Though my first column tracking the Oscar race was written in such a breathless frenzy-- so many critical awards! So little consensus!-- things are calming down, believe it or not. The crazy week last week was capped off by the Golden Globe nominations, which, depending on who you ask, are either a telling preview of the Oscar nominees or a meaningless dog and pony show intended only to get celebrities at the tables and drinking the free booze. Personally I’d like to think it can be both, but maybe that’s just because I like watching the awards show to see who’s going to get drunk this year, or who Jack Nicholson is going to ogle.
Problem being that this year, Jack Nicholson (The Bucket List) isn’t nominated. Neither are perennial Globe favorites Nicole Kidman (The Golden Compass or Margot at the Wedding) or Russell Crowe (American Gangster or 3:10 to Yuma). Plus there’s Brad Pitt, who hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention for his work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; he’s not on the lists anywhere, but Angelina is (for A Mighty Heart), so they’ll probably cram him into the auditorium anyway. This bunch was the biggest notable snubs of the nominees, which for the large part were in line with either what the critics have been thinking or what we have come to expect from the Globes.
Of course, they managed to meet our expectations because they nominated a ridiculous amount of movies and people. Seven movies are up for Best Drama-- seven!-- which, if you’re counting, is two more than usual. Plus there’s the whole Comedy/Musical category, which adds another five movies into the mix, and their crazy rules for Best Foreign Language movie, which this year includes two films that are only eligible in the big Best Picture race at the Oscars. That brings the number of movies that might compete for the Oscar to 15! My Dad, who has seen no movie but Enchanted this year, could probably have picked that many movies to nominate. Narrow down, people!
The Globes are all about populism and the joys of many and not just critics, so their picks represent a few movies that didn’t get the critical love but still shout “Oscar!” By this I mostly mean Atonement, which led the pack with seven nominations, including Picture (but then, what hasn’t been nominated for Best Picture at the Globes? I hear Good Luck Chuck had an outside shot). Charlie Wilson’s War, which was getting mediocre early reviews, got a whopping five nominations, including a supporting actress nod for Julia Roberts doing the worst Southern accent in the history of movies. American Gangster, too, got some much-needed Best Picture love, and a Best Actor nod for Denzel Washington. Speaking of Denzel, the weirdest presence among the seven Best Drama contenders is his The Great Debaters, an uplifting drama about a college debate team that contains every single cliché we’ve come to expect from triumph-of-the-human-spirit movies (but, to be fair, is actually pretty good). Debaters came absolutely out of nowhere and probably won’t go much of anywhere from here, but it might be to blame for the seven nominees business, so boo! Stop messing with my Oscar predicting, Denzel!
The full list of nominees is here at the great Awards Daily, for your perusal. The Globe nominations came out in a week that saw a huge number of top ten lists, from the AFI to the usually reliable Oscar predictor Peter Travers. As I said in my article on the AFI, a consensus seems to be emerging: No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood (both of which did fairly well at the Globes) are must-haves, Into the Wild and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead still have their devotees, and Knocked Up, Juno and Ratatouille are this year’s “comedies that could.” Honestly at this point I’m ready for some critics to pick something bizarre, like Meet the Robinsons or Transformers. At least that would give us something to talk about. For me it’s now all about who will win the Broadcast Film Critics Awards on January 7, and then the Globes, and then-- at last-- the Oscar nominations.
Next week there will be more top ten lists to parse over, as well as probably some obscure awards that I won’t see coming. Fair warning, though: nothing as big as the Globe nominations will happen again for a while, so hold your horses. Go spend the holidays with loved ones or decorate a tree or something.
