TMW #28: BAFTAs reaction, novelisation nostalgia, Captain America spoilers, and Harry Potter TV

Plus, a first look at Nolan's latest, and a terrifying-toys quiz

Hello Wing-fans,

How was your weekend? Did you fly to the cinema to see Captain America: Brave New World? Did you stay in for the BAFTAs? We’ve got both those topics covered today, with a Cap spoiler special and a few thoughts (and grumbles) about Britain’s biggest film awards. Plus we’re looking back on movie novelisations and looking forward to the Harry Potter TV redo and those latest casting rumours. There’s also a first look at Christopher Nolan’s next film, and finally we have our regular quiz, tackling terrifying toys in honour of this week’s release of The Monkey.

If you’re liking what you read, we’re always up for a share, a restack and, well, a like. And if you’re a paid subscriber, why not spare a few words for our comments section? You’ll make its day.

See you on Friday for our reviews of the week’s biggest releases, including The Monkey and awards contender I’m Still Here.

Matthew (Matt and Jordan)

Seven takeaways from the BAFTAs

The Wingman team reacts to the UK’s biggest movie awards

bafta

A post shared by @bafta

The leading actress race is far from over

Early on in this awards season, Demi Moore looked like the one to beat for the Best Actress Oscar for her comeback role in The Substance. It was a fully committed turn that had a timely, resonant ‘narrative’ that looked set to seal the deal. But the recent guild award successes have boosted Anora’s overall chances, and Mikey Madison’s Best Actress win at the BAFTAs have now made it clear we’re looking at a photo finish between Moore and Madison for the Oscar. (MM)

The hosting job is a thankless task for an actor

David Tennant returned for his second year of hosting on the trot, and you have to wonder what he sees in it. His opening monologue was fine - the Proclaimers karaoke at least got the energy up, but the jokes largely fell flat. It makes more sense to hire a presenter and/or comedian who isn’t likely to be working with the target of their gags any time soon. Although, if you want to risk it with another actor in future, Anna Kendrick seems like the person to take the chance on - of all the presenters, she was the one who absolutely nailed it with exquisite comic timing. Plus, we know she can sing… (MM)

Giving (actual) props

For me, one of the biggest disappointments of the BAFTAs, and awards season in general, is that more people haven’t followed the lead of the Wallace & Gromit gang and brought stuff from their movies to the podium. It’s an endearing, quirky gesture and it creates comic opportunities: “Gromit’s speechless!” quipped Nick Park, cradling the claymation canine at the London Critics’ Circle Awards. Yes, it would be tricky for Mikey Madison to stash a dancing pole under her seat, never mind lug it up to the stage; and yes, there would be health and safety issues if the Conclave team popped off a smoke grenade every time they won (white) or lost (black) something. But what a great diversionary tactic it would be for winners who’ve misplaced their speeches, or who can’t be arsed to big up their (self-evidently inferior) fellow nominees. (ML)

We don’t need a montage

It’s a familiar lament, but it always disheartens to see a number of awards squeezed into those ‘Awards Presented Earlier’ montages. This year there were no fewer than 12 categories given short shrift, from Cinematography (The Brutalist) to Sound (Dune: Part Two) to British Short Film (Rock, Paper, Scissors). Don’t these winners deserve their full due as much as the starrier talent? Without its achievements in Hair & Makeup, half of The Substance would’ve had to have been replaced by storyboards; the Costumes in Wicked are crucial to character development, not just there to stop the actors catching a chill. And what about Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story’s truncated victory? A great movie about a great movie star - yeah, why would a film-awards-watching audience care about that? (ML)

Jesse Eisenberg was the speech MVP

Appearing on stage thrice in a little over 15 minutes (did BAFTA organisers not expect that Original Screenplay win?), Jesse Eisenberg brought endearing neuroticism and genuine warmth to this year’s crop of unremarkable acceptance speeches and pre-awards ‘bits’. Eisenberg’s first speech, for his Original Screenplay win, was a sincere dedication to his wife Anna Strout who, amusingly, didn’t even attend. His second appearance, alongside A Real Pain co-star Will Sharpe, to introduce Best Animated Feature resulted in a rare comedy bit that landed as the pair riffed on the idea that the film was shot in stop-motion. And the third – accepting Best Supporting Actor for an MIA Kieran Culkin – was the sweetest moment of the night, humanising the sardonic star of Succession in a way that made his absence a boon. That’s how you do it. (JF)

The new Children’s & Family Film Award needs a rethink

Handed out for the first time this year, there’s an inherent flaw in the new Children’s & Family Film award. The problem is that most kids’ films made today are animated, so chances are – like this year – there’ll be substantial overlap with the Animated Film category. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, The Wild Robot and Flow were nominated in both categories, with Kensuke’s Kingdom (nommed for Children’s & Family Film) and Inside Out 2 (nommed for Animated) the only puzzling points of difference. Further compounding the category’s futility was the fact that Wallace & Gromit walked away with both awards, taking even Nick Park by surprise. If the likes of Paddington in Peru, Sonic 3 and IF are being overlooked in the Children’s & Family Film category, why not keep it simple and stick to a sole animated award? (JF)

BAFTA loves Edward Berger

The headline of the night was that BAFTA really is very keen on German-born director Edward Berger, whose adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front dominated two years ago, with seven wins (including Picture and Director) from 14 noms. This year, papal thriller Conclave was similarly feted, with 12 noms and four wins, including the biggie of the night, Best Film. It’s a great result for a smart adult thriller, but don’t presume it’ll be a bellwether for the Oscars - AQOTWF didn’t convert its nominations so effectively with the US Academy in 2023. It claimed Best International Picture, but otherwise ‘only’ picked up below-the-line awards. (MM)

Going by the book

Matthew reopens the chapter in his life spent reading novelisations…

The iceberg-tip of Matthew’s novelisation collection

A recent cupboard-clearout of my childhood home reminded me that a) I was the tat-collector king of my family; and b) that my love of movies had its roots in reading.

First there were my older brother’s Star Wars Weekly comics, whose covers I used to enthusiastically tear off, thinking they were like wrapping paper (oddly, he never thanked me for this courtesy). Then there were the novelisations, those ‘derivative novels’ (don’t be so judgey, Wikipedia) tied into a movie’s release - or rather pre-release, given the months it would often take films to cross the Atlantic and reach UK cinemas (provincial ones, at least). Hence, after a book-buying stop-off at a motorway service station in 1983, I was able to inform my brother that Luke and Leia were siblings and that Darth Vader died, but not before turning good (again, not one word of thanks).

Discovering the big twists early, in a hurtling Ford Cortina rather than the Woodford ABC, was one thing; but an even bigger deal were the ‘8 Pages of Fabulous Colour’ (16 if you were lucky). Pre-internet, those inserts (every novelisation worth its salt had them) were like the YouTube/TikTok/Insta-clips of their day. If there was also a picture-stuffed storybook tie-in it was like downloading the entire movie. Comic-book adaptations, with their sometimes stab-in-the-dark interpretations of scenes and variable character work (I recall one take on Indy looking more like Ken Barlow than Harrison Ford) were also like downloading the movie, but a blurry camcorder version.

Still, I devoured those adaptations; how would I ever have discovered the wonders of Krull if it hadn’t been serialised in Return of the Jedi Weekly? I also dived into the spin-off novels, like Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (the break-glass blueprint for a cheapo Star Wars sequel) and E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet, another sequel-that-never-was that traumatised me almost as much as the Spielberg movie: a growing-up-fast Elliott going to discos and - horror of horrors - having a snog. I wanted to scream like Gertie.

But it wasn’t long before I began to appreciate the ‘adult’ joys of novelisations. Still a few years shy of being able to legally watch unfairly high-certificated films that were just like Star Wars and Superman but with 1,000 per cent more graphic injury detail (hello, RoboCop), I read the books instead. (Seemed more sensible than trying the Beano ploy of sneaking up to the box office on a mate’s shoulders under a giant’s raincoat.)

Oh, the joys of paragraph-long descriptions of the Predator’s skinned-alive victims, or the vocabulary-expanding dialogue of the Lethal Weapon novelisation. The phrase ‘hotter than fresh shit’ has never left me. Eventually, I got round to Blade Runner - or rather the original Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, with a movie tie-in cover - which sent me down a Philip K. Dick rabbit hole, spending more of my pocket money there than on those screenplay-sourced paperbacks that I used to endlessly re-read until the sequel came out.

Novelisations are much less of a ‘thing’ these days - who needs ‘em, when in so many cases you can watch the film at home while it’s still in cinemas? But having recently embarked on Gregory Maguire’s Wicked cycle - the first book being the pre-novelisation, as it were, of the hit stage/screen adaptations - I’ve rediscovered the old buzz; the feeling that I like reading movies as much as watching them. Now where’s that copy of Over the Top, with its eminently rippable gatefold cover? (Matthew Leyland)