Do you watch a lot of period drama? I don’t, generally, but as it happens I have watched several hours’ worth this weekend, and I have noticed that there is a way people talk in (most) period drama which has nothing to do with the script: a mannered, diffident style which seems to transcend both character and chronology, so that it doesn’t matter if it’s rural Edwardian England (hello, The Woman In Black!) or 1950s London (howdy, Call The Midwife!) or – well, frankly, I have no real idea when Upstairs Downstairs, currently playing at a screen near me, is set, nor where, but everyone is speaking that way.
It wasn’t always like this. Nobody speaks that way in Room With A View, nor even in the 1990s TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It seems to have sprung up since the early 2000s, which leads me to suspect it’s probably mostly Keira Knightley’s fault.
If ever I am the subject of the Guardian Weekend magazine’s Q&A feature and I am asked “When and where were you happiest?”, I think the answer is going to be “in front of my laptop, watching this video”.
(If you are reading this on a phone, come back to it later and watch it on a bigger screen.)
Sorry it’s only a small photo; it is one of only two in existence, and I have used the other one, taken only moments earlier, on my fundraising page for the Race For Life in aid of Cancer Research, which I am running in June. It’s only 5 kilometres and you are allowed to walk, although my evil genius aunt is giving more money depending on how much actual running I do, which means I have to at least try to run it all, which means the photos of the event will be even more embarrassing than this one. But since it’s in a good cause, if even one person sponsors me after reading this post, I hereby promise either to post photos here afterwards, or NOT to post photos here afterwards, depending on that person’s appetite for photos of sweaty people falling over.
I don’t usually make Oscar predictions, because I have only ever seen half the films on the list, and because I am no good at guessing games. But this year there are two good reasons to give it a go. Firstly, a company with whom I am professionally connected is running a competition where you can win £1m if you correctly predict all 24 winners. I can’t enter, but I’d like to record my guesses for posterity, just in case it turns out that I could have won a million.
Secondly, I am going to be live-blogging the Oscars red carpet over at Mostly Film, which will be much more fun if I have favourites to cheer for.
Caveat: I have only seen about half of the films with multiple nominations, and less than half of those nominated in a single category. If you want educated predictions by people who actually know what they’re talking about, you have come to the wrong place. But if you want half-assed guesses from an on-off film fan, I’m your girl!
These are my pre-BAFTA predictions: I may revise them after this evening.
Best picture
Nominees: The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, War Horse.
I think it’s a two-horse race here between The Artist and Hugo. They are both lovely films, but the nailer is that they are both about the history of film-making, and Hollywood loves movies about the movies. On the basis that The Artist is a film about American cinema made by a French director and Hugo is a film about French cinema made by an American director and deep down Americans like Americans best, I’m going to plump for Hugo.
Best director
Nominees: Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), Alexander Payne (The Descendants), Martin Scorsese (Hugo), Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), Terrence Malick (Tree of Life)
I’ve been back and forth on this one. The only person I’m sure won’t get it is Woody, partly because he hates the Oscars and partly because Midnight in Paris, despite being better than anything else he’s made in the last decade, isn’t all that good. It’s quite good, but it’s not that good. Any of Hazanavicius, Payne or Scorsese could take it, but I’m going to go for Malick, because he’s never won before and his average of a film every seven years means he doesn’t have many more stabs at it left.
Best actor
Nominees: Demián Bichir (A Better Life), George Clooney (The Descendants), Jean Dujardin (The Artist), Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Brad Pitt (Moneyball)
Jean Dujardin should win, but I think they’ll give it to George. I have not seen The Descendants, because a film whose trailer includes a shot of three people sitting silently on a sofa is a film for which there is not room in my life. But everyone loves George, and George as the betrayed husband of a possibly-dying wife has Oscar written across it in 48-point Helvetica.
Best actress
Nominees: Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs), Viola Davis (The Help), Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Meryl Streep (Iron Lady), Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)
I haven’t seen Iron Lady either, because there has been enough Margaret Thatcher in my life. But of course they’ll give it to Meryl.
Best supporting actor
Nominees: Kenneth Branagh (My Week with Marilyn), Jonah Hill (Moneyball), Nick Nolte (Warrior), Christopher Plummer (Beginners), Max von Sydow (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
Max von Sydow might just upset this, but on balance I think that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is not the 9/11 film we are looking for, and will go ungarlanded. Christopher Plummer, on the other hand, plays a gay 75-year-old dad dying of cancer in Beginners. I’m pretty sure he has it in the bag.
Best supporting actress
Nominees: Bérénice Bejo (The Artist), Jessica Chastain (The Help), Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids), Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs), Octavia Spencer (The Help)
Apparently Uggie the dog is not eligible for a prize, but Bérénice Bejo is the second-cutest thing about The Artist and I think will reap the benefits of the affection that the film has inspired.
Uggie the dog
Animated feature film
Nominees: A Cat in Paris, Chico & Rita, Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, Rango
Yeah, I haven’t seen any of these. I think Chico and Rita will win, because it has the best poster and is about humans.
Art Direction
Nominees: The Artist, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, War Horse
I haven’t seen War Horse, but in the stills it looks sort of grey and dank. The others are all good-looking in their own ways, and although part of me thinks Hugo might sweep all the visual design categories, I’m going to go for The Artist, because it is visually more unusual than the others.
Cinematography
Nominees: The Artist, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, The Tree of Life, War Horse
If they give the directing prize to Malick, they’ll want to back it up with another one, and this is the most likely candidate. Tree of Life ftw.
Costume Design
Nominees: Anonymous, The Artist, Hugo, Jane Eyre, W.E.
This is another category where I haven’t seen most of the candidates, so I have just gone and looked at some pictures (see how seriously I am taking this?). The costumes in Anonymous and Jane Eyre look exactly like the costumes from every other film covering the same ground. The costumes in W.E. are a bit more interesting, but I’m never sure you should give awards for costume to films about real people on the basis that there are photos. The costumes in Hugo are good but caricaturish, and the costumes in The Artist are perfect, so that’s my bet for this one.
Feature documentary
Nominees: Hell and Back Again, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Pina, Undefeated
<cough> Pina.
Short documentary
Nominees: The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement, God Is the Bigger Elvis, Incident in New Baghdad, Saving Face, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
<splutter> The Barber of Birmingham.
Film Editing
Nominees: The Artist, The Descendants, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Moneyball
I’ll come clean: I don’t really know what this category means. And the nominees are the same as in all the other categories. Might as well close my eyes and take a stab at the screen.
<closes eyes, takes a stab at the screen>
I landed on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Well, why not?
Foreign Language Film
Nominees: Bullhead, Footnote, In Darkness, Monsieur Lazhar, A Separation
I haven’t seen any of these either, although I do have A Separation sitting on my hard drive ready to be watched, so I’ll go for that. I never said this would be scientific, OK?
Makeup
Nominees: Albert Nobbs, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Iron Lady
Harry Potter has to win this one, really, if only for that bit at the end where everyone is old, and they handled the makeup by hardly doing any, and just getting everyone to act old. Watch and learn, J Edgar.
Music (Original Score)
Nominees: The Adventures of Tintin, The Artist, Hugo, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, War Horse
I can never remember the music from films, or at least not until I’ve seen them several times*. What I mean is, I can’t remember the music from any of these films. But if you had to guess without hearing any of the music, you’d go for John Williams’s War Horse, wouldn’t you? It’s probably very sweeping and dramatic and heart-rending.
Nominees: “Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets”, “Real in Rio” from “Rio”
Why wouldn’t they give it to The Muppets? I think they’ll give it to The Muppets.
Short Film (Animated)
Nominees: Dimanche/Sunday, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, La Luna, A Morning Stroll, Wild Life
<blink> La Luna.
Short Film (Live Action)
Nominees: Pentecost, Raju, The Shore, Time Freak, Tuba Atlantic
<falls over> Raju.
Sound Editing
Nominees: Drive, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, War Horse
I don’t understand why The Artist isn’t nominated in either of the sound categories. It does clever and interesting things with sound, that no film has done before and probably no film will do again. But since it isn’t, I am going to take a wild stab at Transformers.
Sound Mixing
Nominees: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Moneyball, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, War Horse
I have no real idea of the difference between this and the last category. Anyone? In the absence of any expert knowledge I shall take the same wild stab at Transformers.
Visual Effects
Nominees: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Hugo , Real Steel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Transformers: Dark of the Moon
I’m not sure whether that opening shot in Hugo comes under Cinematography or Visual Effects. If the latter then I think it will win this, but if the former then I think a decade’s patient work on the Harry Potter franchise should reap its reward here.
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Nominees: The Descendants, Hugo, The Ides of March, Moneyball, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
This is another tricky one! I feel like they might give it to The Descendants, because the Academy like to think it’s a bit quirky (it isn’t).
Writing (Original Screenplay)
Nominees: The Artist, Bridesmaids, Margin Call, Midnight In Paris, A Separation
I can’t call this one either. The obvious choice is The Artist, with an outside chance for Midnight in Paris, but Bridesmaids is a better screenplay than either. But it won’t win, will it? So, The Artist.
Reviewing my choices, I see I have ended up predicting that Hugo will win Best Picture and nothing else, which doesn’t seem very likely. Perhaps it will win costume and cinematography and art direction after all. Or perhaps The Artist will live up to early expectations and sweep the board. I sort of hope so, because it is such a likeable film.
Tonight’s BAFTAs may or may not provide a clue to the eventual outcome, and I expect I will cravenly come back and change my mind tomorrow. But for today, those are my predictions. Now please tell me yours.
I knew there was something wrong with my new year’s resolutions when I wrote them down, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Now I realise that they were all tasks with a fixed outcome, rather than vague promises to behave differently – a to-do list, not a set of resolutions. Which is fine, except that I’ve done them all, so now I need new ones. This time I will try to make them things I can keep up all year, rather than things I can check off and forget about.
1. I will hoover more. We have lived in this flat since June of last year, and I have hoovered twice. The beloved may have hoovered more times than that, but I suspect you could still count the total number of hooverings on one hand. We have dark carpets, but still.
2. I will blog more. It’s free and I enjoy it, and it makes me think, which I am not always inclined to do otherwise.
3. I will go to the cinema more. I had this one a couple of years ago but I didn’t really keep it up. I am thinking of buying a Cineworld membership, which gives you unlimited cinema visits for £17.99 a month. If I didn’t have to pay each time, except for popcorn and Pepsi (I am not really interested in cinema trips which don’t involve popcorn and Pepsi), I would go and see all the films I thought might be good, rather than just the ones which feel like cast-iron certainties. I would go and see every new Woody Allen, rather than every second Woody Allen, and I’d see more animated and 3D films. And that would broaden my tastes and turn me into a more interesting person. All for £18 a month!
I think there was going to be a fourth one, but I got over-excited about the cinema one and forgot it, so three it is.
Update:Ben Barden points out on Twitter that unless I set targets for what “more” means in this context, I am doomed to fail. So I have set targets, but I’m not telling you what they are, in case they sound insane or make you think I’m a slattern.
I have written something about Agatha Christie (I know! I was surprised too!) over at Mostly Film today. Please feel free to pop across and have a look.
Last summer, I was looking for wedding shoes and I found these green, cherry-tipped plastic heels by Vivienne Westwood. They were a hundred and something pounds, and I couldn’t imagine them as wedding shoes, even when I squinted, so I didn’t buy them, but I did put them to the back of my mind as something I might buy one day, when I had more money.
I don’t have more money, but it has just been payday, so I had a look on the internet and discovered, to my distress, that there are NO Vivienne Westwood green cherry-tipped plastic heels left anywhere in the world! Or at least, there’s one pair, but it’s a UK size 4 and I wear a UK size 7 (you know what they say about women with big feet? No, me neither), and I want a pair I can wear, not a pair I can only look at.
(I haven’t even mentioned the best thing about them, which is that they are bubblegum scented, just like Strawberry Shortcake dolls used to be. You honestly couldn’t design a more perfect shoe for me, unless you stuffed the toe with pizza.)
So I am putting a plea out there on the internet, folks, for a pair of them in a size 7. If you find them, please point me at them. I will make you cakes and write lovely things about you in return.
…all right, not to me, but to Glad All Over, which has reached the stately age of four today. My birthday, in case you were wondering, is in August, and I like jewels, boots, detective stories, flowers and kitchen implements. If you can’t wait till August, I believe it’s nearly Valentine’s Day.
Glad All Over sort of started off as a blog about football, but now it’s more or less a blog about nothing, or if you prefer, a blog about everything (except theatre, because I write about that elsewhere, occasionally). I try to write impassioned, well-argued pieces on language and design and travel and food and music, but the posts which get the highest traffic are invariably about baby baboons or a swimming pool I’ve never been to. I’m not sure how I should feel about the fact that, in general, the fewer words a post has, the more views it gets. Perhaps I am more of a visual person.
Sorry, that’s a truly terrible title for this post, but I’m at work so I have to write quickly. I am lucky because my new office has lots of windows, and I honestly think that daylight helps you (or, at least, me) to concentrate, which is why I would always have a desk facing outwards if I could. But in the absence of that, and since the beloved is yet to write the bestselling novel which means neither of us will ever need to work again, the next best thing is probably this sky-mimicking ceiling lighting from (naturally) Germany. It’s €1,000 per square metre at the moment. Donations welcome.
If you don’t like a TV programme, you should probably stop watching after the first episode, rather than keep watching and getting a bit crosser each time. Although, actually, I quite liked the first episode of Sherlock. It was the second, startlingly racist, episode that put me off, but somehow I kept watching, even when the third episode was unsatisfying and then we had to wait a year for number four. I can’t really explain it, except that I kept hoping it would get better.
And it wasn’t awful. There was lots to like about it: the casting is uniformly excellent and everybody does the best they can with the script. It looks good, and it sounds good, and it makes London look better than it does in real life.
But ugh, it’s so pleased with itself! The joy of the Conan Doyle stories comes from how clever Sherlock Holmes is, not how clever Arthur Conan Doyle is. It’s a small, but important, distinction. Sherlock is delighted by itself more than it is by the character, which makes it feel all wrong. I don’t want to be able to hear the programme-maker breathing down the back of my neck when I watch a drama, and watching this show I can feel him looming sweatily over me throughout.
(I’m not talking about anyone in particular here, but he is definitely a “he”. Drama on British TV is currently in the grip of a chummy group of clever-clever, white, middle-class men who are all jolly pleased with themselves and each other for being smarter than normal people. Unfortunately they are all quite good at making TV, damn them, but that doesn’t mean I have to like them.)
The problem the programme has, when it gets very overexcited about being clever, is twofold. Firstly, it loses sight of the beautiful simplicity that sits at the heart of the best Holmes stories. This show has more plot in ten minutes than an entire Conan Doyle novel. Secondly, if you’re going to be self-consciously clever, you’d better make sure that you are, in fact, being clever, and this is where Sherlock falls down for me. Quite apart from the dangling plot points and the baffling improbabilities, which flit by so fast that you can mostly ignore them, the show is terrifically excited about Technology, which somebody somewhere in the bowels of the BBC has clearly decided is going to be used as a Metaphor. The problem is, they haven’t bothered to get anyone with an actual grasp of the technology they’re talking about to act as an advisor on the show, with the result that we, the audience, are expected to be delighted by Feats of Technology which in real life are either ridiculously unimpressive or so improbable and unexplained as to be plain silly. Just as The Archers needs an agricultural story editor, Sherlock could have done with a technology advisor. And somebody should have sacked whoever decided to give Watson a “blog”. I put it in inverted commas because so do they, every time they mention it.
But that’s all nit-picking. What I really object to is the idea that the source material needs to be improved upon, when (a) it doesn’t, and (b) whatever description you might want to give of Sherlock, an improvement on the original is not it. At one point, during the entirely nonsensical denouement of last night’s show, Moriarty (wince-inducingly described in BBC1’s preamble as “Holmes’s ultimate nemesis”, as though you can have grades of nemesis) said to Holmes: “…that’s your weakness, you always want everything to be clever”. And I thought: you got it in one.
(I had a separate rant last night at the TV and the beloved about what they did with Moriarty, but since it included the words “postmodern” and “non-linear” I shan’t repeat it here, or we’ll both go away thinking I’m the most terrible kind of wanker.)
Glad All Over 
