Oscars 2015: Golden Globe Nominations
And now the Globe nominations.
These are always fun, because they’re from the Hollywood Foreign Press, a group that does not vote for the Oscars at all, and yet we put so much stock into them. Not to mention, the Hollywood Foreign Press are such starfuckers. You know they’re gonna nominate people just so they show up.
Though this will help us make a little sense of the coming season. So let’s see what they’ve got for us this year.
Here are the nominees:
Best Picture – Drama
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight
No surprise here. Not a whole lot to say about this. Yes, these are five movies generally regarded as very good by a lot of people. I can’t call anything a snub here, because if they liked these five, there are no snubs. These are what they liked.
Best Picture – Musical/Comedy
The Big Short
Joy
The Martian
Spy
Trainwreck
The Big Short is coming on strong, that’s something to note. Joy and The Martian of course were gonna be here. I wonder if Hateful Eight was deliberately left off because it’s not a comedy or because they actually didn’t like it. Because Spy and Trainwreck are comedies. These categories are always so compromised because the studios elect where to put the films and not, you know, the genre.
Best Director
Todd Haynes, Carol
Alejandro G. Inarritu, The Revenant
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Ridley Scott, The Martian
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
This makes sense. Carol and Spotlight are the classy dramas that get these kinds of nominations even if the direction isn’t showy, and the other three make total sense. Again, nothing I can really call a snub here. This is what they like.
Best Actor – Drama
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
Will Smith, Concussion
2 for 2 on Cranston. Hilarious they considered that a drama and not a comedy. Now I have empirical evidence to say it’s probably safer to include him than to not include him. Still wanna see where BAFTA and BFCA go first, though.
DiCaprio, Fassbender and Redmayne are basically locks.
Will Smith is your classic Globe nomination. Curious they went with him over Depp. Probably because Depp always shows up high to these things and Smith will actually charm them. Plus, all things being equal, this is the first time they could nominate him in almost ten years.
It’s too early to make judgments, but we all know at least 3 of the Best Actor nominees, in all likelihood, and Cranston’s looking like a pretty solid fourth. Which leaves that last spot still open for someone to jump in.
Best Actor – Musical/Comedy
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Steve Carell, The Big Short
Matt Damon, The Martian
Al Pacino, Danny Collins
Mark Ruffalo, Infinitely Polar Bear
The Pacino nomination is hilarious. Good for him. Ruffalo’s movie isn’t a comedy at all. Damon, of course. He’s looking like your probable fifth nominee. Bale and Carell aren’t really leads. That’s a legit ensemble movie. But sure. I need to see BFCA, BAFTA or PGA go for The Big Short to truly believe in it. But now, it’s trending upward.
Best Actress – Drama
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Rooney Mara, Carol
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Vikander and Mara hinge on whether or not the Academy considers them leads. They’re more likely to get on as Supporting, but lead also does have spots open. The other three are locked. So their category placement changes one of the two. If they go Supporting, then Jennifer Lawrence likely gets on lead. Still leaves one spot open. Hard to make anything of this now until we know what the Academy is doing.
Best Actress – Musical/Comedy
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Melissa McCarthy, Spy
Amy Schumer, Trainwreck
Maggie Smith, The Lady in the Van
Lily Tomlin, Grandma
No Meryl. That’s refreshing. Nice to see Smith (who always gets nominated) and Tomlin on there. Schumer and McCarthy were guaranteed to get on once their films were nominated. These all make sense.
Best Supporting Actor
Paul Dano, Love & Mercy
Idris Elba, Beats of No Nation
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Michael Shannon, 99 Homes
Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Elba, Rylance and Shannon have hit 2 for 2. Shannon is looking solid for a nomination. Stallone finally hits. Dano finally hits. Still no Sicario love anywhere. Just like Prisoners. Maybe we won’t get Benicio on after all. And Bale was considered Supporting by SAG, so that’s the other difference between the two. Still no Spotlight nominations. Interesting they like it enough to give it Picture and Director but not acting nominations. Also no Jacob Tremblay here either. Which makes sense.
Best Supporting Actress
Jane Fonda, Youth
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Helen Mirren, Trumbo
Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
There’s Jennifer Jason Leigh. That was an almost certainty. Winslet hits again. Mirren hits again, though that doesn’t mean a whole lot. They love her here too. That’s one of those, like with Hitchcock, when she hit SAG and the Globes and missed the Oscars. It’s the exact same type of performance. I’m still feeling like she doesn’t get on unless they really don’t think they have anybody. Vikander getting both assures her of a nomination, it’s just a matter of where for The Danish Girl. And Fonda finally hits, keeping her hope alive for the nomination.
Best Screenplay
The Big Short
The Hateful Eight
Room
Spotlight
Steve Jobs
Yeah, these all make sense. But they blend Original and Adapted, so this means little to me outside of it being a visually pleasing category.
Best Original Score
Carol
The Danish Girl
The Hateful Eight
The Revenant
Steve Jobs
Sure. Morricone gets on for Hateful Eight. I still haven’t listened to any scores, so I can’t speak about this yet.
Best Original Song
“Love Me Like You Do,” from Fifty Shades of Grey
“One Kind of Love,” from Love & Mercy
“See You Again,” from Furious 7
“Simple Song #3,” from Youth
“Writing’s on the Wall,” from Spectre
Okay.
Best Animated Feature
Anomalisa
The Good Dinosaur
Inside Out
The Peanuts Movie
Shaun the Sheep Movie
This is your Oscar category. Been saying that from the minute they announced the eligibles.
Best Foreign Language Film
The Brand New Testament
The Club
The Fencer
Mustang
Son of Saul
Can’t say much without seeing a shortlist. But Son of Saul and Mustang look strong.
– – – – – – – – – –
Best TV Series – Drama
Empire
Game of Thrones
Mr. Robot
Narcos
Outlander
Mr. Robot is the cool show du jour. Otherwise, mostly new stuff here. That’s refreshing.
Best TV Series – Comedy/Musical
Casual
Mozart in the Jungle
Orange Is the New Black
Silicon Valley
Transparent
Veep
Okay.
Best Miniseries or TV Movie
American Crime
American Horror Story
Fargo
Flesh and Bone
Wolf Hall
Fargo is even better this season.
Best Actor – Drama Series
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Rami Malek, Mr. Robot
Wagner Moura, Narcos
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan
Yup.
Best Actor – Comedy Series
Aziz Ansari, Master of None
Gael Garcia Bernal, Mozart in the Jungle
Rob Lowe, The Grinder
Patrick Stewart, Blunt Talk
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent
Wonder who’s gonna win this.
Best Actress – Drama
Caitriona Balfe, Outlander
Viola Davis, How to Get Away with Murder
Eva Green, Penny Dreadful
Taraji P. Henson, Empire
Robin Wright, House of Cards
Cool, cool.
Best Actress – Comedy/Musical
Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Jamie Lee Curtis, Scream Queens
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin
Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie
New stuff on here.
Best Actor – Miniseries or TV Movie
Idris Elba, Luther
Oscar Isaac, Show Me a Hero
David Oyelowo, Nightingale
Mark Rylance, Wolf Hall
Patrick Wilson, Fargo
Nice set of actors on here.
Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie
Kirsten Dunst, Fargo
Lady Gaga, American Horror Story: Hotel
Sarah Hay, Flesh and Bone
Felicity Huffman, American Crime
Queen Latifah, Bessie
Dunst should win.
Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries, TV Movie
Alan Cumming, The Good Wife
Damian Lewis, Wolf Hall
Ben Mendelsohn, Bloodline
Tobias Menzies, Outlander
Christian Slater, Mr. Robot
Okay.
Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries, TV Movie
Uzo Aduba, Orange Is the New Black
Joanne Froggatt, Downton Abbey
Regina King, American Crime
Judith Light, Transparent
Maura Tierney, The Affair
And we’re done. TV still means nothing to me.
– – – – – – – – – –
So yeah, these are respectable. More stuff to take into account for next month. Feels too early to announce these. But this is what we’ve got. Now let’s get some of these shortlists going over the next ten days.
A solid set of nominees, though the lack of acting nominations for Spotlight does intrigue me. Voters recognize it in the top awards, but SAG not wanting to nominate its male performances and the HFPA not nominating anyone at all at the Golden Globes kind of suggests a lesser and maybe even dwindling love for what has been considered “the Oscar frontrunner for Best Picture”.
No love for Sicario anywhere? Not even a Best Original Score nod for Jóhann Jóhannsson? (Given that even the Spotlight men couldn’t get nominated, I’m not as surprised that Benicio Del Toro couldn’t either.) That’s a damn shame, considering that it’s my favorite film of 2015 so far, but it does make sense.
Time to rant about something that doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever.
The total absence of “Feels Like Summer” from Shaun The Sheep in any Best Original Song category thus far utterly breaks my heart. That song, to me, was the best original film song of 2015 by far, not just because of its composition and clever songwriting, but most especially because of the song’s thematic relevance and importance within the film for which it was written. It’s not just some ditty that some studio hacks (e.g. “See You Again”, “Love Me Like You Do” or more appropriately, “Fuck Me Like You Do”), a bored/boring popular artist (e.g. “See You Again”, “Love Me Like You Do”, and even “Writing’s On The Wall”—already an all-time bottom five Bond theme song for me due to its complete lack of non-piano percussion, some forced rhymes, and a technically-perfect-but-emotionally-tedious performance by Sam Smith), and/or an earnest but uninteresting singer-songwriter with nothing but a guitar or a piano (other than Brian Wilson, who remains awesome and is the reason why “One Kind Of Love” is a solid nominee) wrote for just the opening/closing titles and barely anywhere else.
No, compared to those types of modern movie songs, “Feels Like Summer” is a true collaboration between the film’s composer, an outside composer, and the storytellers and filmmakers that desired for it to play a key role in Shaun The Sheep. It’s played during the opening titles, the credits, and more than twice within the body of the film. And even after all of that…the song both sounds gorgeous and is extremely fun and memorable.
I get that the HFPA are starfuckers, but why does every awards group have to be starfuckers for their Best Original Song categories nowadays? There are actually good film songs out there, and they’re missing out by not nominating any of them. That’s the most unfortunate aspect of it all.
“Feels Like Summer” from Shaun The Sheep deserves a Best Original Song nomination. It deserves a Best Original Song nomination just as much as Inside Out deserves nominations for Best Original Screenplay and even Best Original Score (if possible). I don’t care if “Feels Like Summer” wins or not at this point; I’m just praying for it to get the nomination.
December 10, 2015 at 12:12 pm