BAFTA Preview and Predictions

This Sunday, the British Academy will have their say as to what will win. Predicting the BAFTAS is always a tricky thing to do because they genuinely can be unpredictable. Making them even more unpredictable is that their voting practices have changed so many times over the years that it’s hard to find any sort of patterns. For instance, they pushed their date to be before the Oscars only in 2000. In 2012 they swapped their nomination procedure to being more like the Oscars, wherein the various branches chooses the nominees and the whole body votes for the winners. Before that they did it in the opposite fashion.

So, to a degree, they should be easy to predict, right? The consensus is, so far, the consensus. In 2012, they went for Argo and last year they went for the agreed upon split between Alfonso Cuaron for Director and 12 Years for Picture. Since our own Academy has an ongoing love affair with all things British, they keep nominating British people, thus the Oscars are full of British voters, which makes the BAFTAs fairly reliable in terms of picking potential upsets.

This site has their predictions up and they’re going for:

Boyhood/Linklater
Imitation Game for Adapted Screenplay
Grand Budapest for Original
Rosamund Pike for Best Actress
Eddie Redmayne for Best Actor
JK Simmons and Patricia Arquette for supporting

The only real surprise there is that there is no Birdman in any of the major categories. I’m not sure that’s how it will go but if it does, you can probably scratch Birdman off your list for Best Picture win at the Oscars.

I am not so sure it will go that way. I think it could split but I just don’t know which way it will split. I just don’t know how popular Birdman is at the BAFTAs. I do know it also does not have an editing nomination there. Grand Budapest Hotel seems to be their favorite movie as it’s represented in nearly every category.

That makes me wonder if Wes Anderson might not pick up the top prize there. Since Budapest beat Birdman at the Globes that is also a peculiar development in the race. Birdman is popular with the actors, for sure, and they make up the Academy’s largest branch. Birdman also beat the other films at the PGA, but they use a preferential ballot and BAFTA does not.

Budapest is going to take votes away from some movie – I just don’t know which.

The only lament I have and hope that it will come true is that the BAFTA will not follow the usual pattern of awards season by not awarding Gillian Flynn for Gone Girl just because it lacks an Oscar nod. The entire awards race should not always bow down to the Motion Picture Academy. I do not think that puts thousands of minds to good use. I hope they resist the urge to fold under the limited consensus.

I will be sitting this one out because I really have no skill when it comes to predicting the BAFTAs. I never have, in fact. Hardly anyone ever gets them right.

But here is your chance to be a shot if YOU know how they will go.

[please check back in a bit – we’re upgrading the software – apologies!]