Before we get to the final "happy thoughts" Team Experience Globe Reaction finale, I thought I'd ask our contributors and friends of the site questions about the Golden Globe fates of Vice (nomination leader), First Man (2 nominations, Score and Supporting Actress), and Widows (entirely shut out). It's easy to theorize about what's happening with all three of those movies, and theorizing is fun. So let's begin:
1. Why do you think Vice led the nominations?
DEBORAH LIPP: Hating Dick Cheney is a cathartic substitute for hating Donald Trump. I support this.
GUY LODGE (VARIETY): Because it's the newest thing out and, crucially, because it hasn't been reviewed yet -- its on-paper prestige is still undented...
CHRIS FEIL: A number of factors seem to be at play here: recency bias, comedy placement, movie stars. Or there is always the most obvious answer: they just actually liked it that much.
ALFRED SOTO (THE SINGLES JUKEBOX): Hollywood enjoys nothing so much as to laugh at goon show approximations of evil men and women, then defend their embrace of these approximations as an example of their liberalism, i.e. "These are complicated people." No, they're fucking not! Dick Cheney is an evil man who should be jailed. Perhaps if Vice had been an all-out farce like The Producers it would've conjured the proper distance.
MATTHEW RETTENMUND (BOY CULTURE): I think it's a case of the uncanny-impersonation factor, but it's as galling as when that damned Margaret Thatcher movie won Streep an Oscar. I have no desire to see movies about these still-living creeps.
JORGE MOLINA: Plain and simple star-fuckery.
BEN MILLER: People love to retroactively look at how we got to Trump, and nothing does that better than focusing on the shitshow that was the Bush-Cheney administration. Plus, it's fun.
2. Why are First Man and Widows struggling to connect with awards voters?
NICK DAVIS: Because NASA has virtually no connection to the current American zeitgeist, and because Widows, which raises some issues almost too close for comfort to the current American zeitgeist, does so in such uneven and violent ways. That's why they're not hits with audiences or with awards groups, I think.
SPENCER COILE: I wonder if “hype” built up expectations for mainstream audiences too much? Which really is a shame, considering how accessible the films are.
LYNN LEE: First Man, like its subject, is a deeply introverted movie with a core of unexpressed sorrow that's only interrupted - not relieved - by periodic brushes with the sublime and the terrifying. There's no pandering to to rah-rah patriotism, and no real catharsis, which is not what most audiences either expect or want from a space exploration movie. (For the record, it's one of *my* favorite films of the year.)
BEN MILLER: Chazelle overload is my best bet for First Man struggles. People don't want to crown him the best director of his generation too soon, so they want to knock him down a peg.
MATTHEW RETTENMUND: I think nominating forces are not really equipped to deal with action and thriller (and horror) movies with sensational dramatic performances, so that is hampering Viola and it hurt Toni. "First Man," I think, is because we've had these feel-good NASA stories forever and at this point we're all ready to plant a flag in them and fly home.
DANCIN' DAN: I DON'T KNOW WILL SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN IT TO ME WHILE I DROWN MY SORROWS IN THIS TUB OF BEN & JERRY'S.
CHRIS FEIL: It baffles me that Widows has been dubbed as "boring" by the public - First Man has as well, and I can't necessarily say I disagree. One imagines First Man will still do just fine once crafts guilds have their say, but I worry for Widows if it misses out on SAG noms next week...