Cinematic Concerns

BEST PICTURE
Midnight In Paris


BEST DIRECTING
Woody Allen – Midnight In Paris


BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Owen Wilson – Midnight In Paris


BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE


BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Corey Stoll – Midnight In Paris
Ryan Gosling – Crazy, Stupid, Love.


BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Elle Fanning – Super 8
Jennifer Ehle – Contagion
Jessica Chastain – The Tree Of Life


BEST WRITING, ORIGINAL
Contagion
Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Midnight In Paris
Source Code


BEST WRITING, ADAPTED
Limitless
Water For Elephants


BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Limitless
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
The Tree Of Life


BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Midnight In Paris
The Three Musketeers


BEST ART DIRECTION
Cowboys And Aliens
Super 8
The Three Musketeers
X-Men: First Class


BEST MAKEUP
Midnight In Paris
X-Men: First Class


BEST FILM EDITING
Limitless
Midnight In Paris


BEST SOUND
The Eagle
The Tree Of Life
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon


BEST SOUND EDITING
Captain America – The First Avenger
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
The Tree Of Life


BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Cowboys & Aliens
Captain America – The First Avenger
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
Super 8
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon


BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
The Eagle
Warrior
Water For Elephants


BEST ORIGINAL SONG
"Iridescent", Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
"When We Were Young", The Three Musketeers


BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn


BEST SHORT FILM, ANIMATED
Dead Island Trailer


BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Let The Bullets Fly (China)

I liked The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe – I recently saw it again and was surprised to find myself still capable of tearing up at the goodbye scene in the beginning of the film ... that almost never happens even for a tearjerking movie I'm watching for the first time – and I loved Prince Caspian even more, with its added maturity to the story and the characters (not drastically, just subtly sufficient).

Unfortunately, two things happened to this one.

First of all, change of director. Michael Apted is far from a terrible director, but he's definitely no Andrew Adamson, who brought a certain kind of poignance to the films which is only possible with the way he structures the plot, and the pacing which gives the movie time to breathe (though it does make the films longer than some people would like, but I thought the pacing was just perfect for those two films).

Which leads to the second thing: 20th Century Fox. They have a history of forcefully compressing movies just so they can squeeze more screenings a day (or at least that's the most obvious but not necessarily true reason), Kingdom Of Heaven being just one case in point. And this one has the markings of that; the first half of the film felt rather truncated at times, like it was impatient at jumping to the next scene, but which unfortunately accentuated the episodic nature of the story. Look, the story's episodic as it is, so what you should be doing is to let the audience connect with the characters so that it glosses over the this-happens-then-this-happens feel undetected, not highlight it.


Ultimately what you got was an okay movie, but one that, considering the story, could have been great. The ending battle scene was sufficiently epic (though this one made the mistake of ending it too fast). I still love Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley and they continue to do alright here, but Will Poulter did impress – he was genuinely annoying to begin with, partly thanks to the whiny, poncey voice he used, and then something completely unexpected happens (I never read the books) which causes Edmund to say 'you've got to be joking' (and really, never has that phrase been more aptly used in all the movies I've seen) which eventually leads to his character's rather heroic redemption. And that poignant quality that I talked about in previous films, it's there in diminished form at the end of the film.

But again, the film could've been more. Bring back Adamson, I say!