Hollywood prepares to toast winners at Golden Globes
January 6, 2020
LOS ANGELES: Hollywood’s biggest party, the Golden Globes, kicks off the showbiz awards season today, with streaming giant Netflix expected to be popping champagne corks through the night.
Stars will don couture gowns and extravagant jewels before they hit the red carpet at the luxury Beverly Hills hotel where the calendar’s second-most important – but rowdiest – prizegiving gala takes place.
Victory at the Globes ensures key momentum for the Oscars, which are a little more than a month away.
Netflix and its expensively assembled roster of Alisters are far ahead of the traditional studios with 17 Globe film nominations.
The streaming giant secured an equal number of nods in the oftenoverlooked television categories, where it also leads the pack, ahead of
HBO at 15.
Netflix
Certainly Netflix is pouring everything they can into this and has a good shot in the drama category. That would be a big deal for Netflix, definitely. Pete Hammond
has two frontrunners to scoop the night’s most prestigious film prize, best drama – Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic ‘ The Irishman’ and heart-wrenching divorce saga ‘Marriage Story.’ “Certainly Netflix is pouring everything they can into this and has a good shot in the drama category. That would be a big deal for Netflix, definitely,” said Deadline’s awards columnist Pete Hammond. Vatican drama ‘ The Two Popes’ is also in contention for the streamer, while Warner Bros. dark comic tale ‘ Joker’ and Universal war epic ‘ 1917’ round out the category. Netflix only began producing original movies in 2015, but has spent billions to lure the industry’s top filmmaking talent – and to fund lavish awards season campaigns.
It also has Eddie Murphy’s comeback vehicle ‘ Dolemite Is My Name’ in the best comedy or musical race – unlike the Oscars, Globes organisers split films into two categories.
But ‘Dolemite’ is expected to face stiff competition from frontrunner ‘Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.’
Quentin Tarantino’s homage to 1960s Tinseltown has resonated with the 90-odd veteran entertainment reporters of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which doles out the prizes.
In 2019, they correctly picked the Oscar winner in every film category except for best musical score.
“Last year, they had by far the best track record of any other show,” said Hammond.
Oscar nominations voting is already under way, but does not close until Tuesday, meaning Academy members may be tempted to wait for the Globes to conclude before casting their ballots.
“Momentum is ready to be built out of this,” added Hammond.
Firing line
British comedian Ricky Gervais returns for a record fifth time as Globes host. His provocative barbs have both riled and delighted Hollywood stars in previous years.
This time, he has promised to ‘go after the general community’ rather than individuals, telling the Hollywood Reporter that ‘pretension and hypocrisy’ will be in his firing line.
The starry list of award presenters include nominees Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio (both from ‘Once Upon a Time...’) and Jennifer Lopez (‘Hustlers’).
In the drama acting categories, Joaquin Phoenix is leading a crowded field for his radical portrayal of the villainous antihero in ‘Joker.’