I know what you're thinking -- The King's Speech won seven freaking awards. It's unstoppable, it's going to bowl Oscar, we should just figure it'll win seven or eight and The Social Network and The Fighter should give up.
No way.
This race just took a dramatic turn, and things are more heated than ever. David Fincher's Best Director win at BAFTA suddenly opens up the possibility that a Picture/Director split may not be so foolish to bet on. Granted, the BAFTAs are kind of notorious for split years -- 2007 (Atonement wins Pic, Coens win Director), 2006 (Queen wins Pic, Paul Greengrass wins Director), 2004 (The Aviator wins Pic, Mike Leigh wins Director), 2003 (Lord of the Rings wins Pic, Peter Weir wins Director) -- even though they did pick Roman Polanski's win for Best Director (and gave The Pianist Best Film) in 2002. I feel very, very strongly now that David Fincher could pull off his win, because they obviously loved The King's Speech, and yet they didn't award Tom Hooper.
To put in perspective how much they loved it: No movie has ever won Best Film AND Best British Film (an award usually given to smaller films).
So in a way, its wins are a little deceiving: Best Film and Best British Film is like double-dipping, so let's just dismiss British Film because it can't win that at the Oscars (naturally). Geoffrey Rush won Best Supporting Actor, but BAFTA has a history of going in different directions than Oscar in that category (five of the last 10 years they've matched -- they did famously pick Alan Arkin, who went on to win the Oscar despite Eddie Murphy winning all the major precursors). Helena Bonham Carter won Best Supporting Actress, but Melissa Leo wasn't nominated. Indeed, BAFTA didn't really seem to care about The Fighter -- no Picture or Director nominations -- as much as AMPAS. I can see one of the supporting players from King's Speech winning on Oscar night, but to think they'll both win is a little much for me.
Here's what blows my mind, though: The only technical category King's Speech won was Best Original Score (and The Social Network was not nominated). It lost editing, production design, costume design, and cinematography. I wasn't thinking it would win all four of those, but shouldn't it have won one? I would be shocked if Desplat wins the Oscar, meaning I still only see Speech walking away with Picture, Actor and Screenplay as sure things. The Fincher win puts a whole new spin on this race, I think the supporting acting wins are highly unlikely to reoccur, and as far as tech awards -- if the Brits favored Inception and Alice in Wonderland, why wouldn't the Americans?
The British Academy could have put a nail in the coffin, but I think this win for The King's Speech actually destabilizes it, and the Oscar race could suddenly find Social Network and Inception picking up quite a few awards. If you subtract Best British Film, Best Score (which I firmly believe it simply cannot win) and one of the supporting wins, you're left with four solid wins. I know that's very silly logic, but it has a ring of truth.
It's about to get crazy.
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