“VICE,” FX LEAD GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS
This year’s Golden Globe nominations are in and, boy, there are a few head scratchers. The year’s leading movie hasn’t even hit theaters, for example, and there still seems to be some unknowable reasoning behind what makes a film a “drama” or a “comedy.”
Other things are par for the course, such as all the director nominees being male — yes, again.
For the pop culture consumer on the go, here are our biggest takeaways:
• The sweep of “Vice,” a movie most people haven’t even seen.
From the moment it was announced, we knew the Dick Cheney picture “Vice” would be a big awards contender. After all, it’s the second “serious” film from Adam McKay, the “Anchorman” director who went on to write and direct 2015’s “The Big Short,” for which he won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay and was nominated for best director. Add in Christian Bale transforming himself into the former vice president to the point that the actor is unrecognizable, and the movie might as well be titled “Awards Bait.”
Still, for it to pull in the most nominations — six! — of any movie (or television show, for that matter) is pretty impressive, particularly considering the movie doesn’t hit theaters until Christmas Day. Of course, the Emily Blunt-starring “Mary Poppins Returns” also doesn’t drop until Christmas, and it scored four nods.
• FX rules the day, but just barely.
This year’s Emmy Awards were dominated by Netflix and HBO, but the Golden Globes are a different story. FX, the scrappy network known for pumping out edgy content on strange schedules — it famously allowed disgraced comic Louis C.K. to create his show “Louie” on his own timeline — earned a whopping 10 nominations. By doing so, it beat out HBO, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix.
Two of its landmark shows secured FX that top spot: “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” the highestearning show with four nominations, and “The Americans,” which wrapped up this year and earned three nods.
• “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “A Star is Born” are dramas, but “Vice” is a comedy.
The Golden Globes always have some category curiosities. (Who could forget the debate that erupted over the Globes classifying Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” as a comedy?) But in case you forgot, just because a movie has a lot of music and is about music, it doesn’t make it a musical. The Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut “A Star Is Born” (which includes some of the best concert scenes in a film we’ve seen lately) received consideration in the drama categories.
Meanwhile, McKay’s look at Cheney received nominations in the comedy or musical categories.
• Snubs!
“First Man” may have tanked at the box office, and it looks like it gets no love from the Golden Globes, including nothing for lead actor Ryan Gosling. The powerful drama “The Hate U Give” was also overlooked. Ditto for Ethan Hawke and “First Reformed.”
And the acclaimed John Krasinski thriller about the dangers of making noise, “A Quiet Place,” received only one nomination — for best score, of all things.
Kristen Bell was nominated for her role in “The Good Place,” the NBC comedy which gave the broadcast network two of its three nominations this year, but Ted Danson didn’t get a nod. And speaking of NBC, the weepy drama “This Is Us” was totally shut out.
After a stellar season of “Atlanta,” which included episodes that topped several best-of-year lists, the FX show didn’t get a nomination for best comedy TV series (though Donald Glover did get one for best actor).
And the best actress in a TV comedy category is all white nominees this year, with Issa Rae (who’s been nominated for two years in a row for “Insecure”) and Tracee Ellis Ross (who won in 2017 for “Black-ish”) shut out. • Surprises! Perhaps one of the most surprising nominations came in the best actor in a TV series, musical or comedy category for Sacha Baron Cohen, who earned it for Showtime’s “Who Is America?” The show featured Cohen pretending to be various characters and tricking reallife politicians into saying outlandish, often terrible and sometimes racist things — which he then aired on a premium cable network.
Some viewers might be surprised to see “Bodyguard,” a Netflix coproduction with the BBC, earn a nod for best drama TV series. The show, starring Richard Madden (better known to most as Rob Stark from “Game of Thrones”), was certainly critically acclaimed. But Netflix pumps out so many series, it’s likely this one slipped under the radar for most people who aren’t paid to watch TV for a living.
• Best director nominees are men, again.
During the 2018 Golden Globes telecast, Natalie Portman introduced the best directing for a motion picture category by announcing the “all-male nominees.” Her pointed remark, which came after Oprah Winfrey’s fiery speech about sexism and equality, underscored the gender disparity of the Globes and made headlines.
Well, this year we have a repeat. Bradley Cooper (“A Star Is Born”), Alfonso Cuarón (“Roma”), Peter Farrelly (“Green Book”), Spike Lee (“BlacKkKlansman”) and Adam McKay (“Vice”) are this year’s “allmale nominees.”