Well, it’s official. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced the nominees for the 67th annual Golden Globe awards, and so the peak of movie awards season is officially upon us. From now until the Oscars, it’s a good time to be a cinema geek.
Here are some reactions to the nominees. What are yours?
(1) I’m surprised that Invictus didn’t receive a nomination for Best Motion Picture, Drama. As you know, it strikes me as catnip for statue-givers, and since it did get nominations for Best Actor in a Drama (Morgan Freeman), Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture (Matt Damon), and Best Director (Clint Eastwood), it clearly has the support of the HFPA.
Here are the films that did get Best Drama nominations:
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
Up in the Air
All of these films have gotten plenty of praise, so I’m guessing that Invictus came in sixth. And I’ll assume that Avatar made a last-minute surge into the top five. But that’s mostly because I’m predisposed not to like it. Because it looks lame.
(2) I am not surprised that Sandra Bullock got the double nomination. Best Actress in a Comedy for The Proposal. Best Actress in a Drama for The Blind Side. Sandy Bully is this year’s Meryl Streep. (Streep also got two nominations, as Best Actress in a Comedy for both It’s Complicated and Julie & Julia, so I guess she is also this year’s Meryl Streep.)
Despite my reservations about the films she’s made this year, I would be pleased as punch if Sandra Bullock got an Oscar nomination. She’s just so damn appealing! It still seems like a longshot, but it could happen.
In othe actress news, these are the nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture:
Penelope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Mo’Nique, Precious
Julianne Moore, A Single Man
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I’ve seen all of these films except for Nine, and I’ve written about Precious and Up in the Air, so let me take this time to discuss A Single Man. Like many critics, I found the movie beautiful, enjoyable, well-acted and… hollow. Tom Ford adapts and directs Christopher Isherwood’s novel about a gay college professor in the 1960s mourning the death of his long-time, live-in lover, and while he creates the appearance of deep feeling, he never quite achieves it.
The crisp black and white footage during a flashback, for instance, and the artful way that the professor (a wonderful Colin Firth, also nominated for a Globe) and his lover are posed on the beach, tell you they’re in paradise. The things they say to each other tell you that, too.
However, despite the obvious signals, the scene doesn’t have the ring of an actual loving relationship. It’s so carefully composed that it feels bloodless, tidy. It’s hard to believe in grief and pain and passion and guilt when no one in the movie ever has a hair out of place.
I do credit Ford for his ambition, however, and for his willingness to play with symbolism. I like that kind of thing, and I appreciate what he’s going for when, say, the professor sees a beautiful flower and the light changes from grimy to warm. The technique tells us that Firth’s character is waking up to life… that’s he’s slowly coming out of his grief coma. For his next film, I hope Ford honors these non-literal impulses, but realizes that intellectualizing the meaning of every shot can rob a film of its livelihood.
I guess that’s what I’m getting at here: Everything in A Single Man, every tilt of the head and trick of the light, seems tightly choreographed. That kind of hyper-precision is exciting if you’re Samuel Beckett, but Ford’s fussiness isn’t elucidating something mind-boggling about the nature of human experience. Ultimately, A Single Man tells a conventional story about a man learning to enjoy life again. If I’m going to be deeply connected to a tale I’ve heard before, I need a sense of emotional honesty. But since Ford’s symbolic effects are so antiseptically intellectual, I end up feeling distant from the picture in front of me.
That said, Firth and Moore (playing the professor’s boozy friend) do break through the artifice to deliver amazing performances.
(3) I’m really hpapy Modern Family got nominated for Best TV Comedy, and I’m even happier that Chloe Sevigny got a supporting actress nomination for Big Love.
What are your thoughts on the nominations?
14 responses so far ↓
1 Ryan // Dec 15, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Well at least Carey Mulligan fans don’t have to worry about Meryl taking anything away from here this time around…knock wood.
January Jones! Wowza.
I also don’t think the Golden Globes look very hard for movies to nominate, these films are all pretty obvious…nominating Bullock for The Proposal? Meryl for It’s Complicated (early buzz says she’s too wispy)…I’m sure there are other performances. In the Loop for Comedy also would have been nice to see. Instead of The Hangover.
2 Mark Blankenship // Dec 15, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Hey Ryan… I agree with you about the obviousness of the nominees. In the film acting categories, the only thing approaching a surprise is Julia Roberts’ nod for Duplicity, and when Julia Roberts is your left-field pick, then you know you’re not shaking things up.
Thanks for calling out Carey Mulligan, too. I would hate it if she got lost in the shuffle. An Education is still one of my favorite movies of the year.
3 Doug Strassler // Dec 15, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Great write-up, Mark. Not many surprises in the movie or TV categories, but also few disappointments. That said, though individually I have no problem with the Best Actress in a Drama nominees, overall I don’t find the group that exciting, something that hasn’t happened in 4 years, when Felicity Huffman led the pack (and Comedy/Musical nominee Reese Witherspoon was the clear Oscar frontrunner).
My favorite factoid from this morning’s announcements is the one I was hoping for: Kathryn Bigelow’s name smack-dab next to ex-husband James Cameron’s in the Director category. I’m wishing Linda Hamilton had been able to get nominated for something too, just to see how many of Cameron’s ex-wives they could squeeze into the Beverly Hilton.
4 Emily // Dec 15, 2009 at 1:42 pm
The utter ridiculousness that Friday Night Lights was ignored yet again has become so commonplace that I can barely work up my outrage anymore. Le sigh.
5 thedownpayment // Dec 15, 2009 at 1:54 pm
a part of me still lives in the 90s and i still like julia better than sandra. that said, im not surprised sandra got nominated for both the proposal and the blind side. the proposal was a sleeper hit, a breezy enough rom com with cougar undertones. and the blind side is a movie thats s bout race but a feel good one. a few weeks ago, i read that julia turned down both the proposal and the blind side. no point of playing the wow-she-cuda-gotten-3-nominations if-she-did-those-two-movies-along-with-duplicity…” the movie she did make in place of the proposal.
what im saying is: im glad julia got a nod.
6 ferretrick // Dec 15, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I’ll admit I haven’t seen either of the films she’s nominated for, but honestly, I think if Meryl Streep drove by the set of a film and waved at the director from the window of her limo, she’d get a nomination. I find Meryl Streep intensely annoying for this reason (that, and that she has zero ability to disappear into a role). She can act no question but whether she’s playing a farm wife, a ditzy Greek hotel owner, or freaking Isak Dinesin, you never don’t know you’re watching Meryl Streep. Ugh.
Happy that new TV shows like Glee and Modern Family got some love. But where’s the love for Big Bang Theory?
I was seriously hoping to see Calista Flockhart take Rachel Griffiths’ Brothers and Sisters spot this year. Nothing against Griffiths, but her role has been marginal at best last season and this one, and Flockhart’s been consistently hitting it out of the park with the cancer storyline. I feel like for several years, Griffiths has been nominated more because she was on Six Feet Under than for her actual work on Bros and Hos.
Also, what exactly is the eligibility period? How in the world is Samantha Who still eligible? And it feels like that not that great Raisin in the Sun TV movie aired last decade.
7 Mark Blankenship // Dec 15, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Hey Ferretrick — I think you may have been looking at last year’s nominees. Brothers and Sisters got fully shut-out this year (as did Ugly Betty, now that I think about it), and Raisin was on last year’s ballot.
@Doug — Nice observation about the Cameron/Bigelow match-up. And now I’m imagining a world where Linda Hamilton directed Invictus.
8 Doug Strassler // Dec 15, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Samantha Who wasn’t nominated — in fact, 4 of the 5 TV Comedy Actress categories are in new series (with Tina Fey being the veteran). Brothers and Sisters got shut out; Julianna was likely to take Sally Field’s spot.
Mark — in your world, a Linda Hamilton-directed anything is better than a Clint-directed movie, right?
9 Gonzalo // Dec 15, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Mark, I liked A Single Man, and I wasn’t as distracted by the artificiality of it all. I thought the direction and symbolism was overdone at the beginning of the movie, but it seemed to wane a little bit towards the end, and that helped me connect a bit more to the emotions of the characters. I did remain slightly detached from it all, but I enjoyed the movie quite a lot in spite of this. So I’m OK with the movie not being nominated for the best drama or director prizes.
Also, some of the scenes (e.g. George’s conversation with the Spanish guy) were damn sexy.
@ferretrick: I second your dismay at the BBT snub. Again? And not even a nom for Jim Parsons? That man hits it out of the park every single episode.
10 Mark Blankenship // Dec 15, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Hey Gonzalo — You will get no argument from me about the sexiness of that scene with the Spanish hustler. DAMN!
11 Ripley // Dec 15, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Here is what enrages me this year:
1) Simon Baker, Courtney Cox, but still no Psych? Yes, I’m one of those guys. I hate Cox and Baker.
2) No Bright Star, no In The Loop.
3) No Zombieland.
4) Sandra Bullock? Twice? Fine, whatever about The Blind Side, I haven’t seen it. But the fucking Proposal?
5) Didn’t Grey Gardens get nominated last year? I get that it’s a miniseries, but can they really stretch it out for two years?
12 David D. // Dec 15, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Happy for BIG LOVE and MODERN FAMILY, sad for FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS and IN TREATMENT.
13 Casey // Dec 15, 2009 at 11:57 pm
For me, the most interesting category is Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. You have Matt Damon, who’s getting a lot of love these days; Woody Harrelson, who seems to be in every movie released this year; Christopher Plummer, who has the “let’s revere the elder Actor” card; Stanley Tucci, who’s been ignored for many fantastic performances and may win the guilt vote; and Christoph Waltz, who gave one of the most exciting performances I’ve seen in years. For me, it’s the one nail-biter of all the categories.
14 Shatterboxvox // Dec 16, 2009 at 6:18 pm
In re “A Single Man,” seems like the movie is consistent with Ford’s aesthetic ethos and marketing genius. The hollowness you point out is the same hollowness you’d experience hoping to be elucidated by a beautiful, clever fashion spread.
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