The Globes: Six Movie Snubs, Subplots and Nominees to Watch
To the extent anyone cares about hardware doled out by the invisible half-asses at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, we've still spotted a few Golden Globe revelations worth following through awards season.
· There's no use crying over spilled Milk. Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic followed its early awards-season success with exactly one nomination for Best Actor candidate Sean Penn. This is more of a reflection of the HFPA's susceptibility to studio campaigns then any harbinger of future drought; if Focus Features can draw four nominations for its all-but-forgotten comedy In Bruges (not to mention two for Burn After Reading) while its plenty-lauded Milk goes virtually ignored, rest assured that both parties are satisfied with a deal negotiated somewhere along the line.
· The Dark Knight died so that others may live. As in: Had Revolutionary Road not drawn its four nominations for Picture, Director, Actor and Actress, then no fewer than two randomly selected Scott Rudin assistants would be toe-tagged right now with blunt phone-force trauma to the head.
· Alternatively, The Dark Knight died because Warner Bros. is saving its money for real awards. The studio's other prospective nominees Gran Torino and Sex and the City flailed as well. Coincidence, or ambivalence?
· Never mind the starfucking. Critical darlings and possible Oscar underdogs Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) and Melissa Leo (Frozen River) were shut out from the dramatic acting categories as well. Why? Because Leonardo DiCaprio and Angelina Jolie look better in the ballroom. Again, this means little for the Oscars, where Leo (Melissa, not DiCaprio) is a presumptive fifth nominee and Jenkins will likely lose his spot anyway to Gran Torino's Clint Eastwood — another awards-season favorite overlooked here because the HFPA couldn't get away with leaving Sean Penn off the guest list. See also: Tom Cruise, nominee for Tropic Thunder.
· James Franco is a Best Actor candidate for Pineapple Express. Clearly a testament to how totally fucking high the HFPA members were when it came time for nominations. Too bad David Frost wasn't a pot dealer; then Michael Sheen, too, could have avoided his 100th awards snub of the season in the supporting category.
· We were right about the Weinsteins. It didn't look very good there for a while, but however relentlessly lobbied-for, their eight Globe nominations — four apiece for The Reader and Vicky Christina Barcelona — are resurgent enough for us.