One of my favourite things at this time of the year is to watch all the glossy awards shows. I love watching stars come down the red carpet, happy to see X looking gorgeous, Y in something very ill advised (think Gwyneth Paltrow’s braless S&M Heidi outfit a few years ago), Z in something truly avant garde (Charlize Theron’s usually good for this) and someone wacky like Bjork to lighten up the high fashion.
Then I love to watch the winners come unravelled as they thank everyone they’ve ever met. I do have an enduring regard for people like Hugh Laurie who can be witty too – so few of them are, but then who would be?
On the TV side, Extras won Best Comedy and Longford took three awards – best mini-series or film made for TV and best actor and supporting actress in that genre for Jim Broadbent and Samantha Morton.
It was a good night for France too with Marion Cotillard winning for her performance as Piaf in la Vie en Rose and a surprise best director nod for Julian Schnabel for Le scaphandre et le papillon, which also won best foreign language film (and is now the hot contender for the Oscar).
Mad Men won for both best TV drama and best actor – it’s been a critical success and you can see if the wins were justified when BBC4 start showing it in the next few weeks. And you can catch Glenn Close being magnificently scary in Damages on BBC1 every Sunday.
So who won what and what did we predict correctly:
FILM
Best picture (drama) Atonement – we said it had a chance
Best picture (musical) Sweeney Todd – we said it would win
Best actor (drama) Daniel Day-Lewis – we said it was a lock
Best actress (drama) Julie Christie – we said it was a cert
Best actor (musical) Johnny Depp – how could he not
Best actress (musical) Marion Cotillard – Amy Adams got our bid
Best supporting actor Javier Bardem – we didn’t make a guess
Best supporting actress Cate Blanchett – a cert for playing Bob Dylan
Best director Julian Schnabel – I’d have gone with Tim Burton
Best screenplay No Country for Old Men -we didn’t guess
TELEVISION
Best drama Mad Men – didn’t see that coming
Best musical/comedy Extras – we said it had a strong chance
Best mini Longford – a surprise
Best actor (drama) Jon Hamm – would have picked Hugh (Laurie)
Best actress (drama) Glenn Close – a dead cert
Best actor (comedy) David Duchovny – we’d have bet on Alec Baldwin
Best actress (comedy) Tina Fey – a dead cert
Best actor (mini) Jim Broadbent – very likely
Best actress (mini) Queen Latifah – a surprise
Best support actress Samantha Morton – Katherine Heigl expected
