‘The Shape of Water’ leads nominations
LOS ANGELES: Fairy tale romance ‘The Shape of Water’ (right) led the Golden Globe nominations with seven on Monday as Hollywood launched an awards season expected to be overshadowed by the sexual misconduct scandal engulfing the movie industry.
Guillermo del Toro’s acclaimed 1960s-set fantasy picked up nominations in several top categories, including best motion picture drama and best actress for Sally Hawkins.
‘The Post’ and ‘Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri’ followed with six nods and coming-ofage film ‘Lady Bird’ got four nominations.
The announcements will give the nominees a welcome boost going into the race for March’s Oscars, with the influential Screen Actors Guild nominations to come later this week.
The other best motion picture drama nominees are ‘Call Me By Your Name’, another coming-ofage tale, World War II thriller ‘Dunkirk’, media drama ‘The Post’ and ‘Three Billboards’.
The Globes are seen as a chance for Hollywood to demonstrate its intolerance of sexual misconduct following a wave of allegations that emerged after movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was accused of decades of misbehavior that would make him the most egregious sexual predator in the history of filmmaking.
The Weinstein Company, which sacked its co-founder, was never expected to land nominations at the ceremony -- and it did not.
The wider fallout, however, is likely to have a seismic effect on the awards season, as numerous other powerful figures have been accused of sexual misconduct.
The HFPA -- apparently sensitive to the message it would send out - largely avoided rewarding the work of Kevin Spacey, Jeffrey Tambor, Louis C.K., Brett Ratner and numerous other scandal-hit big players. 2015 for ‘House of Cards’, never had a chance of a repeat following a litany of allegations of impropriety with young men.
But his alleged misdeeds also appeared to have harmed the chances of his colleagues such as Robin Wright -- the show was blanked this year.
‘Transparent’, which has also had numerous nominations and a win for Tambor, found itself in the same boat with HFPA members giving the comedy a hard pass.
Spacey had been expected to front an awards campaign for ‘All the Money in the World’ before Ridley Scott decided to expunge the actor from his latest movie.
His replacement Christopher Plummer -- added via last-minute reshoots in a groundbreaking move -- earned a surprise nomination for best supporting actor in a film.
Meanwhile, the HFPA went for scandal-free old favourites like Scott, Christopher Nolan (‘Dunkirk’) and Steven Spielberg (‘The Post’).
‘The Post’, a defence of the free press widely seen as a rebuke to President Donald Trump, is an early Oscars favourite.
Martin McDonagh’s ‘Three Billboards’, starring Frances McDormand as a mother seeking to avenge the rape and murder of her daughter, is also widely fancied since taking the influential audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
‘Coco’, a colourful take on Mexico’s Day of the Dead, was nominated and should be the comfortable frontrunner for best animated film -- despite Pixar cofounder John Lassiter’s recent admission of inappropriate behaviour towards employees. —
AFP