Does Box Office Affect The Golden Globe Wins?

Amir here, with something vaguely resembling the weekend’s box office report. You're surely more interested in the Golden Globes this weekend than how many tickets Lone Survivor sold (it's winning the weekend - did you see it?) or whether Frozen is now on course for two gajillion dollars (why, yes, it is), so let’s have a look at how the Globe nominees have fared at the box office and whether or not that matters to HFPA voters historically. All that plus my Globe predictions after the jump...

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Golden Globe Predix? This Post Will Disintegrate In Five Hours

Wanna know something funny? I had totally forgotten who won the Golden Globes last year. I mean, I thought "I'll illustrate this prediction post with a win from last year!" and then I thought. But who? Now I know mainstream media likes to joke that people forget who won the Oscar in which year almost instantaneously but I don't find this to be true of Oscar geeks. I never forget ... though an occassional nomination will surprise me by vanishing from my memory banks only to serve as humble pie later when a quiz or trivia situation crops up (Nick Nolte in Warrior? I curse you!)

So here is a photographic reminder of last year's winners in case you also forgot...

Last Year's Champs most of whom went on to Oscar & Emmy wins

Now back to the present tense.

Disclaimer: I am completely terrible at predicting the Golden Globes -- if you challenge me you will undoubtedly trounce me! -- but I absolutely love The Hollywood Foreign Press Association for this willful refusal to tow the line. Oh sure they sometimes will gladly use their televised moments to predict the Oscars or influence the Emmys but you never know when they might just go their own way for the helluva it ... which is why they're better than many of the more "serious" voting bodies (i.e., and quite sadly, most critics groups who seem hellbent on predicting Oscar 100% of the time though their mission statements should tell you'd they do otherwise)

100% accurate predictions after the jump...

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Podcast: Pre-Nom Party, Bring Your Own Dream Date

Confetti gun - it's the final pre-nomination podcast episode of the season with Nathaniel, Nick, Katey and Joe. This installment, recorded last week but airing now due to jammed schedules is not a "prediction" session. That would be rendered meaningless come Thursday morn. Instead we've opted for a rambling festive discussion of general Oscar feelings... all the feelings. This podcast is dedicated with love and fan-fic to Sharon Stone and Jessica Lange chief among many others*

00:01 Intro + Golden Globe prep
03:00 Imaginary couples via Charlize + Sean rumors
10:00 Supporting Actor plus James Franco
14:00 Actress Lockdown vs. Actor Free-For-All
19:00 Cinematography/Costumes: Gravity, Grandmaster, Her, The Invisible Woman, Great Gatsby and more...
24:30 Out of the Furnace tangent
26:00 Original Score: Hans Zimmer, Desplat, Newman, Arcade Fire
32:00 Foreign Finalists but why no Gloria? >sniffle<
36:00 Documentary: Blackfish & Tim's Vermeer hate, 20 Feet From Stardom love
46:00 Dream dates for red carpets
51:00 Bye-eeeeee

*you know how we do with the actresses

You can listen to the podcast right here at the bottom of the post or download the conversation on iTunes. 

P.S. Here's the skit that Joe refers to wherein Gwyneth Paltrow poked fun at Sharon Stone.

Pre Nom Party. Bring Your Own Dream Date

Interview: Sally Hawkins on Cate Blanchett, Woody Allen, and Godzilla

One of the most delightful surprises of the season was the Golden Globe Supporting Actress nomination for Sally Hawkins in Woody Allen's latest hit Blue Jasmine. While Cate Blanchett rages through the movie like a force of nature as Jasmine (née Jeanette) and has won dozens of prizes, Hawkins has the less showy but difficult task of keeping the movie grounded and the mood breezy while navigating her screen sister's stormiest weathers. Blue Jasmine, which comes to DVD and BluRay on January 21st, is yet another reminder, that Hawkins is one of the stealth MVPs of current cinema.

Sally and I had spoken once before (at length) during the Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) press tour and getting reacquainted was unusually good fun; I've rarely laughed so much during an interview. To give you a sense of the easy rapport and how delightful Sally is in person, I've included a little audio segment of my favorite bit of our conversation, when we were talking about her key directors: Woody Allen (2 films together) or Mike Leigh (3 films together) again. 

Nathaniel: So anyway… Blue Jasmine. When I first saw it I thought ‘this is good’ But then it just wouldn't leave my head. So it’s moved up in my estimation.

SALLY HAWKINS: Those films that sit and resonate with you, that you keep thinking about, are really interesting.

Do you experience that when you're reading a script? Or is that something you don’t discover until you’re on set. Like ‘oh, this one is going to be good.’ [more...]

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Interview: Asghar Farhadi on Globe Nominee "The Past"

Amir and Asghar Farhadi @ TIFFAmir here, to share with you my fantastic experience of interviewing the director of The Past, A Separation and About Elly. About a decade ago, when Asghar Farhadi made his first feature film after years of successful theatre and TV work, even the most optimistic fan of Iranian cinema could not imagine his stratospheric rise to International Auteur status in such a short span of time. It is heart-warming for an industry that has only gained international prominence in the past two decades to see one of its sons holding an Oscar statue. Farhadi’s popularity comes at a critical point for Iranian cinema, when festival presence is not as regular as it was in the nineties and several major filmmakers have had their careers stalled for political reasons.*

Farhadi's follow up to the Academy Award-winning classic A Separation, The Past will be representing Iran in the Best Foreign Film Oscar competition and was just nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. Farhadi's latest is a Paris-set melodrama starring two recognizable stars in The Artist's Berenice Bejo (Cannes Winner Best Actress) and Tahar Rahim as well as Iranian superstar Ali Mosaffa.** In the film, Bejo plays Marie, a French woman married to Ahmad (Mosaffa) who is in custody of their children after a breakup. When Ahmad receives a letter from his wife to return to Paris to finalize the divorce, he is confronted with Samir (Rahim), Marie’s new boyfriend, himself married with a son to a woman in a coma. And that’s just the beginning of the complications in this romantic triangle.

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