Filmstalker: BAFTA's rival awards ceremony

The other major TV channel in the UK, ITV, is set to start their own awards ceremony hoping to rival the BAFTA's which are run by the BBC.

The BBC have run the BAFTA's for sixty years now, and it's a surprise that it has taken this long for a rival to be considered. This awards ceremony will have a difference though, it will be voted by the audience.

The National Movie Awards will run in September for two hours at the Royal Festival Hall. Voting forms will be available at cinemas all across the UK, as well as magazines and online, allowing you to determine the winners of the awards.

Warner Brothers and Fox are backing the awards and promising that many of their stars will appear, and it's timely too as many big blockbusters will be arriving at, or running through, the cinemas at the time of the ceremony.

It certainly sounds like they are hitting it off on the right foot from the story at Times Online. With studio backing, stars to appear, and major blockbusters to be hyped, they're all set for something special.

I think this is a superb idea, not the fight against the BAFTA's but the opening up of the awards to the audience, the people who are actually watching them. It's about time this happened, even if it would be only for a few titles I would be happy. Imagine the Oscars with the audience awards section.

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Me thinks it's a good idea too!

Posted by: Simone | March 26, 2007 9:42 PM

Oh Lord - how many ridiculous awards ceremonies do we need?! Aren't there too many already? And one voted for by the public just means that we'll see all the crap that sits at the top of the box office each week "rewarded" for its popularity with Josephine, aged 13 who only goes to the movies when her hero Orlando Bloom is in a film getting equal votes with anybody who goes to the cinema on a regular, weekly basis.

No doubt we'll be seeing the likes of "Hot Fuzz" and "Pirates of the Carribean 3" grabbing all the awards - films that really need their profile raising for more people to go and see them (not!)

The only good thing about the awards is that at least they're six months after the oscars and BAFTAs so that we might see something other than identikit "me too" award nominations.

Posted by: Ian Smith | March 26, 2007 10:06 PM

Hey Ian, what's wrong with Hot Fuzz?

Being a bit hoity-toity are we?

Posted by: Simone | March 26, 2007 11:56 PM

Possibly. I just felt it was two hours of my life that I could have happily done something much better with!

A couple of Carry On reject jokes and endless "homages" to other films doesn't a good film make. With the talent and finances at hand the film should have been SO much better - MUCH shorter and MUCH less repetitive. And something sold as a great "comedy" should have produced more than a couple of laughs (both of which were from rather tired innuendo gags).

I know it's British and it's got that good egg Simon Pegg in it and all, but really SOMEONE has to point out that the emporer really isn't wearing any clothes. Just because "Sean of the Dead" was a hit the boys, if I can quote Cosmo Landesman in the Sunday Times, "have been given the keys to the cinematic sweet shop" and unfortunately over-indulged themselves.

Anyway, my point was that the films the public will vote for are the few (2 - 3 a year, tops?) they actually bother to go and see (The Da Vinci Code would no doubt have won last year!). With "Hot Fuzz" the marketing blitz was such that it was impossible to escape it on radio, TV or the print media. "Hot Fuzz" doesn't need any help - it outgrossed the entire cinematic run of "Sean of the Dead" in just two days based on all the hype. Awards ceremonies like this will only "help" those films least deserving of more support so that the "Pirates of the Carribean 2", "Hot Fuzz" and "Da Vinci Code" films "benefit" from an award ceremony that just tells us what we already knew from the box office figures.

Posted by: Ian Smith | March 29, 2007 11:45 AM