This is rather old news, so forgive the tardiness — but since the Evening Standard Film Awards released both a longlist and a shortlist last year, when this year’s nominees appeared, I assumed they were still going to be whittled down before Monday’s ceremony. As it turns out, that was the final nomination list — and that’s just as well, because it’s a good crop.
The Evening Standard Awards are limited to British films and talent (British actors in international films are eligible, though it’s been a sufficiently strong year for local film that only one nominee falls into that bracket). Determined by a jury of eight leading UK critics (not all of them from paper that gives the ceremony its name), they are one of the more established fixtures on what’s becoming a sizeable list of British precursor events.
Indeed, you’ll recognize a lot of the nominees from the lists of the British Independent Film Awards and London Film Critics Circle. The level of agreement between these groups only points out how disconnected BAFTA is from its own national cinema: “Shame” and BIFA champ “Tyrannosaur” may lead the pack here, but they boast just three BAFTA nods between them. Meanwhile, the Standard jury went out slightly on a limb to acknowledge two films ignored in all these aforementioned awards: the smash sitcom spinoff “The Inbetweeners Movie” and Joanna Hogg’s superb domestic drama “Archipelago” — which, funnily enough, took the titular metaphor for fractured families a full year before “The Descendants” did. Some enterprising US distributor really ought to pick it up.
I’ll hopefully be attending the awards on Monday — last year’s event, where Peter Mullan’s “Neds” triumphed, was a rather jolly evening. The nominees are:
Best Film
“Archipelago”
“Shame”
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
“Tyrannosaur”
“We Need to Talk About Kevin”
Best Actor
Kenneth Branagh, “My Week With Marilyn”
Michael Fassbender, “Shame” and “Jane Eyre”
Brendan Gleeson, “The Guard”
Tom Hiddleston, “Archipelago”
Peter Mullan, “Tyrannosaur”
Gary Oldman, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
Best Actress
Olivia Colman, “Tyrannosaur”
Samantha Morton, “The Messenger”
Carey Mulligan, “Shame”
Vanessa Redgrave, “Coriolanus”
Tilda Swinton, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”
Rachel Weisz, “The Deep Blue Sea”
Most Promising Newcomer
Richard Ayoade (writer-director), “Submarine”
John Boyega (actor), “Attack the Block”
Jessica Brown Findlay (actor), “Albatross”
Tom Kingsley and Will Sharpe (writer-directors), “Black Pond”
Peter Sellers Award for Comedy
“Black Pond”
“The Inbetweeners Movie”
“The Guard”
Best Documentary
“Dreams of a Life”
“Fire in Babylon”
“Life in a Day”
“Project Nim”
“Senna”
Best Screenplay
Joanna Hogg, “Archipelago”
John Michael McDonagh, “The Guard”
Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump, “Kill List”
Paddy Considine, “Tyrannosaur”
Andrew Haigh, “Weekend”
Technical Achievement Award
Sean Bobbitt (cinematographer), “Shame”
Paul Davies (sound designer), “We Need to Talk About Kevin”
Maria Djurkovic (production designer), “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
Michael O”Connor (costume designer), “Jane Eyre”
Robbie Ryan (cinematographer), “Wuthering Heights”
Remember to keep track of the ups and downs of the 2011-2012 film awards season via The Circuit.
For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter.
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