Golden Globe nominees revealed

Award statues from the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards.

The nominees of the 2012 Golden Globe Awards were revealed today. With several nominations in their names, The Artist, The Descendants and The Help are all strengthening their spots as the front-runners of this year's awards season.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the contestants of The 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards this afternoon in Los Angeles. This year there are 67 film and TV titles competing in 25 categories.

King's Speech reigns at BAFTA

This year's BAFTA Awards were held tonight at the Royal Opera House in London. As could have been anticipated from the film's earlier successes, the British production The King's Speech swept the Awards by winning in seven categories. (The film was nominated in 14.) The royal film grabbed the award for both the Best Film and (obviously) the Best British Film.

Best Leading Actor this year according to the British Academy of Film and Television Arts was Colin Firth in his role as King George VI in The King's Speech. This was Firth's second consecutive win at the Awards since he won the same prize last year for Tom Ford's A Single Man. Last time an actor won in the same category two years in a row was when Rob Steiger won for his roles in The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, 1964) and In The Heat Of The Night (Norman Jewison, 1967) in 1967 and 1968.

Woody Allen opens in Cannes

Wilson and Cotillard on set of Midnight in Paris

Hollywood legend Woody Allen's newest film Midnight in Paris will open the 64th Cannes Film Festival on May 11. Acting as the president of the Jury at the festival this year is Robert DeNiro.

Midnight in Paris is the 41st feature film Allen has directed over his career. The film is a romantic comedy that centres around a family travelling to Paris. Rachel McAdams, Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard lead an international cast that also includes Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody and Michael Sheen.

Read the official press release here.

SAG Award Winners

The 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were held last night in Los Angeles. The SAG is the only organisation in which the winners of its awards are voted only by actors themselves - leaving out all the other peer groups such as directors, screenwriters and producers who all have their own awards to deal out.

Among this year's winners there are no surprises in the feature film categories. The award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture went to The Weinstein Company's factual drama The King's Speech. The film also received the award for best actor in a leading role as Colin Firth won for his performance as King George VI. Firth has now won three major awards for his role (Golden Globe, Critics Choice Award and SAG Award) and he is still nominated in the Academy and BAFTA Awards.

Just out: Henry Cavill to play Superman

Henry Cavill in The Tudors

Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have announced that British actor Henry Cavill will play Clark Kent in the studios' new Superman reboot. Cavill is best known for his role as Charles Brandon in the TV series The Tudors. He can next be seen on the big screen later this year with Mickey Rourke in Relativity Media's fantasy action film Immortals.

Superman: Man of Steel will be helmed by Zack Snyder who directed the film adaptation of Watchmen (2009). The reboot is produced by Christopher Nolan who has already successfully rebooted the Batman franchise and is now working on the last instalment in his Gotham trilogy.

The release of the new Superman film is currently planned for December 2012.

Source: Deadline.com

Tom Hooper gets DGA grand prize for The King's Speech

Tom Hooper (centre) directing Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth on set of The King's Speech

Tom Hooper received his first big price last night for his new sensational film The King's Speech. The English director won the most anticipated award at the 63rd Annual Directors Guild of America Awards for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film.

This victory makes Hooper the front-runner to win the Oscar for Best Director at the end of February. In the history of the Academy Awards, the winners of the DGA Award and the Oscar for Best Director have been different only six times. Last time this happened in 2003 when Rob Marshall won the DGA Award for Chicago but lost the Oscar to Roman Polanski for The Pianist.