Betting tips / Will Hamer / 10 February 2010 / Leave a comment Bet Now

Will Hamer labels Avatar a false favourite at the British film awards.

As James Cameron continues to crush box office records around the world with 'Avatanic', there's at least one place where it hasn't quite proved to be so omnipotent.

It seems those in old Limey have not embraced the Na'vi and the cool 3D spectacle that has gripped audiences from China to Cameroon.

It's foolish to suggest Avatar can't win the British Film and Televsion Awards Best Picture because it is, after all, the fourth most successful movie of all time in the UK, but it's worth going back to the BAFTA annals to see how Titanic fared.

In a succinct and appropriate word, it sunk.

Badly.

Of the 10 nominations it received at the 1998 BAFTAs, Titanic won zero.

Granted, it is not nearly as revolutionary as Avatar, but the dialogue was slightly less cheesy and clunky and, for a movie purist, it appealed more.

The two movies' paths are incredibly similar.

Both late on the scene in the awards season.

Both with big budgets and popular appeal.

Both won a precursor, the Golden Globe, for best drama.

Seeing Avatar in the red at the BAFTAs fills me with great delight, but I am struggling to determine if Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker(trading around 4.2) is the movie to beat it.

In my book, The Hurt Locker is the most worthy. However, I fear the local entrant, An Education, could snatch Best Picture. It's a monty for Best British Film and could do something quite rare and take the double , but it's a tough call between it and Bigelow's Iraq war masterpiece.

So, laying Avatar is the way to go.

Again, a reminder, Titanic went zero for ten.