2011 BAFTA Winners

Today's announcement of the 2011 BAFTA winners continued the reign of "The King's Speech" in this final stretch of the awards season. It makes sense, though. A grandly British film received the top awards winning not only Best Film but Outstanding British Film, as well, from the British Film Academy nonetheless.

When "Speech" took Outstanding British Film over the likes of "127 Hours" and "Another Year," I began thinking maybe "The Social Network" could win Best Film because I honestly didn't think "Speech" would take both. But alas, it did.

The surprise came with a Best Director win for David Fincher over Tom Hooper. Does this have any effect on the Oscar outcome, however? As much as I would like to hope so, I think Tom Hooper's DGA win still locks in his Oscar win even though he did not receive the BAFTA win.

"The King's Speech" also dominated the acting awards aside from Natalie Portman in "Black Swan" for Best Actress. Colin Firth's win for Best Actor will go on to an Oscar win, but I'm having a hard time believing Geoffrey Rush for Best Supporting Actor and Helena Bonham Carter for Best Supporting Actress are going to make an upset over the "Fighter" front-runners of Christian Bale and Melissa Leo.

"True Grit" received some love for Best Cinematography, a win I think will be repeated at the Oscars. It's about time Roger Deakins gets an Oscar after his many, many nominations.

The "Harry Potter" films received a nice, worthy honor for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. I mean, with a total of eight films all of rather high quality--that's an accomplishment in itself.

Full list of the 2011 BAFTA winners.

And we're just two weeks away from the 83rd Annual Academy Awards! Until then, everybody.