Golden Globes announces movie jewels for nominations
Spike Lee among the favourites
Vice, a biopic about George W. Bush’s powerful vice president Dick Cheney starring Christian Bale, yesterday picked up the most Golden Globe nominations with six, including best comedy film, as the race to the Oscars begins.
The announcements, a week before the influential Screen Actors Guild nominations, are the first major bellwether of momentum going into the Academy Awards, which take place in February.
Vice bucked some predictions, earning one more nomination than popular music romance reboot A Star is Born, but both are now well placed for Tinseltown awards glory.
Tied with Star – a hit with both critics and at the box office, starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper – at five nominations were bawdy royal tale The Favourite and offbeat civil rights dramedy Green Book. Right behind them were Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, the true story of a black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan with the help of a white partner, and hotly anticipated Disney sequel Mary Poppins Returns.
Beyond its best comedy film nod, Vice picked up a trio of acting nominations.
Also winning double nominations were Cooper – for acting and directing in Star –and Lady Gaga, for acting and best original song (Shallow).
Vying with Star for best drama film are BlacKkKlansman, Marvel blockbuster Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody about Queen frontman Freddie Mercury and If Beale Street Could Talk. Beale Street – which tells the story of a young black couple in love in 1970s Harlem, and the obstacles in their path, in an adaptation of a novel by James Baldwin.
Competing in best musical/comedy film are Vice, The Favourite, Mary Poppins Returns, Green Book and rom-com success Crazy Rich Asians.
A Star Is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody are competing in the drama categories, seeking to firmly establish their position before the Oscars.
Green Book, an offbeat comedy about a black classical pianist in 1960s America who hires an Italian-American bouncer as his driver for a tour of the racially divided South, earned nods for stars Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen.
The Globes also honour the best in television and can look ahead to programmes that aired too late for Emmys contention. Dark HBO mini-series Sharp Objects, Amazon drama Homecoming starring Julia Roberts, and Netflix comedy The Kominsky Method all earned nominations.
The 76th Golden Globes take place on January 6 in Beverly Hills. The Oscar nominations come after the Globes this year, on January 22.