Battle and Lotus Dominate GG Noms

One Battle After Another and HBO's The White Lotus earned the most Golden Globe nominations in film and TV categories respectively. Battle, which already been named Best Picture by the NY Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assoc. and the National Board of Review garnered 9 noms while Lotus picked up 6. The awards will be presented on Jan. 11 on CBS in a ceremony hosted by Nikki Glaser, repeating her stint from last year. In addition to the competitive categories, Helen Mirren will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement in film and Sarah Jessica Parker will be honored with the Carol Burnett Award for Lifetime Achievement in TV. These will be presented in a prime time special on Jan. 8 also on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus. The GGs are voted on by about 300 international journalists. It used to be a much smaller number and the awards were administered by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. In 2023, the HFPA was disbanded after numerous controversies and the assets were acquired by Dick Clark Productions and Eldridge Industries. Former HFPA members were allowed to resume their voting duties as salaried employees of the production companies. But in Feb. 2025, the practice of paying the previous HFPA members ended. (according to Wikipedia, they were being paid $75,000 a year!)

This year, the new category of Best Podcast has been added. (The only one I'm listening to now is Newcomers with Nicole Byer (Nailed It!) and Lauren Lapkus.)

Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in Hamnet.
Lead or Supporting?

The GGs often act as a forecaster for the Oscars and Battle's strong showing indicates it as an Oscar front runner. However, Hamnet, Chloe Zhou's film based on the novel by Maggie O'Farrell about young William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway, look likes its nearest competitor. Also, Hamnet is lot more emotional and involving while Battle is technically brilliant, but violent and cold IMHO. The GGs divide the major categories into Drama and Comedy or Musical, so Battle (Comedy) and Hamnet (Drama) could both be winners. And another thing, why is Paul Mescal who plays Shakespeare in the Supporting Actor category? Probably the Hamnet producers think he stands a better chance of winning there and yes, he has a few minutes less screen time than Jessie Buckley who plays Anne (or Agnes) Hathaway who is the focus of the story. But he's definitely the leading male of the film.

A complete list of GG nominees follow:

Golden Globes Full of Surprises

Seth Rogen and Catherine O'Hara
were the funniest presenters at
the Golden Globes.
Credit: CBS

It was a night of surprises at the Golden Globes with its precursor-to-the-Oscars status turning the competition for Hollywood's top honor into a real horse race. Netflix's transgendered-druglord musical Emilia Perez took the most awards with four including Best Picture--Comedy or Musical, Supporting Actress (Zoe Saldana), non-English-Language Film and Best Song. Leading actress Sofía Gascón, the first transgender performer to receive a GG nom, made an emotional plea for acceptance: 

"I chose these colors tonight, the Buddhist colors, because I have a message for you: The light always wins over darkness, You can maybe put us in jail. You can beat us up, but you can never take away our soul, our existence, our identity. And I want to say to you: Raise your voice for freedom. I am who I am, not who you want."

The Brutalist was next with three awards including Best Picture--Drama, Best Actor in a Drama (Adrian Brody), and Best Director. Brutalist and Emilia Perez move to the front of the pack for the Oscar noms which will be announced on Jan. 17.

Surprise winners were Leading Actresses Demi Moore in The Substance and Fernanda Torres in I'm Still Here, for comedy/musical and drama respectively. Sebastian Stan won for Best Actor in a Comedy for A Different Man. He was also nominated in the Drama category for playing a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice. These wins for Moore and Torres skew the predictions for the Oscars since Nicole Kidman of Babygirl and Mikey Madison of Anora won most of the critics' awards. Marianne Jean-Bapiste of Hard Truths, winner of the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics Awards, was not even nominated for the GGs.

Nikki Glaser hosted the ceremony telecast on CBS and did much better than last year's lambasted emcee Jo Koy. Presenters Seth Rogen and Catherine O'Hara were the funniest, satirizing their Canadian roots by saying they had won various Golden Antler Awards for their work north of the border including Logrider and the Mooseknuckles trilogy. O'Hara then remarked she suffered nipple damage while breast-feeding an otter. (Well, I thought it was funny.) Melissa McCarthy and Awkafina were also amusing as they parodied noble causes while announcing the nominees for Best Comedy TV series. An unscripted highlight were provided by Sofía Vergara (Griselda) who jokingly heckled winner Jodie Foster (True Detective: Night Country) to whom she lost Actress in a Limited Series, or Made-for-TV Movie, after also losing to her at the Emmys.

Even with cutting the presentations to Viola Davis (the Cecile B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement) and Ted Danson (the Carol Burnett Award for TV Achievement) down to pre-taped clips, the evening still ran over its three-hour allotted network time by 15 minutes. 

Emilia Perez Tops GG Noms List

Karla Sofia Gascon and Zoe Saldana in
Emilia Perez.
Credit: Page 114/Why Not Productions/Pathe Films/
France 2 Cinema/Netflix

Emilia Perez, the drug cartel-transgender musical (yes, that is a thing) from Netflix, dominated the Golden Globe nominations with ten including Best Motion Picture--Comedy or Musical. This is the most nominations for a comedy or musical, breaking the record of nine held by last year's Barbie. Lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón could become the first transgender performer to receive an Oscar nomination. She is nominated for Best Actress--Comedy or Musical (the Globes divide their categories between Drama and Comedy/Musical). The Brutalist, which won Best Picture from the New York Film Critics Circle, was next with seven nods. Conclave follows with six.

There were a few noticeable snubs including Marianne Jean-Baptiste of Hard Truths and Danielle Deadwyler from The Piano Lesson who both have won recognition from several critics' groups.

Comedienne Nikki Glaser will host the 82nd Golden Globes on CBS Jan. 5. Tony-Oscar-Emmy winner Viola Davis (Fences, How to Get Away with Murder) will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award for career achievement. Ted Danson (Cheers, The Good Place) will be honored with the Carol Burnett Award for TV excellence. He's also nominated for the comedy series A Man on the Inside.

A complete list of Golden Globes nominees follows:

Golden Globes Reaction; Oscar Films Update

Oppenheimer was the big winner at the 86th annual Golden Globes Awards, winning five awards including Best Picture--Drama, Best Actor in a Drama (Cillian Murphy), Supporting Actor (Robert Downey, Jr.), Director (Christopher Nolan), and Score. The GGs were duller than usual with an unfunny host (Jo Koy, who spent too much time blaming his bad jokes and delivery on the writers) and an unsuccessful attempt to be more serious. The GGs had always been a big ratings grabber because the attending celebs had access to free booze and tended to let their hair down. But this year, the awards were given a reboot. Dick Clark Productions bought out and disbanded the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, reorganized the electorate to hopefully reflect more diversity and avoid the scandals of the past (such as awarding Pia Zadora an award because her millionaire husband gave the membership some expensive gifts.)

Barbie won the new, made-up category of Cinema and Box Office Achievement, so that Poor Things could triumph in the Comedy Picture category.

Side note: Evidently there was yet ANOTHER award ceremony the night before the GGs in Tinseltown. The Astra Awards presented by the Hollywood Creative Alliance honored Barbie with 8 wins. Oppenheimer got 4. The Hollywood Creative Alliance was founded in 2016 as the Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society and renamed in 2019 to Hollywood Critics Association. In 2023, the organization changed its name a second time, and rebranded its awards as the Astra Awards. These accolades are not to be confused with the Critics Choice Awards, the SAGs, or the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. And what about the Golden Sattelites? Do they still exist?

Holiday Catch-Up on Oscar Films

The holiday season has come to mean something much more important than celebrating goodwill and exchanging gifts--catching up on potential Oscar nominated films so I will have seen as many as possible on the big night, March 10, 2024. Since the last entry on this topic, I managed to see three more potential nominees and rewatched Maestro on Netflix.

Julianne Moore and Charles Melton in
May December

May December: Previous Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore look to nab Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress slots for this bizarre indie which falls between comedy and drama (the Golden Globes has classified it a comedy). But newcomer Charles Melton has emerged as the front-runner for Best Supporting Actor, having won the New York Film Critics Circle and several other critics' group. BTW, have you noticed that almost every city and geographical area in the country now has its own movie critics' group, each bestowing its own set of awards? It used to be just New York and Los Angeles, now it's everywhere including the East Podunk Film Critics Circle and the Dead Cactus, Arizona Movie Reviewers and Fly Swatter Collectors Group.