Globe Nomination Announcement

The Globe Nominations were announced bright and early... I followed on CNN the only live stream that seemed to be working. They began with the credits for their 70th anniversary and a weird applause break (without initial applause) for Cecil B DeMille Tribute winner Jodie Foster. After that the first Mr Golden Globe was revealed (Sam Fox, son of the Michael J Foxes) along with our usual Miss Golden Globe (this time that's Francesca Eastwood, daughter of Clint & Francesca)

Megan Fox started us the announcements but Jessica Alba also joined in.

BEST SONG
For You -Act of Valor (Keith Urban)
Not Running Anymore - Stand Up Guys (Jon Bon Jovi)
Safe and Sound - The Hunger Games (Taylor Swift) *not eligible for Oscar consideration*
Skyfall - Skyfall (Adele)
Suddenly -Les Misérables (performed by Hugh Jackman)

Best Song is a tough category to predict for Oscar but Globes always go for the stars so they obviously want Adele, Taylor Swift and the rest to attend. They're tripling down to make sure Nicole Kidman and her man are there with 2 nominations for Nicki and one for Keith.

BEST SCORE
Life of Pi
Argo
Anna Karenina
Cloud Atlas
Lincoln 

Mychael Danna has never had any luck with Oscar but will Life of Pi change that? The music is pretty noticeable and that usually helps. I've noticed a lot of online fandom for the Cloud Atlas score. Is that merely a case of the score being such a central part of the plot and the main theme being repeated like crazy? And is it just me or is Alexandre Desplat's score for Argo actually the weakest of his 18 scores this year? I'd much prefer to have seen him nominated for Moonrise Kingdom , Zero Dark Thirty or Rust & Bone or one of the 13 others. Of this batch of nominees, I think it's safe to say that I'm all about Anna Karenina. 

SCREENPLAY
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Django Unchained
Argo 

The Globes don't differentiate between adapted and original and so their nominee list usually swings prestige which means adapted (for reasons I've never quite fathomed because original screenplays are where it's at baby, year in and year out... well maybe not this year but whatever). Only DJANGO from their nominee pool here is the usual type of original, while Zero Dark Thirty (which feels like an adapted because of the true story and research factor) can also qualify.

FOREIGN FILM
Amour - Austria
A Royal Affair - Denmark
Intouchables - France
Kon Tiki - Norway
Rust & Bone - France *not eligible for Oscar consideration in their correlative category*

Three French language films and two Scandinavian films for the Globes this year. They kept it regional. 

ANIMATED FILM
Brave
Frankenweenie
Hotel Transylvania
Rise of Guardians
Wreck-It Ralph

LOTS MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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Awards Calendar: Precursor Madness Begins in 3... 2... 1...

Which film will lord over NYC film critics this year?You've probably heard by now that the city-by-city / guild-by-guild precursor madness begin next week. Golden Globe ballots went out to members yesterday and The New York Film Critics Circle will be the first to announce winners on Monday, December 3rd. I'm having breakfast with a director during their announcement -- priorities! -- but we'll be sure to discuss that day.

The rush to "first!" means that Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is right on the wire of "will voters see it or not see it before voting?" Apparently it's now locked and screening (my December 1st screening was cancelled and I have not -- as of yet -- been re-invited though our BFCA balloting begins on December 3rd)

IMPORTANT DATES / GROUPS TO WATCH
12/3 -New York Film Critics Circle 
⅓ of the Holy Trinity of critics groups. Founded in 1935!!! Last year's winner: The Artist
12/5 -National Board of Review
In recent years they've finally cried uncle about "first!" and conceded. Last year's winner: Hugo
12/7 -Los Angeles Film Critics Association
⅓ of the Holy Trinity of Critics Prizes founded in 1975. Last year's winner: The Descendants
12/9 -New York Film Critics Online
This upstart group began handing out prizes in 2003. Last year's winner: The Artist
12/9 - Boston Society of Film Critics
Announcing since 1980. They were once among the most iconoclastic of groups but in the past decade have, like nearly all critics groups, begun to merely choose their favorite from the handful of true Oscar hopefuls. Last year's winner: The Artist
12/11 Broadcast Film Critics Association "Critics Choice" Nominations
Announcing since. Full disclosure: I am a voting member.
12/12 Screen Actors Guild Awards Nominations
A very big pre-Oscar deal... since 1995. Their unique system of choosing nominees -- a different randomly-selected nominating pool each year from their vast membership --  should technically be capable of delivering bigger surprises now and then. We'll see... Last year's winner: the cast of The Help
12/13 Golden Globe Nominations
Woot!
1/8 Directors Guild Award Nominations (Feature Films)
Before Oscar started monkeying with their Best Picture rules this was the single most predictive award as to which films would be nominated for Best Picture. Voting annually since 1948. Last year's winner: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist.
TBA - Chicago Film Critics
Annoyingly they announce nominees and then wait for the winners, upsetting the traditional critics prize routine. Last year's eventual winner: The Tree of Life
TBA - Online Film Critics Society
Annoyingly they announce nominees and then wait for the winners, upsetting the traditional critics prize routine.  Last year's eventual winner: The Tree of Life
TBA - National Society of Film Critics
⅓ of the Holy Trinity of Critics Prizes, founded in 1966, though they've been losing plentiful media steam over the years... partially due to the explosion of ridiculous critics groups -- does every city really need their own when regional prizes for smaller film markets would make much more cumulative sense ? -- and their late in the game announcement.

THE BIGGIES

1/10 OSCAR NOMINATION MORNING!
aka Nathaniel's Christmas... and it's coming so early this year.
1/10 Critics Choice Awards 
1/13 Golden Globe Awards
1/27 SAG Awards
2/24 OSCAR NIGHT
aka Nathaniel's New Years Eve

Which groups do you care most about? Which film, if any, do you think will dominate this year? Or are you hoping, as I am, that it'll be a free for all. It's been so long since different groups had wildly different opinions! Oh how we long for critics groups to do their jobs in an entertaining thoughtful way and actually challenge each other with "no, this!" lobs. 

Top Ten: Strange Golden Globe Musical Snubs

Glenn here with a tuesday top ten on a topic dear to my heart, and Nathaniel's too. We both have a strange fondness for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s annual Golden Globe Awards. Beyond the gif-ready celebrities-getting-drunk setting and the organisation’s occasional flurries of bonkers brilliance (too many to list), I think I like most of all that their splitting of films between drama and musical/comedy means so many very worthy films get big awards and nominations that they otherwise wouldn’t have. The general rule of thumb is that musicals have a much easier time getting a nomination because there are far fewer of them and, thus, stick out more. Sure, Burlesque, Across the Universe, Nine, and Mamma Mia are recent examples of none too acclaimed musicals landing big time best picture nominations.

Forgotten Awards Trivia: The Globes didn't consider "Dancer in the Dark" a musical (???) and Björk's awards show bird fetish didn't begin with the Oscar swan dress. Note that owl purse!

But what about those that didn’t? There’s more than you’d think!

11 with an Asterisk
Given the somewhat lax definition of “musical” by the HFPA – Ray? Coal Miner’s Daughter? Walk the Line? The Rose? – it’s a surprise that Robert Altman’s classic Nashville and Lars von Trier’s masterpiece Dancer in the Dark weren’t classified as such. The former because, well, it’s also pretty funny, right? The latter because it was a true, honest to god MUSICAL in the tradition sense. Altman’s ode to country garnered a whopping 11 nominations (including multiple for the now defunct “Best Acting Debut” category) and Dancer in the Dark snagged one for Bjork’s performance. Still, it’s about as dramatic as you can possibly get so we’ll let it slide.

TOP 10 MOST MYSTIFYING GOLDEN GLOBE MUSICAL SNUBS

10. Xanadu (1980)
Nominated instead: Airplane!, The Coal Miner’s Daughter (won), Fame, The Idolmaker, Melvin & Howard
Oh sure, laugh! Yes, this infamous movie was scorned upon release, but so was Burlesque and they had no trouble nominating that fabulosity twenty years later. Given the universal acclaim for, if nothing else, its soundtrack you’d think it could have at least gotten an original song citation for the title track. No, it’s not great art but who’s ever heard of Taylor Hackford’s The Idolmaker since?

Nine more increasingly acclaimed and tuneful snubbees after the jump

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Jodie Foster Anyone?

The HFPA, those star-groupies at the Golden Globes, recently announced that Jodie Foster would be the recipient of this year's Cecil B DeMille Award.

The Academy is stingy with women when it comes to honorifics but the less stuffy Globes indulge in their sapphic side quite a lot by way of lifetime tributes. What a treat for Jodie's 50th birthday! She hits the half century mark on November 19th. Now, one might say that a 50th birthday is much too early for a lifetime tribute... but when you consider how infrequently Jodie has deigned to act or even direct since her 45th birthday (that's only three films: Nim's Island, The Beaver, and Carnage in the past five years) it's probably safe to say that the bulk of her career is behind her, so why not?

I'd actually been planning a Jodie celebration right here though details had not yet emerged. We'll celebrate Jodie visually/verbally from November 13th through the 19th inbetween regular posting.

poll by twiigs.com

Tell me which films you're most interested in talking and reading about from those we're considering...

Rank Jodie's Oscar nominations

Tell me who you hope gets a Cecil B Demented DeMille celebration next. 

My Link, My Fate, My Fortune... Chanel No. 5

Studio Exec visits the set of Darren Aronofsky's Noah
The New Yorker interviews screenwriter Melissa Matheson for the 30th anniversary of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Movie|Line first tease of Carrie. Hmmm, looks very BIG for such an intimate horror story
Yahoo on the internal wars for each character on Homeland. Such a good season 2 thus far, yes?
Nicks Flick Picks spends an evening with Joan Allen at the Chicago Film Festival 

Chanel No. 5 Joe Wright directs Brad Pitt as the first male spokesperson for Chanel No. 5. Joe is the new Baz. Discuss.
Acidemic suggests streaming Netflix options you might not have thought of that are Halloween appropriate.

Today's Very Best News
Tina Fey & Amy Poehler will co-host the Golden Globes. YES. But can they switch show duties with Seth MacFarlane please? Now I have to look forward to the Golden Globes even more than usual and I'd rather be THAT excited for Oscar.

Awwww
Barbra Streisand singing with her son Jason Gould this past week in Philly. The family that sings together...

Finally, for you readers who are also writers... Nail Your Novel has tips on how to prepare for National Novel- Writing Month. I tried to do this once (a sci-fi novel actually) and I liked the exercize but it's hard to do when you're also writing a daily blog. But if you've been stuck in your own writing, I highly recommend.