by Christopher James
If the awards season were members of your family at the Thanksgiving table, the Golden Globes would be your delightfully kooky Great Aunt. She always brings a bottle of great wine, wears loud colored clothes and tells stories of the scandals of distant family members of generations ago. She'll always manage to surprise you in new, yet similar ways.
What would the Golden Globes be without their penchant for movie stars, musicals with extra glitter and star vehicles that may or may not exist? More than anything, the Golden Globes love to surprise. In honor (and in some cases dishonor) of this weeks’ nominations, let's rank the 10 Goofiest Golden Globe nominations of the past two decades.
Please note: This does not mean 10 worst nods. These are just the 10 that were the most head-scratching based on the season they happened in...
Kate Winslet received pies and a Golden Globe nomination (but little else) for her work in "Labor Day."Kate Winslet - Labor Day (2013)
In order to write this blurb, I rewatched the trailer for Labor Day and I highly recommend everyone else follow suit. A year in advance, this felt like Winslet’s next ticket to an Oscar nomination. However, with each new still, trailer and clip, it became crystal clear that Labor Day would be a mess. Before even opening, Winslet nabbed a Best Actress nomination in a stacked Drama lineup. Once the film was released in January, critics and audiences were in agreement. It was bad news for Labor Day, aka Kate Winslet’s journey in sensual pie making.
Before she was Emily in Paris, Lily Collins was Marla in Hollywood in "Rules Don't Apply."Lily Collins - Rules Don’t Apply (2016)
This isn’t Emily in Paris’ first rodeo. The Globes first honored Lily Collins for her role in the infamous bomb Rules Don’t Apply. Collins played Marla Mabrey, a religious actress who is caught in a love triangle between Howard Hughes and his driver. Try ignoring the 52 year age gap between Collins and Warren Beatty’s Howard Hughes. We know the HFPA loves their movie stars, but it’s unclear why they went for Collins instead of Beatty in his far-from-triumphant return to screen. Maybe the rules really don’t apply.
The only people asking "Where'd You Go, Bernadette?" were Hollywood Foreign Press members.Cate Blanchett - Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2019)
Cate Blanchett is perfect, her movies are not. In Richard Linklater’s adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name, Blanchett plays an eccentric Seattle mother who drops off the grid to go on an adventure. It turns out, the best place Blanchett’s Bernadette could’ve hid was in any of the empty movie theaters in August 2019. The movie flopped and quickly left theaters. Only the Globes remembered Blanchett and her unplaceable accent in Where’d You Go, Bernadette.
Yes, Tropic Thunder had Oscar buzz. Robert Downey Jr. was nominated at the Golden Globes on his way to an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. However, who knew the Globes' love for the film would extend to Tom Cruise’s surprise cameo-esque role as deranged studio mogul Les Grossman? Cruise hams it up in a fat suit throughout the film and is terrific fun. Yet, he was far from the awards conversation throughout the year. This nomination also happened in the supporting category where drama and comedy compete against one another, so the competition is usually pretty fierce. Lastly, if the Globes loved the movie enough to nominate Cruise alongside Downey Jr., it’s wild that Tropic Thunder didn’t make it into any of the categories where Musical/Comedy are separated from Drama, including Best Picture.
Jonah Hill found his way into the Comedy/Musical race for "War Dogs" in 2016.6. Jonah Hill - War Dogs (2016)
The Golden Globes are my favorite voting group. That’s simply because the Golden Globes are essentially a random poll of anyone over 70 at an art house theater at 2pm on a Sunday. So why have my beloved Landmark wine Goddesses chosen Jonah Hill in a film called War Dogs. According to reputable sources such as IMDB, Wikipedia and my few straight male friends, the movie is about guns. Sure, at this point Hill had two Oscar nominations under his belt. However, the Globes didn’t go for him for The Wolf of Wall Street, so why did they catch up to him here?
"And they're in Yemen" - Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell in one of my favorite Golden Globes bits of all time.5. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012)
It’s no secret that the Globes prefer musicals over comedies in the Comedy/Musical field. What isn’t talked about enough is how much they enjoy a “pleasant movie.” These movies are neither funny, nor dramatic and certainly not musical. They hum along, make you smile and sometimes lull you to sleep. The HFPA loves a good pleasant movie. There’s no better way to describe Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. The genial romance opened in March of 2012, barely causing a peep from critics or audiences. When it showed up nine months later with Best Picture, Actor (Ewan McGregor) and Actress (Emily Blunt) nominations, pundits were shocked. However, we should never doubt the Globes’ love for Emily Blunt or quiet little romances.
"Infinitely Polar Bear" received strong reviews out of Sundance and had a small theatrical run in summer. 4. Mark Ruffalo - Infinitely Polar Bear (2015)
I’m not 1,000% sure I got the title right and will never feel confident about it. The film stars Mark Ruffalo as a Father struggling with bipolar disorder who attempts to win his wife back. The Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominee received strong reviews and decent indie box office in the summer of 2015. However, people had forgotten the movie by the time awards season began. The few small groups who remembered it (Black Reel Awards, NAACP Image Awards and Women’s Image Network Awards) all singled out Zoe Saldana. Ruffalo was far out of the conversation, even among indie circles. The Globes don’t often go for Sundance movies at the same rate that Oscar does. That’s what made this nomination so strange.
Despite competing in 2010 "Frankie & Alice" was not released until 20143. Halle Berry - Frankie & Alice (2010)
Has Frankie & Alice been released yet? On paper, the film seemed like a strong awards play for Halle Berry. Based on a true story, Berry played Frankie, a go-go dancer in 1970s LA who suffers from dissociative identity disorder. In practice, the film had a long road to release. Filmed in 2008, it was given an awards qualifying run in December 2010, which is when the Globes nominated the film. If you did not catch the film during that one week in LA, you were out of luck. The film wasn’t given a proper release to the public until April 2014, four years after Berry’s nomination. Any buzz the film once had long dissipated by that time. The movie failed to even crack $1 million at the box office.
The amount of searches for "Kate Hudson in Music" must've spiked at 5:30am PST on Wednesday morning when the Golden Globe nominations were announced.2. Music (2020)
Few people had heard about Music, written and directed by Sia, before Golden Globe nominations were announced on Wednesday. The few that were aware of the film were not happy about it. Featuring 10 original songs, the movie tells the story of a recovering drug addict (Golden Globe Nominee Kate Hudson) who becomes the sole guardian of her autistic half-sister, Music (Maddie Ziegler). Currently, the film holds a sub-30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. No one had on their 2021 bingo card that a bald Kate Hudson would get nominated for a movie directed by Sia where she plays a character named Zu. Once you get past the goofiness of the Music nominations, it just makes you mad. The film has faced multiple controversies around casting a neurotypical actor (Maddie Ziegler) for the role of an autistic child, a scene where restraint is used on an autistic character and Sia’s own response to the criticism. We know the HFPA loves musicals...but at what cost?
Of course we have to talk about "The Tourist."1. All Choices in 2010 Other Than The Kids Are All Right
I admire the HFPA for absolutely going for it in 2010. Every choice in the Comedy/Musical section, outside of eventual Best Picture nominee The Kids Are All Right, leaves one scratching their head. Let’s start with Best Picture:
- Alice in Wonderland: I guess a billion dollars will buy you a Best Picture nomination at the Globes. Especially with 11 years distance, it’s hard to think of an uglier mainstream blockbuster. The reviews also weren’t kind to it at the time, but Depp’s Mad Hatter became a cultural (and gift shop) mainstay. Aren’t we all happy to be out of that time?
- Burlesque: Easily the second best nominee in the category, and not just because I will gladly vote for any movie that has Cher say “wagon wheel watoosie.” The HFPA has never met a musical they haven’t loved, so its inclusion makes sense here. If we learned anything from Burlesque, the sky's the limits, especially if you have the air rights.
- Red: Pardon me, what? The action-comedy earned decent reviews and strong box office. Yet, the Globes don’t often look at action movies. Yes, they are eternally devoted to Dame Helen Mirren. Yet, they didn’t even bother to nominate Mirren for Actress, and they’ll nominate her for anything, even if the movie doesn’t exist.
- The Tourist: The Johnny Depp-Angelina Jolie romantic-thriller bomb was already a punchline before it earned three Globe nominations. I have so many questions. How? Did they watch the movie? How can a movie be a comedy when it has zero attempts at jokes? How can a movie be considered a musical if there are no songs? It takes great talent to make movie stars like Depp and Jolie look so wooden and uncomfortable. No matter which way you squint your eyes, The Tourist is a Razzie-level movie that somehow was a huge hit with HFPA. Anyways, I hope the bribe was good.
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The acting categories repeat many of the same offenses we saw in Best Picture. Depp gets nominated twice, something that had aged poorly the minute it was uttered on nomination morning. Jolie isn’t the only big name that gets roped in for an invite. Love & Other Drugs co-stars Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal make the cut for their charming, nudity-filled This Had Oscar Buzz type movie. Yet, one of the most perplexing nominees is easily Kevin Spacey for something called Casino Jack. No part of me wants to Google “Kevin Spacey Casino Jack.”
Helen Mirren surprised everyone and no one at the same time when she earned a nomination for "The Leisure Seeker."While far from shocking, we also need to give a special Cecil B. DeMille Award to the goofiest string of Golden Globe nominations to Dames Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith. Some people say the HFPA will nominate Meryl Streep for anything, and they (almost) will. Still, all of Meryl’s Globe nominations were plausible and had some degree of Oscar buzz. If we were to name the HFPA’s favorite actors, it would undoubtedly be a neck-and-neck race between Dames Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith. Obviously both actresses have done incredible work in the past twenty years, even earning a couple Oscar nominations a piece. However, the Globes will truly nominate them for anything and everything.
For Helen Mirren, the Globes have bolstered her chances for performances that came close to Oscar, like Hitchcock (2012) and Trumbo (2015). However, few were expecting The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) or Calendar Girls (2003) to show up at other award shows. In fact, no one even knew who or what The Leisure Seeker (2017) was until it randomly appeared in 2018. Sidenote: who classifies an Alzehimer’s road trip as a “Comedy/Musical?” Only the Globes!
The same could be said about Maggie Smith, who notoriously will not show up no matter how many times you nominate her. A Globes nomination for The Lady in the Van (2015) makes sense as she was in the hunt for an Oscar that year. However, as legendary presenting duo Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig noted, no one knows about Quartet (2012).
What are the strangest or goofiest Golden Globe nominations you remember from the millennium? Let us know in the comments below.