"The Tourist" got three nominations. "True Grit" didn't get any. Welcome to the Golden Globes.
Doing its usual job of chasing after some big stars (Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Michael Douglas) and ignoring other presumed contenders, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association laid out a typically idiosyncratic slate of nominees on Tuesday morning.
Among the snubs, none was bigger than the complete shutout of Joel and Ethan Coen's "True Grit," with its 100 percent positive rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website and a high-powered cast that includes last year's Globe and Oscar winner Jeff Bridges, along with Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and acclaimed newcomer Hailee Steinfeld.
Other films that were shunned include a pair of well-received British indies: Mike Leigh's "Another Year," which features a celebrated performance by Lesley Manville; and the '60s drama "Made in Dagenham," with a cast that includes Sally Hawkins, Miranda Richardson and Bob Hoskins.
The star-struck bent isn't quite as bad on the TV side, where the Emmys seemed to have shamed the HFPA into actually awarding good performances.
This year, in fact, the Globes made up for past snubs, finally recognizing three-time "Breaking Bad" Emmy winner Bryan Cranston. An Emmy or three seems like a good way to get on the Globes' radar screen: Jim Parsons joined the best comedic actor category after winning one this year for "The Big Bang Theory."
But an Emmy wasn't enough to score Cranston's "Breaking Bad" co-star, Aaron Paul, a nomination for supporting actor. Or to give the show a much-deserved nod for best dramatic series. (Not that AMC can complain too much: Its other two series, "Mad Men" and the new "Walking Dead," are both nominated in the category.)
Read also: "Glee" Tops Globes TV Nominees
And when will someone give "Community" the credit it deserves? NBC's Thursday night comedy has one of the best ensembles on television, and a taste for the absurd that matches and sometimes surprasses that of "30 Rock." It's too weird to be a safe choice, but the show and its cast deserve nominations galore. (And more viewers, while we're at it.)
The one glaring omission: the total exclusion of the final season of "Lost." The HFPA's past appreciation for the show — it won its sole Globe, for best drama, in 2006 — apparently didn't imbue the voters with enough nostalgia to recognize its final episodes.
Other movie snubs included a pair of early-year entries from big-name directors, Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" and Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer," also walked away empty-handed.
In the Best Actor – Drama race, Mark Wahlberg ("The Fighter") was a surprise choice over the likes of Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall ("Get Low"), Leonardo DiCaprio ("Inception" and "Shutter Island") and Javier Bardem, who gave a monumental performance in the Globes foreign-language nominee "Biutiful."
On the actress side, Manville and Tilda Swinton ("I Am Love") missed out – while among supporting contenders, the biggest omission was clearly Mark Ruffalo from "The Kids Are All Right."
As for TV, In the best actress in a drama category, while Piper Perabo does a serviceable job as an undercover agent on "Covert Affairs," its nowhere near as real or demanding a role as Connie Britton's on "Friday Night Lights." Yes, Perabo carries the show. But Britton often feels like the heart of hers, and that's an awful lot of heart. She may not have gotten enough screen time to capture voters' attention.
In the best performance by an actor in a miniseries or TV movie category, it was a bit odd to see Dennis Quaid nominated for "A Special Relationship," but not Michael Sheen for playing his partner in that relationship, Tony Blair. Maybe voters are over-accustomed to Sheen's excellence in the role after seeing him play it previously in "The Deal" and "The Queen," the first two parts of Richard Loncraine's Blair trilogy.
At least the folks who were overlooked can console themselves with the fact that the Globes represent the opinions of fewer than 90 reporters for foreign media outlets. But for movies like Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter," Peter Weir's "The Way Back," Disney's "Secretariat," the political drama "Fair Game" and the literary adaptation "Never Let Me Go," being snubbed has to hurt awards chances even if Globes voters aren't the most august body in Hollywood.
One final note: while Globes voters made some stupid choices, overlooked films they should have nominated, and demonstrated conclusively that the Best Picture – Musical or Comedy category is useless and embarrassing, their snubs did help them steer clear of two possible conflicts of interest.
For starters, members of the HFPA didn't nominate Sofia Coppola's austere "Somewhere" for anything. If the HFPA had singled it out they'd no doubt come under fire, because seven members of the organization appear in the movie (from the back) and receive screen credit.
In addition, by ignoring Leonardo DiCaprio for "Inception" and "Shutter Island," the voters shunned one of the highest-profile star clients of Sunshine Sachs & Associates, the public relations company hired to handle the Globes after the HFPA fired longtime reps the Michael Russell Group in a move that is still having ramifications.
On the other hand, you could argue that DiCaprio and "Somewhere" deserve nominations more than some of the people who got them – which means that even when the HFPA's snubs help them avoid ethical quandaries, they still get it wrong.
