Eddie Vs Benedict

Is it award season again yet? The Optimist's already getting a bit too excited about next year's Oscar-hopefuls. This past fortnight's seen the release of not one but two inconceivably gorgeous trailers - could one of our favourite Brit-actors be about to win a little gold man?

First up it's The Theory of Everything - a Stephen Hawking biopic from the director of the sensational documentary Man on Wire. Let me start by saying I'm a big fan of Eddie Redmayne - best Marius ever, amiright Les Mis groupies? And with every on set picture I saw from TTOE, I grew more and more impressed by his transformation. The annoying thing is that we've already seen someone transform like this before, one pre-Sherlock Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC's 2004 biopic Hawking. It is, in my eyes, the performance of his career so far, so Eddie was always going to have to do a lot to top it. Both films seem to start at a similar point - some time around Stephen's 21st birthday, when he meets his future wife Jane, begins his PhD and is diagnosed with Motor Neurone disease. It's always difficult to get excited about a story when you're going into it with your mind pre-blown, but happily - the films don't end at the same point. TTOE takes the story much further, spanning twenty years, taking in Hawking's extraordinary career and the progression of his illness. If one thing's clear from the 2 minutes and 44 seconds of this trailer, it's that Eddie Redmayne disappears into his role. The physical performance is incredible - his speech - while he still has it, his facial expressions, the way he sits and moves - uncanny, there must've been a colossal amount of research involved. The makeup and costume departments have obviously done some incredible work too and the rest of the cast, which includes Felicity Jones, Harry Lloyd and David Thewlis are ON IT. It's already generating Oscar Buzz - could it be a new British classic?

We're all going to have to wait until the new year to see The Theory of Everything, so, if there are no objections, I'd like to suggest something - give Hawking a watch in the meantime. Eddie looks set to cause a bit of a stir come award season but it would be a real shame if his performance eclipses Benedict's, which really is as good as any Oscar-nominated turn.

And since we're on the subject of Mr Cumberbatch, you won't mind if I turn my attention to the trailer for his new film The Imitation Game - which follows Alan Turing and his Bletchley Park colleagues as they attempt to crack the Enigma code and bring about the end of WWII. Benedict's physical transformation might not be as all-consuming as Eddie's, but his performance as Turing is just as affecting. He's had plenty of practice playing an asocial genius but while Sherlock's infuriating lack of people skills is often brilliantly played for laughs, his portrayal of Turing is far more subtle, as he balances unapologetic righteousness with painful insecurity. The shot where he breaks down might only be a second and a half long but it's already got me going. The rest of the trailer's thrilling too - the urgency to crack the code and the turmoil in Turing's private life cut together with snapshots of the Blitz so haunting they make your hairs stand on end. The ensemble cast is stellar as well; Mark Strong, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance and Keira Knightley, whose chemistry with Benedict is said to be electric. Produced by the same company that gave us The King's Speech, this film looks like it's made of the same powerful stuff.

So who's winning what? Well, the Academy loves a Biopic and  British films have been doing spiffingly well over the past few years, so these two definitely look like contenders. As for the leading men, there's already a buzz around both performances. The Imitation Game is due out on November 14th with The Theory of Everything following in the new year. Let's bring it home lads!