“Les Miserables” won best picture/comedy or musical, “Argo” won best picture, drama and Ben Affleck won best director.
Since none of those (first two) are likely to win the Academy Award, and Affleck wasn’t even nominated, let’s call the 70th Golden Globes what the Oscar folks have been loathe to call this Hollywood Foreign Press & Doormen and Beer Distributors affair — a true Oscar alternative.
It’s what The Academy, hallowed be thy name, has been fighting these past several years, moving their nominations and their ceremonies around willy nilly, trying to mute the impact of the Golden Globes stealing their thunder. They have failed and continue to fail. It seems like a lost cause, since they’re dealing with the same limited pool of “acclaimed” (by critics groups) pictures, pictures which have been Internet buzzed about nonstop since September of the preceding year.
The Academy voters failed, pretty much, to widen the field and look to worthy pictures beyond what the Globes, and assorted other critics’ groups nominated or honored. They left out some of the consensus worthies. Usually, it’s the Indie Spirit Awards that find a home for those left out in the Oscar cold — John Hawkes and “Smashed” and “Bernie” and the like.
But with Oscar plainly going its own way and yet not offering up pleasant surprises among the nominations (“snubs” instead), the Globes put on a Tina and Amy show (funny), let Jodie Foster wave goodbye to all that, sort of “come out” and sort of retire, and give Affleck his “You have arrived” due.
The Globes honored Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence in their drama vs. comedy best actress awards, Hugh Jackman and Daniel Day-Lewis as best actors, Anne Hathaway, and Christoph Waltz as best supporting players.
They paid tribute to “this year’s crop” of TV shows. And they got off the air on time.
Will the Oscars actually surprise us after this? They’ve left few chances, thanks to the “usual suspects” lineup of nominees.
“Lincoln” will be their favorite, and Hathaway and Day Lewis, maybe Jennifer Lawrence and Tommy Lee Jones, unless “Lincoln” rises up as some safe choice.
They went overboard on nominees from “Silver Linings Playbook,” but does anybody figure somebody other than Lawrence is a favorite there? DeNiro could sneak in as a “career” honor, even though he’s already won and been lauded as the male Meryl Streep for decades.
So while the Globes, with their slicker/shorter/snarkier production, may have produced few real surprises, they basically set the table for the Oscars to produce even fewer. Is that a reason for people to tune in? Aside from this guy most of America has never seen or heard of as the host?
Complete list of winners below…
Continue reading →
Fun, though not nearly as much fun as it might have been, “TrollHunter” is a bit like a Norwegian version of “Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale,” the Finnish horror film about “the REAL (and really evil) Santa Claus.”
