Golden Globes: Surprises and Snubs

Well the Golden Globe nominations are in, and there are a few surprises. Awards season is my favorite holiday of the year, screw easter and thanksgiving, i love the oscars. The Golden Globes are an award given by The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group originally made up of foreign journalists based in Los Angeles, thus earning the award the name 'Golden Globe'. This year, the nominations were announced on the 12th of December, and the ceremony will take place on the 12th of January, it will, of course, be hosted again by Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, two of my favorite comics, and who hosted the telecast last year to critical acclaim.

The biggest surprise this year was in the Best Motion Picture Drama category, The Butler was largely seen to be a frontrunner for this awards season, with the films historical plot, presidential cameos, in addition to it's director having previously been showered with academy praise for 2009's Precious, however the film failed to garner even a single nomination, with Oprah Winfrey's lack of a nod standing out as the most obvious omission, especially considering that this year is not a hugely competitive  year for that category, and that Oprah received much pre-award season buzz for her role in the film, also missing from this category was either of the stars of Blue Is The Warmest color, a fantastic film and superbly acted, which only received a nomination for best foreign feature film, a category in which it is ineligible for this years Oscars.

Two other shocks in the drama category are the nominations of Rush and Philomena, neither of which were front runners, with Rush having been largely written off after it's release, these films were nominated in the Best Picture Drama category at the behest of films such as Blue Is The Warmest Color, and The Butler. The Best Picture Comedy is a slightly fuller category this year than it normally is, and there were few surprises, perhaps Nebraska being nominated over Saving Mr Banks is the only surprise, with the latter being perhaps more award season friendly. Perhaps the largest surprise is PIXAR's Monsters University not being nominated for Best Animated Feature, this is perhaps another nail in the coffin for the once great animation studio.

There are really no huge shocks this year, the HFPA obviously learned from the Burlesque/The Tourist debacle, and refrained from taking bribes, it was nice to see Sally Hawkins nominated and Kate Winslet's nomination was a surprise, however this year was free from huge shocks. A notable omission however was Scarlett Johansson's performance in Her, who was deemed ineligible, due to her never appearing on screen, a similar situation occurred in 2003 when Andy Serkis was disqualified from the academy race for his performance as Gollum. The academy needs to start recognize voice over work, in animated and live action movies, work such as Ellen Degeneres' in Finding Nemo needs to be recognized, and celebrated.