We've gone awards mad in these here entertainment.ie towers this morning. Having only just recovered from the 10th annual IFTAs on Saturday night, (full list of winners available here) it was on to the Baftas last night. OK well we weren't really there. Rather, we were living vicariously through the various Twitter feeds, all of which were commenting on poor Eddie Redmayne's food poisoning, among other things. Probably for the best though, that rain looked fairly miserable. Full list of BAFTA winners here.
Overall, there were no major surprises at this weekend's respective awards ceremonies (unless you count seeing Bradley Cooper break down in tears as a surprise); Argo scooped not only the Best Film Award but also earned Ben Affleck another Best Director gong, leaving only one question on our minds: why the hell have the Oscars chosen to overlook him? Clearly, the fact that he's won nearly every other accolade in the business would be proof enough that he did a stellar job with his cast of A-Listers. We spoke to the very lovely Scoot McNairy at the IFTAs about his experience making Argo with Ben, so you can give that a gander in a bit once it's live! No surprises to see Skyfall win the award for Outstanding British Film; if Bond's not going to get the recognition it deserves in the US, you can bet your bottom dollar (or, eh, pound) that it'll get it on home turf. Life of Pi won the award for Best Cinematogrphy and Best Visual Effects - again, well deserved, considering we well believe that was an actual tiger on the boat with Pi.
As awards ceremonies go, the BAFTAs was rather painless; you couldn't ask for a better host than the sharp-witted yet always affable Stephen Fry. Hell, he even through in a horse-meat joke. He also joked about Gerard Depardieu being one of Russia's finest actors. Lolz. What's more with heartfelt acceptance speeches from Danny Boyle, Silver Lining's Playbook's David O'Russell, a choked up Christoph Waltz (he paid a particularly nice compliment to his director Tarantino - 'You silver penned devil, you'), an overwhelmed Ben Affleck and a jittery Anne Hathaway, the BAFTAs served up the perfect balance between humour and sentiment. Presenting highlights came in the form of the dulcet-toned George Clooney (rocking a Stephen Fry-esque beard), comedy veteran Billy Connolly and Henry Cavill (Martin Freeman presented with Cavill but for some reason, we just don't remember him even being there.)
IFTA wise, it was all about the truly inspiring What Richard Did. Lenny Abrahamson's wave-making movie won the awards for Best Actor (Jack Reynor), Best Director (Abrahamson), Best Film and Best Script. Entirely well deserved; this movie was by far the best Irish film of 2012. And you ought to agree, considering you voted it Best Film at The Erics earlier this year. Of course we were delighted to see Daniel Day-Lewis win the award for Best International Actor for Lincoln, but sadly he's too busy being one of the coolest men in Hollywood to attend our national awards ceremony. Can't complain too much though, we did have him all to ourselves last month for the European premiere of Lincoln at Dublin's Savoy cinema. For those of you more concerned with the TV wins at the 10th annual IFTAs, head to Sarah's TV quarters where the main topic of discussion is Love/Hate (and the fact that Tom Vaughan-Lawlor who plays bad guy Nidge is actually the nicest most beautifully articulated man we spoke to on the red carpet).
We'll have plenty of video content to feed you throughout the day from our coverage at the IFTAs, but for now, enjoy our photo galleries from both the IFTAs and the BAFTAs.
