Don’t forget to enter our contest. Chances are, you’re going to be better at this than I am.
Nominations for the Golden Globes will be announced tomorrow morning at 5:20am California time, or 8:20am Eastern.
In their own way, slowly but surely, the Golden Globes have become an event onto themselves. Sure, they’ll never have the prestige an Oscar has – but bit by bit having won a Golden Globe can seem like a big deal. The Oscar voters are around 6,000 industry people while the HFPA are about 90 to 100 “foreign journalists.” They are the biggest bite of publicity a contender can take en route to Oscar and can either help or hurt a presumed winner, depending on their speech. No pressure.
But really, when you drill down to this, and to the Oscars, we’re talking about a pomp and circumstance ceremony not unlike high school Homecoming. The only thing missing, other than the football game, is the solo dance between the king and the queen. It’s going to be even worse this year because it’s going to be all about Brad and Angelina, with Jennifer Aniston as their fifth business.
If you want to play the Oscar game you have to spend time with these people – you have to cozy up to them real good so that they like you. Their choices aren’t bad but they definitely reward those who show up, let them take lots of photos — mingle and hobnob because you know, if you get close enough maybe, just maybe, you can breathe in that rarified air and feel part of something special. You aren’t a celebrity but celebrities shore are nice to you because they need your vote. It’s a lot of, as Hannibal would call it, tedious sticky fumbling in the backseats of cars.
Other than the fact that David Fincher’s brilliant satire isn’t their “thang,” the Gone Girl team did not cozy up to them – no parties, no “access, so – a film that wasn’t really a Globes film is likely going to miss out on the Biggest Party of the Year. You can make your predictions on these basic assumptions:
1) They like big stars to attend their show – Angelina and Brad, Bradley and Amy, you get the picture.
2) They love Meryl Streep
3) If you give them access, they’ll give you votes
They also will usually stick with the most buzzed “awards movies” of the year — that means your basics are in.
If I could I would press fast-forward over all of this — but everyone involved knows that the ratings are going to be huge because of this drama unfolding. While Boyhood will likely win Best Picture this year (it’s been Boyhood since Telluride), it might not win the Globe – too many weird factors in play there, like how much time the cast and director spent with the HFPA, like whether the film is a weepy or not. I could see Unbroken taking the thing, honestly.
But that’s a long way off. We still have to get to the nominations,and they’re coming tomorrow at the crack of dawn.
You can find my predictions and lots of others over at Gold Derby. But I’d actually like to hear your predictions. How do you think it’s going to go?