Golden Globes are ready to come uncorked
What films and stars are likely to take the hardware home from Hollywood’s booziest broadcast
The Golden Globe awards are being presented Sunday, and we don’t hear you cheering. We haven’t received an invitation to your Golden Globe party. There’s no office pool. Who do you like in Best Comedy or Musical: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen or Moonrise Kingdom?
Yes, it seems like a down year for Hollywood’s favourite inside joke. It could be the fact that this week’s Oscar nominations have stolen all the thunder. It could be the lack of inspiring films. Or it could be the lack of Ricky Gervais, who turned his job as host into a caustic series of one- liners about the awards themselves.
“I’d like to crush this ridiculous rumour that the only reason The Tourist was nominated was so that the foreign press could hang out with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie,” Gervais said in 2011.
Gervais is missing in action this year. The awards are to be presented by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who have traded outrageousness for whimsy: one promotional bit has them agreeing that Avatar has the best shot at winning. The inside jokes have been turned into outsider silliness, although Fey is onto something when she describes the awards as “a very sloppy, loud party.” This is the awards show that allows drinking at the tables.
The Globes are given out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of 92 writers who have a reputation for being, shall we say, persuadable. The most famous example came in 1982, when Pia Zadora was named rising star of the year after her husband wined and dined many voting members at his casino in Las Vegas. And while the Globes are often harbingers of the Academy Awards ( to be presented Feb. 24), they’re no more accurate than your average newspaper critic who furthermore labours under the burden of not being wined and dined by the studios.
The Globes, which turn 70 this year, were always a little raggedy in other ways too — it was part of their charm. In 1998 Christine Lahti won the award for best actress in a TV series ( Chicago Hope) and had to be fetched from the bathroom. In 1999, Jack Nicholson mooned the audience. In 2011, Seth Rogen stood beside Kate Beckinsale and said, “I’m currently trying to conceal a huge erection.”
It’s fun, but it’s starting to feel a little contrived. Maybe a victory by Avatar will restore the balance. If not, here’s how it should go:
Best picture, drama
Will win: Lincoln is shaping up as the movie to beat this season, and although the Golden Globes are not as bound as Oscar to the notion of the “prestige picture,” this one has all of the elements — top- notch acting, great set design, a hero whose ambiguities are all safely in the historic past — that makes it the front- runner.
But watch out for: Zero Dark Thirty, the critical darling about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It has a bit of edge and a bit of controversy, something that the Globe people never shy away from.
Also nominated: Argo, Django Unchained, Life of Pi.
Best picture, comedy or musical
Will win: Les Miserables, the fullbodied musical about the down and out of 19th century France. It’s a cumbersome adaptation of the stage show and far too long, but it has scope.
But watch out for: Silver Linings Playbook, a clever comedy that looks at the down and out of modern Philadelphia.
Also nominated: Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
Best director
Will win: Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty: All of this year’s nominated films feel really directed — you can sense the personalities behind them — but this one gives off the most sense of hands- on passion. She was snubbed by Oscar, but the Globe people owe her for not giving her the award for The Hurt Locker in 2008.
But watch out for: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained: Actually, this one gives off that sense of hands- on passion as well. And the Globes would love to get Quentin up on stage with a couple of drinks under his belt.
Also nominated: Ben Affleck, Argo; Ang Lee, Life of Pi; Steven Spielberg, Lincoln.
Best actor, drama
Will win: Daniel Day- Lewis, Lincoln: The performance of the year, by any measure, and favoured by the fact that Day- Lewis not only plays a historic figure, he finds new sides ( a puckish sense of humour; a surprising accent) to a well- known man.
But watch out for: Joaquin Phoenix, who threw himself into the role of the alcoholic acolyte in The Master, even though the film itself seems to have baffled the Globes.
Also nominated: Richard Gere, Arbitrage; John Hawkes, The Sessions; Denzel Washington, Flight.
Best actress, drama
Will win: Well, any of them really, but we’ll go with Jessica Chastain, who’s in almost every frame of the epic Zero Dark Thirty as the CIA agent who leads the hunt for bin Laden. She gives a sense of proto- feminist grit to a male- dominated story. But watch out for: Naomi Watts, who showed some grit of her own as the wife and mother who almost loses everything in the South Asian tsunami.
Also nominated: Marion Cotillard, Rust & Bone; Helen Mirren, Hitchcock; Rachel Weisz, The Deep Blue Sea.
Best actress, comedy or musical
Will win: Jennifer Lawrence, who turned her character in The Silver Linings Playbook — a promiscuous, depressed widow — into something sexy and funny.
But watch out for: Judi Dench in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It just seems like the sort of thing a lot of foreign journalists might like.
Also nominated: Emily Blunt, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen; Maggie Smith, Quartet; Meryl Streep, Hope Springs.
Best actor, comedy or musical
Will win: Bradley Cooper, who turned a tough role — the mental patient in Silver Linings Playbook — into something winning, managing to be both threatening and lovable.
But watch out for: Jack Black in Bernie, mostly because the unusual casting — he plays a friendly gay undertaker who is also a murderer — represents a stretch.
Also nominated: Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables; Ewan McGregor, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen; Bill Murray, Hyde Park on Hudson.