1. Selma is In, Unbroken and American Sniper are Out
In awards season, either you're in or you're out, and after yesterday's shut-outs at the SAG Awards, I have a feeling all three of these films were feeling a bit nervous. Today, though, the Ava DuVernay biopic can breath a sigh of relief, racking up four nominations including a citation for Best Picture. Meanwhile, Angelina Jolie and Clint Eastwood's films did embarrassingly bad, not getting a citation between them despite both actors being incredible favorites of the HFPA. While Oscar occasionally has a mind of his own, it's doubtful these films do well outside of technical awards at this point.
2. Pride gets a Best Picture nod!
Pride, a truly wonderful film that you need to add to your Netflix queue immediately (I'm not kidding-do it right now...I'll wait), managed to get one of the bigger surprises of the morning with a Best Comedy nomination. Though it will certainly lose to Birdman, this is a big win for such a small film and may help it a bit when the BAFTA nominations come out (and hopefully it gets you to see the movie, which as I said is an absolute treat).
While we're certain to still hear names like Bill Murray and Ralph Fiennes later in the season, at this point it seems like six men are duking it out for five slots in the Best Actor field. While long-established frontrunners Eddie Redmayne, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Michael Keaton all got their expected nominations, Jake Gyllenhaal and Steve Carell scored both today with the Globes and yesterday with the SAG Awards. Joining them in the Drama field was David Oyelowo with Selma, which missed yesterday due to screening concerns. I have to believe that Oyelowo is going to make it this year, which means that Gyllenhaal and Carell are in a battle royale for the next few weeks to see which one of them actually ends up on top.
4. Are the Best Actress and Supporting Actor Fields Locked Down?
Despite announcing back-to-back (thus avoiding the "you're copying me" argument), the Best Actress fields and the Best Supporting Actor fields were identical between the Globes and the SAG Awards, causing a lot of press to believe that this might be the same lineup for Oscar. While there are still names floating around the awards season (Amy Adams is very formidable, particularly if she's going to win for Big Eyes at the Globes, and Tom Wilkinson could score with the right sort of push for Selma), these ten actors have to be feeling very strongly about their eventual chances at the Dolby.
Which of the five women nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical is actually going to win? None of them get off scott-free here. You have Adams (who just won last year), Emily Blunt (who is overshadowed by Meryl Streep and is more of a "default" nominee than anything else here), Julianne Moore (almost certain to win over in Drama-spread the wealth!), Helen Mirren (who is nominated for a film no one remembers, and mostly just because she's Helen Mirren), and Quvenzhane Wallis (whose film Annie got two surprise nominations despite no one knowing much about it and, in Wallis's case, her costar Cameron Diaz being more Globe-beloved). A victory for either Adams or Blunt could mean big things for their chances with AMPAS, though I honestly don't have a clue who wins this at the end of the day. Like the 2010 Best Actor in a Comedy lineup, this looks like a lot of nominees but no winner.
6. The Best Director Lineup is Really Distinctive
Say what you will about the films they made, but Ava DuVernay, Richard Linklater, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Wes Anderson, and David Fincher are a very vision-oriented group of filmmakers. The Globes resisted the celebrity baubles (Eastwood, Jolie) or the default newcomers (Tyldum, Marsh) and came up with what may be the strongest Best Director lineup we see this season.
The Hunger Games series officially went 3 for 3 in the Best Original Song race, getting nominated for Lorde's song in the film. This follows nominations for Taylor Swift and Coldplay in the past installments. The weird thing about this isn't that pop stars keep receiving nominations at the Globes (they always go for the big names), it's that none of them have been nominated by AMPAS (and neither has the astronomically profitable series in any other category). While the Globes and the Oscars jive least in the music categories, this still feels a bit odd that at least one of these nominations hasn't turned into a citation.
8. Gone Girl has a Mixed Bag Sort of Day
By most accounts Gone Girl had a superb morning-four nominations, including for Director and leading lady Rosamund Pike definitely keeps the film in the game. However, considering those four nominations and the massive Box Office surrounding the film, you have to wonder what it was that kept the David Fincher film from ousting Foxcatcher (which had another great day, and is now a much stronger contender for one of the 6-10 slot Best Picture nominations) in the Best Drama field. It was clearly well-liked, so why not make the plunge and give it a shot at the big one?
9. What is the Globes' Problem with Melissa McCarthy?Seriously! McCarthy was Oscar-nominated for her work in a Globes Best Picture nominee (Bridesmaids), has amassed three Emmy nods and a win for a hit TV series (Mike & Molly), was in a major comedy hit with a Globe winner (The Heat), and now is starring in yet another Best Picture nominee (St. Vincent) but lost her nomination to Julianne Moore for a film that literally only critics and French film festival audiences have seen. Does Maps to the Stars even exist, or is it like Frankie and Alice a few years back with Halle Berry and come 2017 it'll play in art houses for like a week? Either way, McCarthy clearly is not the HFPA's cup of tea.
10. Whither Julia Roberts?
One of the weirdest snubs of the morning happened in television with one of the country's biggest movie stars. Julia Roberts, who basically just made The Normal Heart so that she could get the Emmy in her EGOT, lost that to Kathy Bates, and now has to suffer the sting of not even getting a Globe nomination for the work. $20 says she randomly wins at the SAG Awards and doesn't even show up to pick it up because she doesn't want to risk losing in public again.
And those are my thoughts on the Globes this afternoon-what about you? What are you jumping for joy for or reaching for the bottle? And who do you think will win? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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