A Few Thoughts on the Golden Globes

by Nathaniel R

Screenshot from the Golden Globes 

Did you watch the Golden Globes Sunday night? The show was (mostly) bereft of the kind of shocks we got in the pre-reform era but in a year where crystal Oscar balls are still foggy with possibility -- seriously, which film is going to win Best Picture? -- there was still inherent drama in the opening of envelopes. At least on the film side; the TV prizes were a complete snooze fest, merely rubber-stamping September's Emmy wins! Spreading the wealth should not be such a difficult concept for awards voters but we live in an age of monopolies and oligarchs so maybe abundance it's just not a vibe for the entertainment industry these days. 

Emilia Perez (4 wins) and The Brutalist (3 wins) were all the rage with Globes voters. But did anyone else get a boost heading toward Oscar nominations?

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Golden Globe Predictions, Anyone?

by Nathaniel R

The Globes often zig when people say they'll zag and true shockers are peppered all throughout their history. But times have changed. Since the HFPA have been shamed and named and restructured in the past five or so years, the voting body is quite different. They're likely to play things much much safer then they once did in an attempt to be respectable and predict the Oscars. But that's the cynical view. Any rounding off of their edges won't really even be conscious. When voting bodies become large (and their voting body is much larger now) they tend to default to whatever the 'buzz' is and lose the kind of personality that you can get with smaller organizations. It's why some festival juries and regional critics groups (a few of them at least) still exhibit something in the way of personality. Anyway, let's have fun guessing the Globes which start at 8:00 pm tonight after the jump...

BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA

• THE BRUTALIST, A24
• A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, Searchlight Pictures
• CONCLAVE, Focus Features
• DUNE: PART TWO, Warner Bros. Pictures
• NICKEL BOYS, Orion Pictures / Amazon MGM Studios
• SEPTEMBER 5 Paramount Pictures

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Oscar Volleys: Best Adapted Screenplay is a confusing mess!

Lynn Lee and Christopher James discuss the race for the Adapted Screenplay Oscar...

EMILIA PÉREZ, Jacques Audiard | © Netflix

LYNN: Another year, another head-scratcher over what counts as “adapted” for Oscar purposes.  To be sure, this season there doesn’t seem to be any classification controversy on the level of last year’s Barbie kerfuffle. But, as ever, there’s some pretty transparent strategic positioning – such as the decision to campaign Emilia Pérez in adapted instead of original, which was likely driven by an assessment that adapted is the less competitive of the two this year.

Does that calculation seem right to you, and will it pay off? And does this mean we might have two musicals nominated for adapted screenplay this year, if Wicked also gets in (as I think it will)? Has that ever happened before?

CHRISTOPHER: I love the ever changing definition of “adapted,” which just seems to be “can you point to any written source that kinda relates to your film.” This year is such a strange year, as all of the frontrunners would be considered odd picks in past years...

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Oscar Volleys: The Eye Candy Trifecta

Taking a break from the so-called “above the line” races, Nathaniel R and Cláudio Alves discuss the eye candy Oscar categories – Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Production Design...

DUNE: PART TWO | © Warner Bros.

NATHANIEL: Hi, Cláudio. So this year, for time reasons, the pre-nomination Oscar Volleys are not covering every category and I'm feeling guilty about it. In the 21st century all 20+ Oscar categories have arguably more devout fanbases than ever thanks to the ease of catering to niche interests that the internet, streaming, and social media have all brought.  Yet the 'Below the Line' categories are somehow incongruously more disrespected than ever. Consider that the Oscars are now the ONLY major awards show (that's not an exaggeration) that doesn't pretend that craftsmen and artisans are less crucial to making art than actors and directors. Consider that time and again we get these horrid articles from the media about how to fix the Oscars that invariably suggest that they should be more like their less popular counterparts (Tonys, Grammys, Emmys, Globes, etcetera) and ditch the "crafts" or have them on another night altogether without the fanfare. This suggestion has made me redhot with anger from the very first time I heard it and the anger has never dissipated…

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"Conclave" and "Wicked" Lead with Critics Choice Nods

by Nathaniel R

The Critics Choice, hot on the tail of the Golden Globe nominations, have weighed in on the cinematic year choosing the Pope-selection thriller Conclave and the first half of Wicked based on both the Broadway phenomenon and the lengthier best seller that inspired it as the "most" awards worthy title. They each amassed 11 nominations. [Full disclosure: I remain a member but trust that my ballots are not generally reflected in the consensus which always feel -- at least to me -- closer to Oscar predictions than passion ballots.]

BEST PICTURE... 

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