Avatar Disarmed by The Hurt Locker at BAFTAs
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Surprise results as The Hurt Locker takes six BAFTA awards ahead of Avatar.
Last night’s BAFTAs caused no small amount of controversy, as the huge anticipation of Avatar taking a clean sweep was upstaged by an explosive victory for The Hurt Locker, which took six awards.
Avatar director James Cameron was pitched against his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow who directed The Hurt Locker for the coveted award of Best Director.
For the first time ever, the British Academy honoured a female director with the award, and Bigelow was crowned the victor, to the magnanimous applause of Cameron.
At the start of the evening three movies had the potential to walk away with eight awards from the ceremony, including Avatar, The Hurt Locker and An Education. Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker was the runaway winner capturing trophies for Sound, Editing, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Directing and crucially, Best Film.
Avatar meanwhile, the clear favourite to scoop the award for Best Film managed just two awards for Production Design, and (predictably) Special Visual Effects. Cameron’s $280 million 3D space epic may have wowed audiences worldwide, but it was the low-budget $9 million The Hurt Locker which captivated the British Academy.
All of which leaves a heightened anticipation ahead of next week’s Oscars. Both Avatar and The Hurt Locker have received 9 nominations, and similar to last night, both movies go head to head in a number of categories. If the Academy follows the BAFTAs, Avatar could miss out on the critical acclaim that such a landmark movie deserves.
Other winners on the night at the BAFTAs included Pixar’s Up for Best Animated Film and Best Music. British actors Colin Firth and Carey Mulligan won the Best Actor and Best Actress awards for A Single Man and An Education respectively.
Orange BAFTA 2010 Winners
Best Film
The Hurt Locker
Leading Actor
Colin Firth (A Single Man)
Leading Actress
Carey Mulligan (An Education)
Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Supporting Actress
Mo’Nique (Precious)
Outstanding British Film
Fish Tank
Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer
Duncan Jones (director – Moon)
Director
Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Original Screenplay
The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal)
Adapted Screenplay
Up In The Air (Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner)
Film not in the English language
A Prophet
Animated Film
Up
Music
Up (Michael Giacchino)
Cinematography
The Hurt Locker
Editing
The Hurt Locker
Production design
Avatar
Costume Design
The Young Victoria
Sound
The Hurt Locker
Special visual effects
Avatar
Make-up & hair
The Young Victoria
Short animation
Mother of Many
Short film
I Do Air
The Orange Rising Star Award (voted for by the public)
Kristen Stewart
His ego needed a little deflation and who better than an ex to deal it. Remember Cameron recommended this film to Bigelow but… it seems it backfired on his winnings.
He apparently stated he does not care if he wins or not! That’s why he called himself king of the world and jumped around like a fool when he won for Titanic (Oscars).
Cameron apparently also stated that the Terminator franchise has no future and he has told the story… that there are no other stories to tell in the universe…
We think that’s a pile of SH*TE.
Bravo Hurt Locker. 9 million budget? Which would more or less these days be the budget of the first Terminator movie (6 million dollars).