Globe Winner Predictions. A Nail Biting Night?

I normally look forward to Golden Globe night with the feverish pitch I otherwise save for Oscar Nomination Morning and Oscar Night itself. They're the holy trinity of awards season Father (Oscar Noms), Son (Oscar Night) and uh... Holy Ghost (The Globes). Well, there are spirits involved. I expect that the drunkest table will belong to The Help or Bridesmaids. Here's to inebriated ladies!

And here are my predictions. I'm just going for it and predicting a return to... January 2003. Wait, what? Read on!

MOVIES

BEST PICTURE, DRAMA

• The Descendants
• The Help
• Hugo
• The Ides of March
• Moneyball
• War Horse 

With most of the attention swinging towards The Artist, Best Picture Drama feels like a free for all this year. Three films (The Descendants, Hugo and The Help) look like feasible winners since they've retained heat after the nominations. Common wisdom points to the inexplicable near-universal love for The Descendants but for whatever reason I'm imagining a repeat of the 2002/2003 Globes season wherein the throbbing heart of a female epic (The Hours) beat out an expensive Scorsese film and the Alexander Payne film about the widower dealing with his angry daughter whilst having spiritual awakenings. (Gangs of New York and About Schmidt)
Prediction: The Help
Spoiler: The Descendants 

BEST PICTURE, COMEDY or MUSICAL

• 50/50
• The Artist
• Bridesmaids
• Midnight in Paris
• My Week With Marilyn

This one seems all sewn up for The Artist but I think it's worth noting that the Comedy or Musical category tends to be where the Golden Globes house their biggest surprises on average. That said a defeat for the Artist would be the kind of shocker that only happens once a decade. 
Prediction: The Artist
Spoiler: Bridesmaids (imagine the uproar!) 

BEST DIRECTOR 

• Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
• George Clooney, The Ides of March
• Michel Hazanavicus, The Artist
• Alexander Payne, The Descendants
• Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Hazanavicius may or may not be the frontrunner for the Oscar. It's tough to say with lesser known directors when they're battling cinematic giants who win awards based on their whole filmography rather than the specific film they're up for. But I'm guessing that the presence of Woody Allen pulls enough votes from Martin Scorsese to keep Hazanavicius in the lead.
Prediction: Hazanavicius
Spoiler: Scorsese

PREDICTIONS IN ALL CATEGORIES after the jump...

Click to read more ...

With This Post, I Thee Link

Daily Mail the rumors are heating up yet again that Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood are tying the knot. Remember when he was a little boy dancer (Billy Elliott) and she was a little girl anorexic (Once and Again)?!? If they have a baby soon I will officially feel as old as Luise Rainer who turns 102 this week! OMG. 
The Playlist Steven Soderbergh's The Side Effects will star Blake Lively (yes, they're still trying to make her happen), Jude Law and Channing Tatum. Funny how Soderbergh is more prolific than ever despite all that "retirement announcement" nonsense.
La Daily Musto hears a crazy story I've never heard about Rosemary's Baby. 

MUBI details the current controversy about The Artist appropriating a piece of Vertigo's score. Kim Novak is really really upset about it.
THR ...thinks she's taking her complaints way too far. 
The Playlist Yay. Katee Sackhoff, who we're always rooting for since she has more charisma than many whole casts combined, gets a big movie role... albeit in a tired franchise. Ready for another Riddick movie?
Scene Stealers Kansas City critics pick The Descendants as best picture (yes, I'm done writing up critics awards. Sorry!) and the NSFC may have given them the courage to go with Kirsten Dunst as Best Actress for Melancholia. I don't mean to suggest that smaller critics groups can't find their own courage but it seems fairly obvious on a year to year basis that a win for an off kilter choice from one of the three biggies (NYFCC, NSFC, or LAFCA) can often result in a chain link of appreciation. It's just too bad that Dunst's heat came so very late in the game.

I can't believe this is online but this is my favorite 2 and a ½ minutes of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ... the film that may finally cause all Oscar pundits, professional and amateur, to accept that Oscar is no longer wary of remakes, even instantaneous ones that no one has any excuse for making but for money.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Opening Titles from Onur Senturk on Vimeo.

Off Cinema
Tech Crunch more web-only TV series with bigger stars are coming.
Insider Chris Colfer and Lea Michele will stay on Glee somehow. I'd say "uh oh" but for the continual shark jumping of that show. It defies the very notion of shark jumping since there are sharks in each episode and this season... "Sharks" with "Jets". [groan. sorry]
Broadway Buzz Alan Cumming gets remarried to his man. Tells Rick Santorum to eat it. 

Best in Show

At first I liked Uggie (The Artist) best but I'm starting to lean Arthur (Beginners). Less manic, more soulful!

God loves a terrier
yes he does
God loves a terrier
that's because
brown sturdy bright and true
they give their hearts to you

God didn't miss a stitch
be it dog or be it bitch
when he made the Norwich merrier
with his cute little 'derrier'
yes God loves a terrier!

-"Best in Show"

And may 2012 be the year of the cat! They need a good cinematic year.

Best of Year Pt 3: Nathaniel's Top Ten List

Best of Year Pt 1: Thirty-two flavors and then some. 2011 Treasures, guilty and otherwise.
Best of Year Pt 2: Tree of Life, Midnight in Paris, Young Adult, Pariah, The Housemaid, Shame.

NATHANIEL'S TOP TEN OF 2011

And so we reach the top ten list about which I endured my usual personal angst until I finally gave up the flip flopping, the future hindsight worrying and all the old ways and accepted the new sabremetrics of the game since I had accidentally shoved 11 films in. I ran out of time outs and it was either hit publish or forfeit my chance to play this beloved listing game.

MONEYBALL (Bennett Miller)
Columbia Pictures. September 23rd.
Who knew that a film about sports strategies and mathematic calculations -- two things I personally find enormously difficult to understand and care about even less -- could be so stirring?  Thank the typically sharp writing of Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian, the assured unfussy direction from Bennett Miller who really knows his way around these sharply focused biographies (see also Capote) and an intensely pleasurable star turn from a perfectly cast Brad Pitt as a former golden boy trying to up his own game before his time runs out.
[Review]

CERTIFIED COPY (Abbas Kiarostami)
IFC. March 11th.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, than so to is the worth of any piece of art, whether it's a bonafide original or a copy. The worth of Kiarostami's dizzying intellectual game of a movie will vary greatly from viewer to viewer depending on whether they think the movie transcends its intellectual exercize. It's worth may even vary from screening to screening. For example, the first time I saw it I was riveted by the dialogue and Binoche's face though I thought it outstayed its welcome but the second time I was slightly annoyed with its archly comic tonal shift late in the film but also more impressed with its visual intricacies. Certified Copy spends a day in Tuscany with a weary antique shop owner (the exquisite Juliette Binoche as "She" --her character is never named) and an author by the name of James Miller (opera star William Schimmel). They are ostensibly strangers and their conversation about originals and copies (the subject of Miller's book) gives way to an increasingly complicated sense that the two of them are either play-acting at being lovers or are actually estranged spouses whose current union is a disappointingly inferior fascimile of its original form.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (Sean Durkin)
Fox Searchlight. October 21st

Martha Marcy May Marlene
With Lizzie, John Hawkes, Durkin's Team
A Perfectly Titled Time Machine
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Incantation. Puzzle. Dream.

[Review, Interview, Comic Strip]

BRIDESMAIDS (Paul Feig) Universal. May 13th
MELANCHOLIA (Lars von Trier) Magnolia. November 11th 
You're invited to a wedding. Don't start throwing rice yet. They're meant to be happy events but god do they try the patience. Especially when the bride or maid of honor is enormously depressed -- apocalyptically depressed even!

Brides, drivers and romantic troubles after the jump...

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Curio: 2011's Most Inspirational

Alexa here with a year in review request straight from Nathaniel. Certain types of films seem to inspire visual artists more than others.  And it isn't as simple as gorgeous cinematography or art direction; anything from a note of eccentricity, an atmospheric soundtrack, or a well-held cigarette can create an indie poster storm. (Or anything directed by Wes Anderson.) With that in mind, here are my picks for the five films of 2011 that are most likely to send future artists into fits of creation.  Or, at the very least, the films that I would love to see artists of all stripes take on, so I can continue to write about them next year.

5. The Future 

With a talking cat, time travel, and through-the-roof indie cred, Miranda July's second film is rife with elements that make you want to see the world through a new lens. As always, she comes close to being too cute, but the film's understanding of our collective urge to disconnect from the world, and even stop time, is enough to leave it in our minds for some time.

4. Hugo

With his glorious 3D version of Paris in the '30s, filled with enough gears, springs and levers to fill a steampunk festival, Scorsese manages to celebrate the early days of film without eulogizing. He made a Melies for the 21st Century.

3. The Artist

Similar to Hugo in successfully making something new from a foundation of nostalgia. Its black and white photography, 1.33 aspect ratio and glowing performances take the 20s and make them sharp, clear and fresh.  And hopefully it will get more art students to watch the likes of Man with a Movie Camera, The Passion of Joan of Arc and Sherlock Jr.

2. The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick's films have always been the stuff of still photographer's wet dreams, and this one is no less, with images of the sun, trees, and cosmos that make you want to point your camera to the heavens. And float like Jessica Chastain.

1. Drive

The most singularly cool movie of the year, with style in spades, 80s-infused titles and a soundtrack to drive to.  The eruptions of violence beneath its smooth candy surface made for one terrific ride. And I live in hope that it will make scorpions eclipse owls and birds as a craft favorite.

Honorable Mention: The Muppets

Here's hoping that the return of Kermit, Gonzo and Animal inspire more felting and designing to come. But please, next time, more Miss Piggy.

If you were to pick up a paintbrush or craft box which 2011 films would most inspire you?