“This is one of those weird years. I think the Globes does everything to muddy the picture and nothing to clear it up,” said Pete Hammond, veteran Oscar watcher and critic.
Also competing for best film drama at January’s Golden Globes will be The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, about a man who ages backward, Frost/Nixon, which recounts the interviews of former U.S. president Richard Nixon by British TV host David Frost and Slumdog Millionaire, the tale of an Indian boy competing for love and money on a TV game show.
The Golden Globe Awards, given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in January, are a major awards show, and the media spotlight they bring can give films momentum in the race for Oscars, which are given out in February by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In the 2003-2004 award season, for instance, The Lord Of the Rings: The Return Of The King came out of the Golden Globe awards with four wins, including best film drama and went on to win 11 Oscars, including best film.
But none of this year’s top movie contenders seems to have the strong base of voters needed to bolster an Oscar campaign, said David Poland, founder of a blog site.
“What we are seeing this year, in general, is that there is not a huge amount of passion about any of these movies. The LA and New York critics are going in different directions and the Globes have gone in an odder direction,” he said.
Indeed, critics group The National Board of Review recently named Slumdog Millionaire as its top film and earlier this week the New York Film Critics Circle picked Milk.
Recently, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association gave its best movie honour to animated Wall-E, a choice that LAFCA president Lael Lowenstein called “unusual” for the group. The Oscar race’s next tips come on December 18, when the Screen Actors Guild names nominees for top film roles.
For their part, Golden Globe voters had one big surprise in acting categories – the absence of Cate Blanchett from the race for best dramatic actress in Benjamin Button.
Kate Blanchett’s absence was among the biggest snubs of the nonimations. Competing for best actress in a film drama will be veteran Meryl Streep for Doubt, Angelina Jolie in Changeling, Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road, Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married and Kristin Scott Thomas for French movie, I’ve Loved You So Long.
As with the wide open race for best actress, nominees for best dramatic actor are all top performers and will fight a close battle for the Globe, pundits said. They include Sean Penn in Milk, Leonardo DiCaprio for Revolutionary Road, Brad Pitt in Benjamin Button, Frank Langella for Frost/Nixon and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler.
