The ITV National Movie Awards 2008

It’s little secret that we weren’t hugely impressed when ITV decided that it needed to represent the views of the people of Britain with what it called the National Movie Awards last year. We, er, kind of let rip a bit here, but stand by the fact that any awards show that can give Best Actor and Best Actress gongs to the stars of Harry Potter has some problems (and that’s, honestly, nothing against the perfectly fine young stars of Harry Potter). We’re sure the whole event wasn’t motivated in any way by ITV’s schedules having a gap for yet another awards show in them. Oh no.

Anyway, last night ITV repeated the exercise again, and once more the people of Britain (or at least those who had any inclination to head off to the relevant website) chose their favourites. And it has to be said that they did so with more wisdom than they did last year. The winners – and don’t read these if you don’t want to have the transmission of said awards spoiled for you – run thus:Best SuperheroTHE DARK KNIGHT

Best MusicalMAMMA MIA!

Best Action/AdventureINDIANA JONES & THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Best ComedyJUNO

Best FamilyWALL-E

Best Male PerformanceJOHNNY DEPP (Sweeney Todd)

Best Female PerformanceMERYL STREEP (Mamma Mia)

The ceremony, however, wasn’t particularly well attended by the nominees for the respective films, with only Meryl Streep being around in person to collect her gong. Even then, she snuck in the back door rather than walking down the red carpet.

Next year, we predict that the winners will be Harry Potter for whatever they call Best Film next year, Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe for Best Actor and Harry Potter’s Emma Watson for Best Actress. Hell, if there was even the hint of some singing or superhero action going on in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, we’d wager it’d win for those too. Ho hum.