Just every once in a while! Rather than playing cartoonish Indians from old Western serials. Also today: Clint Eastwood continues to cast his J. Edgar Hoover movie, a terrible show gets renewed, and old people get a second chance.

It seems Kathryn Bigelow is the odds-on favorite going into the Academy Awards, as The Hurt Locker won six BAFTA trophies tonight, including Best Film and Best Director. Inside, video of Bigelow's acceptance speeches and a full winner's list.

It looked innocent enough, but now we hear that the loving, open-handed greeting Sharon Stone bestowed Sunday night on BAFTA-nominated Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel had "cougar attack" written all over it.

Mickey Rourke put some Oscar-race distance between himself and Sean Penn last night, winning the British Academy Awards' Best Actor prize before ceremonially washing it down backstage with a bottle of Champagne.

As the last awards stopover for two weeks before the Oscars, the Orange British Academy Film Awards could have made things fun by rejecting Slumdog Millionaire just for the hell of it. Oh well.

As we navigate the jaded doldrums of mid-awards season, let's pause a moment to give the BAFTAs some credit for spiking its 2008 awards nominations with some counterintuitive, even self-loathing surprise.

· Like Mr. Tumnus having his way with Keira Knightly in a darkened family library, the BAFTAs make sweet, desperate love to Atonement, lavishing 14 nominations on the film; runners-up No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood (nine nods each), like adolescents wandering in on the lovers in mid-thrust, stare with a mix of jealousy and immature incomprehension at the act of carnality unfolding in front of them. (We now end this incredibly labored run of Atonement analogies.) [Variety]
· Breakout Juno star Ellen Page entrusts her red-hot career to first-time director Drew Barrymore, with Page taking a role as a roller-derby-playing "alterna-teen" (no need to stretch too far coming off a hit) in Whip It!
[Variety]

· Unknown actress Gemma Arterton has been anointed as the newest Bond girl, with her agent confirming her "nice-sized role" in Bond 22, though it's still unclear whether her part will fall into the "superspy sexual conquest" or "extremely attractive, but sexually unavailable, Mi6 functionary" categories of 007-supporting females [THR]
· Members of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts are (preliminarily, at least) head-over-heels in blighty* love for Atonement, listing the Joe Wright adaptation 17 times in their awards longlist (a mere 15 options per category!) for the BAFTAS, an announcement that mostly serves to let the public know which movies have been pre-snubbed for their eventual nominations. [*We only put that in for the benefit of our readers who are driven insane by Varspeak.] [Variety]