Battle, Hamnet Dominate GGs

Teyana Taylor, Timothee Chalamet, Jessie Buckley
and Ryan Coogler at the GGs.
Credit: Rich Polk/GG2026

One Battle After Another and Hamnet were the big winners at the Golden Globes Awards hosted by Nikki Glaser and broadcast on CBS. For her second consecutive year as host, Glaser scored major laughs, particularly against the host network, calling out the recent shift towards the right. "CBS News is now See BS," she quipped. Battle won named Best Picture (Comedy), Director, Screenplay and Supporting Actress (Teyana Taylor). Hamnet triumphed as Best Picture (Drama) and Actress (Drama) for Jesse Buckley. After similar wins at the Critics' Choice Awards last week, Battle is now positioned as the frontrunner for the upcoming Oscars. Sinners, KPop Demon Hunters, and The Secret Agent won two awards each.

In the TV categories Netflix' Adolescence was the big winner, repeating triumphs at the Emmys and Critics Choice Awards with wins for Best Limited/Anthology Series or TV Movie and acting awards to Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper, and Erin Doherty.

Judd Apatow was the best presenter, humorously ripping the GGs for his loss in 2015. His film Trainwreck lost the Best Comedy Award to Ridley Scott's The Martian which wasn't exactly a laugh riot. Wanda Sykes was a close runner-up for Best Presenter by roasting each of the nominees for Best Comedy Special and then declaring she would accept the award for the absent winner Ricky Gervais and thank the trans community on his behalf. Gervais recently made offensive gags about trans women and refused to apologize or take them back.

A list of winners follows:

NYFCC Awards Flower Moon Best Picture; Etc.

Lily Gladstone won Best Actress from the NYFCC
for Killers of the Flower Moon.

Let the film award season begin. The New York Film Critics Circle is the first out of the gate with their picks for the best of 2023. Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese's three-hour-plus epic of the murders of Osage Native Americans by greedy white folks for their oil, was named Best Picture and Best Actress (Lily Gladstone as Mollie Kyle). But Best Director went to Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer which also won Best Cinematography. 

Oprah Emerges as Possible Prez and Trump Reveals His Racism

Oprah Winfrey at the Golden Globe Awards

In 2004, CBS ran a short-lived drama series called Century City. It starred Viola Davis and Hector Elizondo, was set in the year 2030 and combined elements of science fiction and legal procedural. In one episode, it is revealed that Oprah Winfrey is president and her VP is an openly gay, one-armed, retired general. The show only ran four episodes before it was cancelled and has been forgotten. But it may be remembered for predicting our next president, ten years early. Winfrey gave such a stirring speech at last Sunday night's Golden Globes Awards upon receiving the Cecil B. De Mille Lifetime Achievement Award that it sparked calls for her to ran for Chief Executive in 2020.

Oscars So Diverse: Predictions

Will Hidden Figures upset LaLa Land at the Oscars?

This year's Oscars did not dominate the national zeitgeist as much as usual. Perhaps it's the Trump circus overshadowing every other event of normal obsession such as the Super Bowl and the Westminster Dog Show. Anyway, I predict the speeches will be more political than usual with many denunciations of the President's fascist regime. The awards will be a repudiation of his racist rhetoric and a reaction to last year's lack of diverse nominees with #OscarsSoDiverse replacing #OscarsSoWhite.

Best Picture
Prediction: Hidden Figures
LaLa Land has racked up a massive 14 nominations, sharing the record for the most ever with the magnificent All About Eve and the bloated Titanic. Normally, that would mean a lock for Best Picture, but there has been serious backlash against the nostalgic musical. While the film is basically a lighthearted tribute to the Golden Age of cinematic tuners such as Singin' in the Rain, An American in Paris and The Bandwagon, many have seen it as a celebration of white culture at the expense of African-Americans. I just read a bizarre LA Weekly column comparing director Damien Chazelle to Leni Riefenstahl for creating a propaganda film by casting white Ryan Gosling as the savior of pure jazz while black characters are shunted to the sidelines. This is a more than a bit extreme but the anti-Trump sentiment might be enough for the majority of voters to pass over the feel-good musical and hand the top prize to Hidden Figures, an Oscar-bait candidate if ever there was one. There is the traditional underdog fighting the power (three real-life African-American female mathematicians battling sexism and racism in 1960s NASA) and an uplifting final triumph, plus it's a great way to say "Screw You, Racist Prez!" Of course Hollywood may want to fete LaLa as a narcissistic hurrah for itself, but I think politics will be stronger than self-love this time.

Awards Season Update: GGs, BAFTA noms, NSFC

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler once again prove
they should be the hosts of everything

American Hustle gained more zeitgest/street cred last night at the Golden Globes by winning Best Picture (Comedy or Musical), Actress in a Comedy, and Supporting Actress. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association split the difference with the other awards by giving 12 Years a Slave Best Picture (Drama), Gravity Best Director, and Her Best Screenplay. Once again Tina Fey and Amy Poehler proved they should be the hosts of everything. BTW, I started watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix and it's a really funny show. I'm glad Poehler won her category.

Highlights included Jacqueline Bisset taking forever to get to the stage and Emma Thompson tossing her high heels away to rip open the Screenplay envelope. (Aside from the HBO ones, does anybody watch these cable TV-movies like the one Bisset won for? I don't even know when they're on.)

Here's the updated list of film award nominees and winners including GG winners, BAFTA nominees, and the National Society of Film Critics Awards. The NSFC always goes their own way and chose Inside Llewyn Davis for Picture, Actor and Director. The Coen Brothers usually charm the critics, but not Oscar voters unless there is a lot of violence (Fargo, No Country for Old Men).

Picture:
12 Years a Slave (AAFCA, AFI, bafta, BOS, CFCA, GG, is, NYFO, pga, WAFCA)
All Is Lost (is)
American Hustle (AFI, bafta, cc, GG, NYFCC, pga)
Blue Jasmine (pga)
Captain Phillips (AFI, bafta, cc, gg, pga)

Dallas Buyers Club (cc, pga)

Frances Ha (is)
Fruitvale Station (AFI)
Gravity (AFI, bafta, cc, gg, LAFCA--tie, pga)
Her (AFI, cc, DET, gg, LAFCA--tie, NBR, pga, SD)
Inside Llewyn Davis (AFI, cc, gg, GOTH, is, NSFC)
Nebraska (AFI, cc, gg, is, pga)
Philomena (bafta, gg)
Rush (gg)
Saving Mr. Banks (AFI, cc, pga)
The Wolf of Wall Street (AFI, cc, gg,pga)

Golden Globe Predictions

For whatever it's worth, here are my Golden Globe predictions for tonight:

Picture Drama: 12 Years a Slave

Picture Comedy: American Hustle

Actor Drama: Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

Actress Drama: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Actor Comedy: Bruce Dern, Nebraska

Actress Comedy: Meryl Streep, August: Osage County

Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle

Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity

Screenplay: American Hustle

Foreign Language: Blue Is the Warmest Color

Animated Film: Frozen

TV Series, Drama: Breaking Bad

TV Series Comedy: Girls

TV Movie or Mini Series: Behind the Candelabra

Actor, TV Drama Series: Kevin Spacey, House of Cards

Actress, TV Drama Series: Taylor Schilling, Orange Is the New Black

Actor, TV Comedy: Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory

Actress, TV Comedy: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep

Actor, TV Movie: Michael Douglas, Behind the Candelabra

Actress: TV Movie: Jessica Lange, American Horror Story: Coven

Supporting Actor, TV Series or Movie: Jon Voight, Ray Donovan

Supporting Actress, TV Series or Movie: Hayden Panettierre, Nashville

Being Gay at Award Shows: A Contrast

Jodie Foster at the Golden Globes

There were two very different images of being a gay celebrity on recent awards shows, one reflected how things are in 2013, the other was a shadow of a closeted past. On the People's Choice Awards last week, four of the five nominees for Favorite TV Comedy Actor were openly gay: Chris Colfer (Glee), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), and Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory). Two play gay characters (Colfer, Ferguson) and two straight (Harris, Parsons). The fifth nominee was Ferguson's straight brother-in-law on his show Ty Burrell. Colfer won, and I didn't even realize the gay slant in this category until I thought about it. Incidentally, the award was presented by Ellen DeGeneris who won her 13th People's Choice Award for Favorite Talk Show Host. The Million Moms must be having conniptions.

The wonderful thing was most of the actors have not made a big deal of coming out, their sexuality is casually mentioned in interviews which is all I've ever wanted. I wanted actors to be be able to mention their same-sex partners or love interests the same as their straight counterparts. I remember Anderson Cooper having to not even hint at his sexuality on CNN. Actors should not have to hide their true selves and it's not an invasion of privacy anymore and it won't damage their careers. It's important that young gay people being bullied in school for being gay have people like the four nominees be seen as popular, funny, and successful and not freaks or objects of derision.

Golden Globe Noms and Vegas Crix

The last BIG pre-Oscar awards announcement came this morning from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Golden Globe Awards. Lincoln got the most nominations with seven. Daniel Day-Lewis is now the most popular candidate with five wins from critics' groups and three nominations. Django Unchained and Argo received five GG noms each. I discovered on FB that Django did not send out its screeners until the first week of December which may explain why it didn't do so well with the SAG noms yesterday. 

Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith continue to rake in the noms with Dame Judi garnering a Best Actress in a Comedy nom for Marigold Hotel and her co-star Dame Maggie gaining recognition for both Downton Abbey and Quartet.

I also added the Las Vegas Film Critics Society which bucked the trend of its fellow critics' group and award Best Picture to Life of Pi rather than Zero Dark Thirty. How many film critics are there in Las Vegas anyway? I also just realized that I completely missed the Independent Spirit Awards noms. I went looking for them on line and saw they were announced back on Nov. 28. They didn't get much press. I will add those later, right now I have two articles due today. 

Picture: Argo (AFI, cc, gg)
Amour (LAFCA)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (AFI, cc)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (gg)
The Dark Knight Rises (AFI)
Django Unchained (AFI, cc, gg)
Les Miserables (AFI, cc, gg)
Life of Pi (AFI, cc, gg, LV)
Lincoln (AFI, cc, gg)
The Master (cc)
Moonrise Kingdom (AFI, cc, gg)
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (gg)
Silver Linings Playbook (AFI, cc, gg)
Zero Dark Thirty (AFI, Bos, cc, DC, gg, NBR, NYFCC, NYO) 

Actor: Jack Black, Bernie (gg)
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook (cc, gg, NBR, sag)
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln (Bos, cc, DC, gg, LV, NYFCC, NYO, sag)
Richard Gere, Arbitrage (gg)
John Hawkes, The Sessions (cc, gg, sag)
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables (cc, gg, sag)
Ewan McGregor, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (gg)
Bill Murray, Hyde Park on Hudson (gg)
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master (cc, gg, LAFCA)
Denzel Washington, Flight (cc, gg, sag)

Actress: Emily Blunt, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (gg) 
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty (cc, DC, gg, NBR, sag)
Marion Cotillard, Rust and Bone (cc, gg, sag)
Judi Dench, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (gg)
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook (cc, gg, LAFCA-tie, LV, sag)
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour (Bos, cc, LAFCA-tie, NYO)
Helen Mirren, Hitchcock (gg, sag)
Maggie Smith, Quartet (gg)
Meryl Streep, Hope Springs (gg)
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild (cc)
Naomi Watts, The Impossible (cc, gg, sag)
Rachel Weisz, The Deep Blue Sea (gg, NYFCC)

Supp. Actor: Alan Arkin, Argo (cc, gg, sag)
Javier Bardem, Skyfall (cc, sag)
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook (cc, sag)
Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained (gg, NBR)
Dwight Henry, Beasts of the Southern Wild (LAFCA)
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Master (cc, DC, gg, sag)
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln (cc, gg, LV, NYO, sag)
Matthew Maconaughey, Bernie and Magic Mike (cc, NYFCC)
Ezra Miller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Bos)
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained (gg)

Supp. Actress: Amy Adams, The Master (cc, gg, LAFCA)
Judi Dench, Skyfall (cc)
Ann Dowd, Compliance (cc, NBR)
Sally Field, Lincoln (Bos, cc, gg, NYFCC, sag)
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables (cc, DC, gg, LV, NY, sag)
Helen Hunt, The Sessions (cc, gg, sag)
Nicole Kidman, The Paperboy (gg, sag)
Maggie Smith, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (sag)

Director: Ben Affleck, Argo (cc, gg)
Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master (LAFCA)
Katheryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty (Bos, cc, DC, gg, NBR, NYFCC)
Tom Hooper, Les Miserables (cc)
Ang Lee, Life of Pi (cc, gg)
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook (cc)
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln (cc, gg)
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained (gg)

AFI=American Film Institute Bos=Boston Society of Film Critics; cc=Critics Choice Award nomination; DC=Washington DC Film Critics Association; gg=Golden Globe nomination; LAFCA=Los Angeles Film Critics Assoc.; LV=Las Vegas Film Critics Society; NBR=National Board of Review; NYFCC=New York Film Critics Circle; NYO=New York Film Critics Online; sag=SAG Award nomination

News Bits: 'Zero' Wins at NYFCC; Redgrave and Jones to Star in 'Much Ado'; Tyson in 'Bountiful'

Zero Thirty Down won Best Picture and Best Director from the New York Film Critics Circle which cast their votes today. Several GoldDerby prognosticators accurately predicted that outcome, but were wrong in their forecast of Zero's Jessica Chastain taking Best Actress. The winner was Rachel Weisz for The Deep Blue Sea. Lincoln won for Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Supporting Actress (Sally Field), and Screenplay (Tony Kushner). Nobody expected Matthew Maconaughey to take Supporting Actor honors for the male-stripper film Magic Mike and Bernie, the dark comedy starring Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine which came and went so quickly earlier this year. (Critics group often include multiple films for individual recipients if they are released in the same year.) Zero and Lincoln are definite frontrunners for Oscar and Golden Globe consideration and it will be interesting to see how the explosive action picture fares against the talky history film. But then Les Miz might trump them both.

Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy
Credit: Annabel Clark

Vanessa Redgrave (75) and James Earl Jones (81) will be playing Beatrice and Benedick in a production of Much Ado About Nothing for the Old Vic Theatre Company in London, next season (Sept.19-Nov. 16, 2013). Sounds like absolutely fascinating casting and if anyone call pull off playing Shakespeare's witty lovers at their shall we say mature ages, these two certainly can. I saw them playing opposite each other in Driving Miss Daisy on Broadway last year and the connection was electric.

Cicely Tyson will mark her return to Broadway after a 30-year absence in a revival of Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful which opens at the Sondheim Theatre on April 23 for a limited run (previews begin March 31). Michael Wilson who staged Foote's mammoth three-part The Orphan's Home Cycle at the Signature Theatre Company directs  Geraldine Page won and Oscar and Lois Smith won a Drama Desk Award for their portrayals of the lead character, Carrie Watts, who leaves her Houston home to revisit the gulf town of her youth. Lillian Gish originated the role in 1953 when it was a TV play and then brought to the Broadway stage version the same year. In those days, original, serious, studio-shot dramas were a staple on the airwaves and they were often translated to Broadway and the movies (Marty, Twelve Angry Men, The Days of Wine and Roses are just a few examples.) In today's vast universe of TV channels, not one rebroadcasts these great works or commissions new plays for the small screen.