Golden Globes Nominations

The Golden Globes, the awards ceremony that gets the Oscar buzz going, released its nominations today. Here are the film-related nominations with some commentary from yours truly.

Best Picture – Drama

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglorious Basterds
• Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
• Up in the Air

My Thoughts: Who would’ve thought Avatar would end up on this list? I’m sure it’s a spectacle, but everything I’ve read wouldn’t beg it for award season. Then again, the Globes like to award more mainstream fare than the Oscars. Same goes for “Basterds” which is a better example of filmmaking than an overall film. Glad to see the superb “Hurt Locker” on this list, certainly deserving. I think it’s between that and “Air.”

Best Picture – Musical/Comedy

• (500) Days of Summer
• The Hangover
• It’s Complicated
• Julie & Julia
• Nine

My Thoughts: Definitely a popularity contest. I haven’t seen the bottom three on that list, but from what I heard, “Julie” should get one nomination only and that’s for Streep. Nine and “Complicated” haven’t come out yet and it would be a shock to see “Hangover” win despite being hilarious. I’d really like to see the more daring younger-crowd film “Summer” walk away with this one as opposed to those lower three middle-aged women favorites.

Best Actor – Drama

• Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart
• George Clooney for Up in the Air
• Colin Firth for A Single Man
• Morgan Freeman for Invictus
• Tobey Maguire for Brothers

My Thoughts: Once again another great year for this category. We should see something very similar in January when Oscar noms come out. I’ve heard no one get raves as much as Firth, so I think he’s in the running to win it. Haven’t seen any of these films other than Invictus and it would be just too easy to give the award to Morgan.

Best Actress – Drama

• Emily Blunt for The Young Victoria
• Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren for The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan for An Education
• Gabourey Sidibe for Precious

My Thoughts: Why does this category always feel full of unknown films? Sadly, the answer is because mainstream movies tend to feature male leads. I haven’t seen any of these films, so I won’t even speculate, but I won’t care as long as Bullock doesn’t get it. Emily Blunt and Carey Mulligan are two young starlets it would be cool to see hoisting this globe statuette.

Best Actor – Musical/Comedy

• Matt Damon for The Informant!
• Daniel Day-Lewis for Nine
• Robert Downey Jr. for Sherlock Holmes
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt for (500) Days of Summer
• Michael Stuhlbarg for A Serious Man

My Thoughts: Matt Damon gets some love hear and ultimately he should take the prize. Not only is Mark Whitacre a character role but it’s one with great depth — possibly Damon’s finest performance. It’s way premature to award Downey Jr. a nomination — but not Day-Lewis. Really nice to see Gordon-Levitt on the list and especially Stuhlbarg, whose performance shouldn’t go understated at all. Zach Galifianakis should really be the one in Downey Jr.’s place.

Best Actress – Musical/Comedy

• Sandra Bullock for The Proposal
• Marion Cotillard for Nine
• Julia Roberts for Duplicity
• Meryl Streep for It’s Complicated
• Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia

My Thoughts: If they cast Meryl Streep as the Black Cat in the next “Spider-Man” film, I still think she’d get nominated. Seriously, does she ever not get love this time of year? Truth is, she’s deserving, at least for one of those films. Roberts is clearly there to try and draw that TV audience as is Bullock. I also don’t understand how you can talk up “Summer” and not nominate Zooey Deschanel.

Best Supporting Actor

• Matt Damon for Invictus
• Woody Harrelson for The Messenger
• Christopher Plummer for The Last Station
• Stanley Tucci for The Lovely Bones
• Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds

My Thoughts: One name: Christoph Waltz. Although Damon gives a great performance and I’m sure the others are comparable, nobody could be as extraordinary as Waltz as Col. Hans Landa aka “The Jew Hunter.” He singlehandedly created suspense in “Basterds.”

Best Supporting Actress

• Penelope Cruz for Nine
• Vera Farmiga for Up in the Air
• Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air
• Mo’nique for Precious
• Julianne Moore for A Single Man

My Thoughts: A heck of a line-up here too. It says a lot for Up in the Air to have its three biggest stars all nominated. It’s tough, however, going up against women such as Moore and last year’s best supporting actress, Cruz. It’s Mo’nique, however, where the real buzz has been coming from (albeit for how haunting her performance is). Not to say she’s a shoe-in, but none of these other women have gotten raves, whereas Mo’nique has.

Best Director

• Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker
• James Cameron for Avatar
• Clint Eastwood for Invcitus
• Jason Reitman for Up in the Air
• Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds

My Thoughts: Well would you look at Kathryn Bigelow, holding her own against the big boys. Reitman is actually the “rookie” of the group in comparison. But seriously, Cameron, Eastwood and Tarantino are three of the biggest game-changers in movie history, that’s some company. Because those three have such reputations, I’m actually looking for Bigelow or Reitman to take home the award. There’s no doubt Reitman has earned his place after Juno, but Hollywood would love the chance to reward a female director.

Best Screenplay

• District 9 – Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
• The Hurt Locker – Mark Boal
• Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino
• It’s Complicated – Nancy Meyers
• Up in the Air – Jason Retiman, Sheldon Turner

My Thoughts: If Reitman doesn’t win best director, it’s hard to imagine him not walking away with this award to show for this movie. As amazing as it would be to see Blomkamp win for his incredibly original and provocative sci-fi film, I think “Air” is the clear winner. Tarantino has done better, Meyers — i’m speculating — doesn’t deserve the nomination and “Locker” is more a feat of directing even though the script is in fact very good.

Best Original Song

• Avatar – “I Will See You” – James Horner, Simon Franglen, Kuk Harrell
• Brothers – “Winter” – U2, Bono
• Crazy Heart – “The Weary Kind” – T-Bone Burnett, Ryan Bingham
• Everybody’s Fine – “(I Want To) Come Home” – Paul McCartney
• Nine – “Cinema Italiano” – Maury Yeston

Best Original Score

• Avatar – James Horner
• The Informant! – Marvin Hamlisch
• A Single Man – Abel Korzeniowski
• Up – “(I Want To) Come Home” – Michael Giaccino
• Where the Wild Things Are – Carter Burwell, Karen Orzolek

Best Animated Film

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
• Coraline
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Princess and the Frog
• Up

My Thoughts: What a year for animation when you look at that list. I don’t think a genre was more positively reviewed than animation in 2009. All of these films bring something special to the table, but the winner will easily be Up. Pixar just continues to raise the bar for what animation can be and the story of this film is just so touching and fun. A a close second would be Coraline, which would beat out “Fox” for the stop-motion category if they had one. The visual creativity of Coraline is just superb.

Best Foreign Film

• Los Abrazos Rotos (“Broken Embraces”)
• Baaria
• Das weisse Band – Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (“The White Ribbon”)
• La Nana (“The Maid”)
• Un profete (“A Prophet”)

My Thoughts: Haven’t seen any of these films, but just from what I’ve heard and read, outstanding Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces” is excellent and of course stars Penelope Cruz yet again. The other film I would speculate to push it hard would be “The White Ribbon,” winner of the Palm d’Or at Cannes.