The Golden Globe Awards: Killers Of Dreams
Oh happy day, awards season has really started! The Golden Globe awards nominations have been announced, sending some hopes soaring and others to dash themselves on the rocks and die a quick death.
Australia, W., and Josh Brolin were all met this morning with unfortunate news, their big dreams for the Oscar prom are now, if not completely gone, badly hobbled. After the jump we'll take a look, major category by major category, at what damage this 83-member little foreigners club has done to dear, sweet Hollywood.
Best Feature, Drama
Gus Van Sant's gay biopic Milk was a surprising non-inclusion here. Everything else that was nominated was well-reviewed (except for The Reader, which needed to get nominated to keep Harvey Weinstein alive), but Milk has probably been the most widely praised movie of the season. I guess foreign people are homophobes.
Best Feature, Comedy
More good news for Harvey Weinstein! Vicky Cristina Barcelona was nominated for this category and three others, keeping the sun-splashed Spanish Woody Allen romance alive even though it debuted all the way last summer.
Best Actors, Drama
No surprises for the actors, really. On the actresses' side, though, it is a bit disappointing to not see indie hero Melissa Leo nominated for her gritty, sad work in Frozen River. Oscar, hopefully, will be kinder.
Best Actors, Comedy
Hah, James Franco got a bizarro nod for Pineapple Express and Dustin Hoffman got a "well isn't he nice" nomination for some movie about old people, co-starring Emma Thompson (who's also up for a trophy.) Come January, we'll probably have to put Sally Hawkins up in the big leagues for her Happy-Go-Lucky performance, probably knocking out the "I want MY son" antics of Angelina Jolie.
Supporting Actors
Robert Downey Jr. AND Tom Cruise for Tropic Thunder! That is very funny. And fun. Good for the gay old HFP. Ralph Fiennes was the lone, sad nomination for the once-aspiring The Duchess, joining his fellow in "you're not gonna win, but hey!"ness, the dearly departed Heath Ledger. There's Kate Winslet for The Reader in the supporting category, which might bode for a smaller Oscar campaign. And good for the always-awesome Viola Davis and dear Marisa Tomei. Davis will probably win the Oscar this year, but let's hope Tomei gets nominated too.
Screenplay
No Charlie Kaufman! Ah well. People just did not sync up with Synecdoche, I guess. And our youngest gay Dustin Lance Black was conspicuously not rewarded for his labor of love project, Milk. We're betting that Peter Morgan will win for his wordy Frost/Nixon.
So that's that! Some sadness abounds for Baz Luhrmann and his troupe of singing aborigines, while Harvey Weinstein clings to life, buoyed suddenly by glitzy recognition from a really small group of non-Americans. We'll have to wait until January to see where the Oscar chips fall, but these silly awards are usually something of a decent barometer. Other than that, though, they're useless. So congrats, all.
See the full list of nominations, including TV!, here. And now that we know which films are nominated, vote in our Golden Globe Poll.