Awards and Award Season: Golden Globes 2009

Most people usually see the Golden Globes as the pre-cursors and foreshadowers of the Academy Awards, but there’s one big difference: Best Picture is divided into Drama and Musical/Comedy. This allows for a lot of variety, plus two winners in each of the biggest categories: Picture, Actor, and Actress. The Director, Screenplay, and Supporting Actor/Actress awards are lumped together, so it becomes a bit more prophetic of the Oscar race than the others (for example, the winners of Best Actor were Sean Penn (the eventual winner) and..ahem…Colin Farrell). This year’s three front-runners for Best Picture-Drama (and the coveted Best Picture Oscar) are Up in the Air (likely for Screenplay), The Hurt Locker (likely for Director, unless the “King of the World” has any say about it) and Precious (which is more actor-driven than production), with blockbusters Avatar and Inglourious Basterds weak competition. The Best Picture-Musical or Comedy section has the same variety: indie darling (see my piece on the Spirit Awards) vs. big-budget musical (the most viable candidate) vs. silly comedies (The Hangover? way to defy expectations, you snooty critics). Here’s the full list: http://www.goldenglobes.org/nominations/

We're Best Picture nominees...who'da thunk it?!

This year’s Golden Globes race has three, count ‘em three, actors with two nominations: Matt Damon, Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock. Last year Kate Winslet was in the same boat and went home with both statuettes, so I’m apt to think the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (the governing body over the Globes) will want to reward each of the two-timers with at least one award apiece. Matt Damon is a good bet for the Best Actor-Musical or Comedy prize as the delusional whistle-blower in The Informant!, partly because he has no chance in the Supporting Actor contest against Christoph Waltz as the villain of the year in Inglourious Basterds (then again, neither do the other guys), and partly because his only real competition is Daniel Day-Lewis in Nine (although I’ll be cheering for Joseph Gordon-Levitt as usual), and that’s only because Day-Lewis is Day-Lewis. Streep is against herself in the Best Actress-Musical or Comedy category, and her chameleonic performance in Julie & Julia has better odds than the lead in Nancy Meyers’s latest middle-age madcap It’s Complicated. Bullock has the tough sell: the nomination for The Proposal is a gift pure and simple (Meryl Streep overshadows all other actresses), and her career-best part as a Southern charity-case in The Blind Side has a tough job against favorite Carey Mulligan in An Education and “Precious” herself, but I still think she’ll come away with the trophy. The Best Actor-Drama category is neck-and-neck; everyone but Tobey Maguire has a chance, but since Invictus and A Single Man are both missing from the Best Picture roster, I’m guessing Clooney will ride the high praise for both him, his film and his co-stars to the top. The choices for Supporting Actress  may also yield a win for Up in the Air, but if Precious falls short in the Picture and Actress categories, the judges may make up for it with a win for Mo’Nique. Let me know what you think!

Best Motion Picture-Drama

• Pick: The Hurt Locker
• Predict: Up in the Air

Best Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy

• Pick: (500) Days of Summer
• Predict: Nine

Best Performances-Drama

• Pick: George Clooney, Up in the Air
• Carey Mulligan, An Education
• Predict: George Clooney, Up in the Air
• Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Best Performances-Musical 0r Comedy

• Pick: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer
• Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
• Predict: Matt Damon, The Informant!
• Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

Best Supporting Performances

• Pick: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
• Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
• Predict: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
• Mo’Nique, Precious

Best Director

• Pick: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
• Predict: James Cameron, Avatar

Best Screenplay

• Pick: Up in the Air
• Predict: Up in the Air

Best Animated Feature Film

• Pick: Coraline
• Predict: Up

Best Foreign Language Film

• Pick: Broken Embraces
• Predict: The White Ribbon