The King's Speech takes home seven golden masks but Inception nets its fair share of technical prizes...
There might have been a few lowpoints in last night's two hour ceremony - including Kevin Spacey's bizarre Bill Clinton impression when introducing the nominees for Outstanding British Debut (winner Chris Morris for Four Lions) - but on the whole the evening ran to script with all the favourites (Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, David Seidler, Aaron Sorkin) taking home the awards they were expected to, although there were a couple of upsets with Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush each beating out stiff competition in the supporting actor categories to help The King's Speech to a total haul of seven awards - including Best Film and Best British Film.
The King's Speech director Tom Hooper lost out in his category to a deserving David Fincher whose drama The Social Network also took home awards for Best Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay. Meanwhile summer blockbuster Inception scooped up a handful of technical awards (Visual Effects, Sound and Production Design) and even critical flop Alice in Wonderland surprised the public by taking a couple (for Makeup and Costume Design). Elsewhere True Grit cinematographer (and third Coen brother) Roger Deakins' third BAFTA win will hopefully be just a prelude to his first Oscar win at the end of the month.
Finally, Tom Hardy - who stole every scene he appeared in in Inception - won the Orange Rising Star award, which is probably a good bet seeing as he's just recently been named to play Bane in the upcoming third instalment of the phenomenally successful Christopher Nolan Batman series.
In total the night was without the embarassment or controversy of the recent Golden Globe awards and managed to deftly skirt the self-satisfied pomposity of Oscar night - whether it points the way to a repeat clean sweep for The King's Speech on Febraury 27th remains to be seen.
All the winners
Source: Screenrush
