Hey, it’s unanimous: the Golden Globes are stupid and irrelevant.
"If this is Wonderland, even Alice wouldn't want to live here anymore," writes Betsy Sharkey. By this, she means the Golden Globes – because like everybody else, Sharkey finds Tuesday's slate of nominations perplexing and confounding. Among her complaints: no actual comedies in the Musical or Comedy category, no Tilda Swinton or Robert Duvall or Hailee Steinfeld … and, of course, those three nominations for "The Tourist," which are destined to be the exemplars of Globe irrelevancy for years to come. "A new low," she says. (Los Angeles Times)
Another Globes reaction comes from Jeff Wells, who uses that exact same "new low" phrase. But he goes further, calling the Hollywood Foreign Press Association "unethical, whorish, an annual laughing stock and in some instances categorically insane." And like Sharkey, he reserves particular scorn for the elastic Musical or Comedy category. (Hollywood Elsewhere)
So did anybody like the Globes nominations? Well, not Guy Lodge: "True to form, the Golden Globe nominations are a buffet of the good, the bad and the unconscionably hideous — with perhaps a touch more emphasis than usual on the latter this year." And he points out something that should be obvious to anybody who's looked over that Best Pic – Musical/Comedy lineup of one deserving contender, "The Kids Are All Right," plus the faintly-to-wholly ludicrous entries "Alice in Wonderland," "Red," "The Tourist" and "Burlesque": "Over in the comedy wasteland … the 'Kids Are All Right' folks are chuckling gleefully to themselves as they laminate their acceptance speeches." Lamination may be stretching the point … but probably not. (In Contention)
The Carpetbagger isn’t from around these parts, and can sometimes have a different take on these things from all of us L.A.-based awards-watchers. So what did Melena Ryzik think? Well, she makes fun of the musical/comedy category too, thinks "The Fighter" came out with the biggest boost, and says, "The Golden Globes are a lot of hoopla, a lot of hype, a lot of celebrity talking points – and a fairly regular predictor of what will take home an Oscar." (The Carpetbagger) Perhaps she means that last one in the sense that Tuesday is a fairly regular predictor of Wednesday – that is to say, one might follow the other, but there's nothing causal in the relationship. I think I prefer Anne Thompson's take on the linkage: "While The Golden Globes nominations have an impact on momentum going into the Oscar race, they are not predictive." (Thompson on Hollywood)
Ryan Adams at least gets some entertainment and audience participation out of the sorry mess: he mounts a poll, asking readers to choose from the nominees in categories like "Best Evidence of HFPA Disconnect," "Best WTF" and "Best Sign of the Apocalypse." As of early Wednesday morning, the leading vote-getter in that final category was instructive: with 31 percent of the vote, the top answer was "the Entire Sad Spectacle." (Awards Daily)
Dave Karger adjusts to the Globe nominations and the first round of critics awards, redoing his Oscar-prediction charts. In the Best Picture race, he keeps his top four films the same ("The King's Speech" on top, followed by "The Social Network," "Inception" and "Toy Story 3"), but "The Fighter" jumps three spots to fifth place, "127 Hours" drops from sixth to 10th, and "Black Swan" comes from 11th place up to seventh. Other big gainers: director Darren Aronofsky and actresses Nicole Kidman and Jackie Weaver. Dropping: director Danny Boyle and actresses Lesley Manville and Dianne Wiest. Looks to me like he's giving the Globes more credit than they deserve. (Oscar Watch)
