Movies Features

Golden Globes offer peek at Hollywood winners and losers

By Andy Goldberg Dec 15, 2010, 21:03 GMT

A file picture dated on 21 October 2010 shows British actor and cast member Colin Firth arriving for the premiere of the movie \'The King\'s Speech\'. EPA/DANIEL DEME

Los Angeles - Plummy British accents and period royal sagas have long been a favourite of Hollywood awards voters. So it should not have been a huge surprise that the first major awards nominations of the year should honour a film that displays both those qualities in spades.

The King's Men earned seven nominations at the Golden Globes Tuesday morning, beating out homegrown American stalwarts like The Social Network, Black Swan, The Fighter and Inception.

The film stars Colin Firth as King George VI, who is thrust reluctantly onto the throne after the death of his father King George V and the abdication of his older brother King Edward VIII in 1936. Hampered by a strong stutter, the King dreads public speaking. But thanks to the efforts of an unorthodox speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush) with whom he forges a deep friendship, he overcomes his stammer and delivers an address that inspires his country as World War II looms.

It remains to be seen whether the film will indeed fulfill expectations when the Golden Globe winners are announced on January 16. But with members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association casting the votes, its foreign origins give it a boost over traditional American fare, while the backing of awards specialist The Weinstein Company as its distributor gives it another advantage.

Still, the obscurity of many of the 89 Golden Globe voters make it difficult to predict their thinking. Critics were nonplussed Tuesday about how both Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp were nominated in the best comic actor categories for their roles in The Tourist, which firstly isn't a comedy, and secondly is a prime example of the supreme Hollywood disaster, a big budget movie that bombs at the box office. Also raising critical eyebrows were the three nominations awarded to Christina Aguilera's sexy romp Burlesque, which has been widely panned, though the Globes always likes splashy musicals.

'True to form, the Golden Globe nominations are a buffet of the good, the bad and the unconscionably hideous,' said Guy Lodge of the awards blog website InContention.com. 'With perhaps a touch more emphasis than usual on the latter this year.'

But if some of the nominations were considered curious, the total snub of True Grit was considered an outrage. The film is an accomplished remake of the John Wayne western classic, directed by critical darlings and past Oscar winners Joel and Ethan Coen.

Another Oscar winner whose expectations were jilted was Danny Boyle, whose Slumdog Millionaire was the best picture winner at the Golden Globes and the Oscars in 2009, but whose current movie 127 hours, despite equally glowing reviews, garnered just two nominations this time around: a best actor nod for James Franco, who plays a solo climber who cuts off his arm to free himself after a fall, and best original score nomination for Indian composer A R Rahman.

It's important to bear in mind however that for all the event's razzmatazz, the Globes have little influence at the box office, are not considered extraordinarily prestigious by the cinema industry, and have only a thoroughly undeserved reputation for predicting likely Oscar winners.

In the past six years only one winner of the best picture Globe, Slumdog Millionaire, has won the corresponding Oscar prize.

That's how it should be according to Peter Howell, the movie critic of the Toronto Star, who called the nominations 'farcical.'

'They really, really want Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Cher and Christina Aguilera to show up at their annual Hollywood boozefest,' he said, to explain some of their more surprising choices. 'But really, it's best not to take the Golden Globes too seriously. No one in Hollywood does.'