Theartist aims for big noise at Globes
HOLLYWOOD held its breath yesterday ahead of the Golden Globes, as silent film The Artist bids to add to its pre-oscars bonanza, while up against veterans like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.
The relatively low-budget Frenchdirected movie, set in Tinsel Town in the 1920s, faces stiff competition from a slew of films starring A-listers including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Meryl Streep.
George Clooney has nominations for both best picture — for political thriller The Ides of March which he directs — and best actor in Hawaiibased The Descendants.
The family drama is also in the running for the top prize, along with Scorsese’s big-budget 3D adventure Hugo, Pitt’s baseball-themed Moneyball, Spielberg’s equine epic War Horse, and black civil rights drama The Help.
The Artist is not up for the top dramatic prize at the Globes — which set the stage for the all-important Oscars next month — but leads with six nods, including for best musical/ comedy and best director for Michel Hazanavicius.
The black-and-white film, billed as a tribute to the silent movie era, tells the story of silent star George Valentin (played by Jean Dujardin) whose career is torpedoed by the arrival of the “talkies.”
I It won b best fil film and db best di director at the New York Film Critics Circle awards in November, and has garnered a string of nods since — including this week from the Directors Guild of America (DGA), seen as a key Oscars indicator.
The film, with a budget of just $12 million won yet another prize just three days before the Globes, taking the Critics’ Choice best film award.
Pitt is up for best actor, along with Clooney, ( The Descendants), Michael Fassbender in sex-addiction study Shame, Leonardo Dicaprio for Clint Eastwood’s J Edgar and Ryan Gosling for The Ides of March.
For best actress the shortlist includes Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, Viola Davis in The Help, cross-dressing Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs, Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk about Kevin and Rooney Mara in the screen version of best-seller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
British comic Ricky Gervais is meanwhile promising a no-holdsbarred performance in his third time as Globes host, invited back despite ruffling some Hollywood feathers with near-the-bone jokes at last year’s show. — AFP