irreverent humour mixed with a love of cinema. After the clatter of the red carpet (above with Miranda Richardson and below right with me and Richard Linklater), the ceremony felt intimate and almost conspiratorial because it was so much fun.

After a couple of introductions (from me and from our Film Section Chair Anna Smith), we were straight on to the awards themselves. Winners included Mica Levi (below left), who won the Technical Achievement Award for her score for Under the Skin, and Dirk Wilutzky and Mathilde Bonnefoy (below right), recently Oscar-nominated producers of the Documentary winner Citizenfour.

Three of our Young British Performer nominees were in the house, left to right: Corey McKinley ('71), Daniel Huttlestone (Into the Woods) and the winner Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game).

And we invited some potential future nominees along as well. Below left, that's Toby Sebastian (soon to be seen in Game of Thrones) and his sister Florence Pugh (star of Carol Morley's upcoming stunner The Falling). Below right are Ferdinand Kingsley (Dracula Untold) and Louise Brealey (Sherlock).

Quite a few British filmmakers were on hand, including Breakthrough Filmmaker nominees, left to right, Hossein Amini (The Two Faces of January), James Kent (Testament of Youth) and Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth (20,000 Days on Earth), here flanking director Jonathan Glazer, whose film Under the Skin won the Attenborough Award for British Film of the Year.

Breakthrough British Filmmaker was won by Yann Demange for '71 - he accepted his award by video (below right), as did Andrey Zvyagintsev (below left), whose Leviathan won Foreign-Language Film of the Year.

More video messages were sent by Michael Keaton (bringing down the house with a trouser-free acceptance of Actor of the Year for Birdman), Rosamund Pike (British Actress of the Year), Patricia Arquette (Supporting Actress for Boyhood) and Wes Anderson (Screenwriter for The Grand Budapest Hotel. Actress of the Year winner Julianne Moore (Still Alice) sent a generous written speech, while Supporting Actor winner JK Simmons (Whiplash) was conspicuously absent.

And Richard Linklater took to the stage twice for Boyhood, winning Director of the Year and Film of the Year (the award I presented). Finally, Stanley Tucci presented our biggest honour to the gorgeous Miranda Richardson - The Dilys Powell Award for Excellence in Film. Both gave speeches that combined sharp humour, warm friendship and a love of cinema.

Finally, at the after-party I was snapped in perhaps my luvviest picture of all time - with Miranda and our British Actor of the Year winner Timothy Spall. Darlings!

Photos by Dave Bennett

34th Shadows Awards: Happy New Year!

After much agonising, I've finally assembled my annual best of the year lists. As much as I resisted, I was unable to deny that Boyhood was my film of the year. I hate going along with the mob, but this really is one of the most extraordinary movies ever made - it's far more than a 12-year filmmaking experiment. These are just the highlights: there's rather a lot more on the WEBSITE.

FILM:

1. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
2. Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
3. Mommy (Xavier Dolan)
4. Selma (Ava DuVernay)
5. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
6. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
7. Rosewater (Jon Stewart)
8. Pride (Matthew Warchus)
9. Citizenfour (Laura Poitras)
10. Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn)

DIRECTOR: Ava DuVernay (Selma)

SCREENWRITER: Andrey Zvyagintsev & Oleg Negin (Leviathan)

ACTRESS: Julianne Moore (Still Alice, Maps to the Stars)

ACTOR: David Oyelowo (Selma, A Most Violent Year, Interstellar)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Emma Stone (Birdman, Magic in the Moonlight)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Josh Brolin (Inherent Vice, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For)

WORST FILM:

1. Tammy (Ben Falcone)
2. Bad Johnson (Huck Botko)
3. Pudsey the Dog: The Movie (Nick Moore)
4. Endless Love (Shana Feste)
5. Annie (Will Gluck)
6. Hector and the Search for Happiness (Peter Chelsom)
7. Earth to Echo (Dave Green)
8. Sabotage (David Ayer)
9. Jimi: All Is by My Side (John Ridley)
10. Dumb and Dumber To (Peter & Bobby Farrelly)

~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~
CRITICAL WEEK

I only saw three films this week: James Franco and Seth Rogen in media-storm comedy The Interview, which was about half of a very funny movie; Jake Gyllenhaal in the clever but fiercely artful doppelganger mystery Enemy; and the stunningly well-observed Swedish Oscar-contending family drama Force Majeure.

Critics' screenings don't begin until Monday - with Liam Neeson in Taken 3 - but I have a few more discs I want to catch up with between now and then, as year-end voting continues.

Critical Week: Soak up the sun

London critics had a chance to catch up with John Carney's long-awaited follow-up to Once, and Begin Again turns out to be essentially the same story retold with starrier actors in New York. It's also disarmingly enjoyable, with wonderful songs and nicely offhanded performances from the entire cast, which includes Keira Knightley (who can truly sing), Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine and James Corden. Richard Linklater's ambitious and utterly amazing Boyhood is nearly three hours long, was shot over 12 years, and stars Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke as parents of young actors who grow up before our eyes.

We also caught up with the British indie Love Me Till Monday, a charming and somewhat thin romantic comedy that's mainly notable for its clever refusal to indulge in any formulaic rom-com plotting. And there were also two docs: Children 404 is an eye-opening look at children in Russia who identify themselves with the LGBT community and hate the way their government is sidelining them while making it acceptable to be targets of homophobic hatred (it's the closing film at the Open City Docs Fest). And The Final Member documents the world's only penis museum, which is located in northern Iceland, and its founder's tenacious attempt to complete his collection of mammals with a human specimen. It's dryly hilarious and rather telling too.

This week, I'm taking my first no-email/no-film holiday in six years and won't resurface until Sunday, 29th June. The first screenings on my return will be Melissa McCarthy's zany (sigh!) comedy Tammy, Philip Seymour Hoffman in God's Pocket, Noel Clarke and Ian Somerhalder in The Anomaly, and the Scandinavian crime-thriller The Keeper of Lost Causes. And I'll also be looking to catch up with things I missed while away, including How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Transformers: Age of Extinction. So until then, bring on the sunshine...