As is our habit we polled Team Film Experience and web friends on the Golden Globe nominations. This will come in two parts but we'll start with a cleanse by shaking off the bad feelings. We must bid a fond fist-shaking farewell to our favorites that the Globes shunned and reveal the nominations that confuse us.
We think you'll also enjoy the part where we choose which Best Director would best dramatize our moods while watching the nominations. Ready? Here goes...
1. Which omission most galls you?
MURTADA: Widows. Viola Davis for Widows. Elizabeth Debicki for Widows. Steve McQueen for Widows. It had many opportunities to get mentioned and zilch.
JASON ADAMS: Toni Collette and Carey Mulligan, the drinks are on me. [MORE AFTER THE JUMP...]
ERIC BLUME: No nod for Yorgos Lanthimos??? Do they really think the director of Shallow Hal and the director of The Other Guys is more talented than the guy who made The Lobster?
JORGE MOLINA: The Golden Globes will usually nominate anything that barely resembles a musical. They even nominated two explicitly musical films in the drama category this year! So the fact that they ignored Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, which would usually be such low-hanging fruit in that category, is beyond me. Even Cher's last film vehicle, Burlesque, got in on its year!
SEAN DONOVAN: Lily James is doing truly incredible work in Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again. Imagine being asked to embody a youthful Meryl Streep (already a herculean task), make free-flowing wanderlust and optimism convincing and even aspirational, have pitch-perfect romantic chemistry with three relatively green actors, and do it all while singing and dancing for an entire half of a sequel fueled by your own charisma? Forget Ally singing "Shallow"; the true star-is-born moment of 2018 belonged to Lily James. And with James soon to head to the stage with Gillian Anderson in All About Eve, an event sending my gay heart into fits of roaring jealousy, I feel like we are witnessing the beginning of a major new career. And the Golden Globes could have gotten in on the ground floor; what better place to honor James than Lead Actress in a Comedy/Musical?
PAOLO KAGAOAN: The lack of foreign language nominations in the acting department. No Steven Yeun? Boo.
ILICH MEJIA: I watched the entirety of Sharp Objects twice before learning Eliza Scanlen is Australian. Maybe her performance was so good that I never noticed any peeks of her Aussie or maybe her accent was that good, but either way she definitely would have charmed and disturbed a nomination out of me.
NICK DAVIS: This is structural, not film-specific, but the exclusion of non-English movies from the main Best Picture categories is so stupid as a policy, particularly when it implies that Bohemian Rhapsody is a better picture than Roma, which would otherwise very likely claim its spot.
2. Name a nominee YOU snubbed!
CHRIS FEIL: This "Roz Pike eyepatch movie" has already evaporated from theatres before I could even consider seeing it, and now these two (TWO!) nominations have me scrambling for how I'm supposed to see it. A very Private War, indeed. Also: WTF is The Kominsky Method??
ILICH MEJIA: I have been sending angry correspondence to Rosamund Pike's agent for about three years now for consistently encouraging her to do indistinguishable period pieces that go straight to VOD. So when A Private War came out I... watched A Star is Born again instead. Pike's talent deserves more attention and even though the HFPA isn't the best judge of character, I'm making myself check out War to see how it measures up next to her other post-Gone Girl duds.
SPENCER COILE: I have a feeling I’d like it, but I could not generate enough excitement to see At Eternity’s Gate when it was playing near me. Joke’s on me.
PAOLO KAGAOAN: Any television. I've been too busy with movies that I've forgotten that there's great work done on the small screen too.
LYNN LEE: Melissa McCarthy for Can You Ever Forgive Me. This year I seem to be semiconsciously avoiding movies I *know* are going to be downers. I don't need a movie to make me feel good - I just don't want it to make me feel rotten, since the world at large is already doing a bang-up job of that.
ERIC BLUME: Glenn Close in The Wife. It looked like a brutal trigonometry homework assignment to me, but I fear I must get to it?
JASON ADAMS: I find everyone's aggressive proselytizing about The Good Place off-putting, which is the world's lamest reason for not watching something, especially with so many people involved that I always enjoy.
MATTHEW RETTENMUND (BOY CULTURE): I haven't had any interest in seeing A Star Is Born. I've only heard good things, but it's all so calculated and mainstream, it does not appeal to me. Gaga sure picked the right year to try for an Oscar, though, with no duh-obvious contenders in her category who everyone believes must win.
GUY LODGE (VARIETY/THE GUARDIAN): I still haven't seen Mirai, and given that it looks like potentially the one indie outlier on this year's animated race, the guilt is strong.
3. Which nomination leaves you scratching your head OR wanting to scratch out your eyes?
GUY LODGE: Just one? Let's say Adam McKay's Best Director nod.
NICK DAVIS: Despite a promising start, I really think Girl adopts a shitty and sensationalist angle on a trans protagonist's experience. In my ideal universe, it would get lost, though I know others feel differently.
MURTADA: Green Book for screenplay. I understand being generous to the actors if the HFPA enjoyed the film. Even the director, but the the screenplay? It’s atrocious, full of cliches and false characterizations and should be held up as an example of how NOT to write a movie.
DEBORAH LIPP: Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is Born are musicals. THEY ARE MUSICALS. Aaaaaaaaaaah!
BEN MILLER: Adam Driver is probably the most talented character actor in his age bracket, but this is leading to the variety of thinkpieces about how the only Oscar acting nomination out of BlacKkKlansman is the white guy.
ERIC BLUME: Crazy Rich Asians up for best picture: it's inane pablum. An eye-scratching, not even a head-scratching, nomination.
4. Which director nominee would be best at capturing your personal reaction video to the Globe nominations?
CHRIS FEIL: Bradley Cooper, because I was alone in my HOUSE!!
SPENCER COILE: Bradley Cooper, because I, too, walked out of a bathroom stall and shouted into a mirror before going back to work.
MATTHEW RETTENMUND: I'll take Bradley Cooper, because I'm a non-actor and he's good with those.
GUY LODGE: Peter Farrelly, given that I watched the announcements in a state of bland indifference.
JASON ADAMS: Alfonso Cuaron proved himself capable of capturing the perfect "stepped in shit" reaction shot in Roma
DANCIN' DAN: I was on a New York City transit bus on my way to work when the nominations happened, so I'm thinking Alfonso Cuarón would be best able to work in that tight a space and capture the combination of slice-of-life drama and fantastical flights of fancy that made me almost miss my stop because I was so invested in what was happening.
JORGE MOLINA: Oh, I can see Alfonso Cuarón doing a long one-take of my emotional journey. It'll be me running in early 2000s Mexico City across window shops all lined-up with nominees. Black and white. No score. Just my gay gasps as sound design.
As ever you should answer these four questions, too, to continue the conversation!