EE British Academy Film Awards (2020 TV Special) User Reviews

Too much Graham Norton, and '1917' isn't THAT good.

[0w0 · 2/10 · 5 February 2020]

Graham Norton was thoroughly unfunny in his opening monologue. Norton hosted the BATAs twice before, but never the BAFTAs, so they HAD to have the ratings from those two times that he was a host on-hand to see how much he sucked, so why did they use him as a host again? It baffles me...

Anyway, asside from the unfunny and obnoxious host, the scripts on the teleprompter are also horrible! A few times, the 'jokes' that they feed the actors to say just absolutely bombed, and the whole crowd just gave that awkward muffled giggle that crowds do... Honestly, whoever wrote those scripts should be fired.

I also don't care for the mid-show singing at all. The focus and spotlight is supposed to be on the actors and their performances in the films that they're receiving an award for.... NOT for a random person singing a random song while everybody sits there looking at them... So just please stop making people sing during award shows.

Also, I feel that the movie "1917" got too many awards... that might sound strange, but it's true... at all of the other awards shows, "1917" wasn't as highly lauded as it was at BAFTA, so either the BAFTA voting judges were biased, or ALL the other awards shows are wrong... I'll let you decide which one of those two scenarios are more likely... And such biasness taints all the future BAFTA events imo.

Overall, the entire BAFTA 2020 cerimony was unfunny, had too many unnecessary 'intermissions' (like singing acts) and they cut the 'Best Animation' catagory, which honestly is a very important catagory and they should just have made the show longer, instead of just cutting it. You can cut the ads and stupid singing acts, but DON'T cut catagories like 'Animation' or 'Original Score'. 2/10.

Sub-par sadly

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 4 February 2020]

Here we have the 2020 edition of the "EE British Academy Film Awards", the final big awards ceremony before the Oscars and this aired last weekend. It ran for over 2 hours (not counting commercials) and the show was hosted this time be Graham Norton. So it seems we are getting new hosts more frequently now after this was Stephen Fry's terrain for a long time. The recent female host seems out again. Also I do hope we won't get Norton again next year as I was not too fond of his presentation at all. In his better moments, he recycled Ricky Gervais' jokes from the Golden Globes, while in the worse moments he was simply unwatchable. And I am not even talking about his outfit. That one I couldn't care less about. So it felt pretty wrong when later on during the ceremony, he called the actors nominated for the Rising Star Award "annoying". Quite the irony. At least it was maybe true to some extent because this year's nominees in that typically BAFTA category felt vastly inferior compared to previous editions. Speaking of "typically BAFTA", there was of course the usual big ceremony at the end again with Prince William announcing the new Fellowship member. I never really care too much about that I must admit. I was surprised though about the selection this time (but come on, you must be able to get better presenters than the Star Wars kids, even if she worked on these films.. how about Spielberg?), not because she would be undeserving, but because she is neither a really big name nor British. But then again, these awards are becoming more and more American anyway. The best example is actress Gillian Anderson, who seems to be around every year at this awards show for whatever reason, but nowhere else really. Sure, a British film won Best Picture this year (in contrast to American films from previous editions), but this was also of course because, most likely, it is the one that will also win the Oscar for Best Picture 5 days from now.

So I said this is the final precursor. Basically all 4 acting winners were set in stone before that already and of course all 4 of them won here too ith Zellweger having a nice Bridget Jones reunion moment with Hugh Grant. It's been a while really since there had been absolutely zero suspense which quartet would triumph at the Academy Awards. Other categories are fairly open still though and this includes both screenplay categories. Tarantino has a really good shot, but he is far from safe and as for the other, Jojo Rabbit is really closing in on Little Women. Best Picture and especially Director all seems to be going for Mendes and 1917, but we shall see. At least for Best Picture, Tarantino and the Korean movie have a shot. But now back to this event: As for the announcers, they were fine overall. Another example how they were really going with everybody, not just Brits. The one who perhaps got the most applause as Rebel Wilson. She has good comedic timing and delivery, probably also could host such a ceremony accurately, but as for an actress I don't think she has the greatest range. Maybe they liked her because she was the only one being slightly edgy with her words (man how long was she on really?) making a slight reference to the Harry drama and the Corona virus even that people loved (the pun, not the virus) before sadly she stepped really low as always again talking about her genitalia. Still, even if they liked her, I am baffled by how she was selected to preset Best Director. And don't tell me the reason is why she was in Jojo Rabbit. She almost had no impact there except the occasional funny line. Okay, another major criticism (in addition to the host) I have here was really the fact that half the categories were announced with the closing credits and you just cannot refuse a man like Roger Deakins being shown fully and properly. But it was as disrespectful towards all other winners too, not just him. I mean come on, they did not even show Best Animated Feature? You must be kidding. If you make a show that run for probably 3 hours with commercials, then first thing you make sure is get all the categories in. But I think this has been a common problem for years with the BAFTAs. They really have to work on that. Another minor thing I was not too fond of was Joaquin Phoenix's speech. I generally prefer them leaving politics out of that, so I liked his other speeches more during this awards season, especially the one he made about Leonardo DiCaprio stealing all the roles. That one was priceless really and even if I don't think leo should be nominated this year, this moment alone justified the nomination. A for Phoenix, I would be happier with him winning for "Walk the Line", one of my favorite films of all time, but I also take the win for "Joker" this year. As for the music, I was not too big on the choices they made either. The song inclusion seemed random, but the usual Cirque du Soleil performance was nice this year, probably also because of my personal taste and how much I like The Wizard of Oz. I guess ths would be all then. Also fairly impressive how "The Irishman" is really not winning anything after being a big contender before awards season really started. I give the 2020 BAFTAs a thumbs-down. Inferior to previous years. Don't watch and I hope it will be better again in 2021. And of course that the 2020 Oscars will be better, but I am positive this is going to be the case.