Globes have golden touch
Small press group has outsized influence as awards season ramps up
Golden Globe nominations have come out. But exactly who is behind them?
For almost 75 years, the Golden Globes have been handed out by a Byzantine body called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. It’s a secretive cabal, numbering fewer than 100 people, and membership is restricted to those who live in Southern California but work for publications outside the United States.
That tiny membership is important when you consider the Globes have evolved into one of the most prestigious awards shows, second only to the Oscars. But the Oscars are voted on by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a group of more than 8,000 industry professionals with a lot of name recognition, including big-name stars and directors.
The HFPA, in contrast, are regularly referred to as unknowns or “total randos” in the trade press. They include Ray Arco, Dagmar Dunlevy, Andre Guimond and Noemia Young, whom I mention only because they’re the Canadians among the group. Recognize anyone? An Infomart search turned up exactly one article by any of them, Young’s 2017 piece in Le Journal de Montreal about Rupert Grint.
So on the one hand we have an industry body of thousands, voting to reward the work they understand because it’s their livelihood. On the other, a minuscule group of entertainment writers — not, it should be noted, critics — whose outsized influence (100 to one, given the numbers in each group) on the annual awards season raises regular accusations of graft and mismanagement.
Sometimes the charges are official, as in 2011 when the HFPA’s outgoing publicist, Michael Russell, sued the group, saying he was fired for trying to stop corruption among the members. He said they regularly accepted cash, holidays and other gifts from studios in exchange for nominations, and that they secretly profited by selling prime real estate on the red carpet to media organizations. The suit was settled in 2013, but details were kept secret.
Another frequent criticism is that it nominates based not on worthiness but on sexiness. Granted, most actors are beautiful people, but the Golden Globes do seem to go out of their way to invite the best of the bunch, performances notwithstanding.
Which brings us to All the Money in the World, which has been shut out of critics’ groups awards such as the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Toronto Film Critics Associations (I’m a member of both) for the very good reason that it wasn’t ready to screen. Director Ridley Scott
In 2011, the HFPA’s outgoing publicist, Michael Russell, sued the group, saying he was fired for trying to stop corruption among the members. He said they regularly accepted cash, holidays and other gifts from studios in exchange for nominations, and that they secretly profited by selling prime real estate on the red carpet to media organizations.
frantically reshot scenes with Christopher Plummer taking over the role of John Paul Getty III from the now-disgraced Kevin Spacey.
But HFPA members were treated to a special screening of an unfinished cut, and decided based on that to nominate Plummer, Scott and also Michelle Williams. There have been no allegations of impropriety, but it’s arguably difficult to be given such front-of-the-line access and not want to reward the film in kind.
Word is that the last-minute reshoots cost the studio an extra $10 million on an already tight budget of $40 million. Thousands of academy voters will get their chance to weigh in on the results soon enough, but in the meantime, it’s a minor line item to strike a print and show it to 80 or 90 foreign journalists who can get the awards season ball rolling.
All the money in the world indeed.