Movies Features

PREVIEW: The Artist and The Descendants tipped for Golden Globe glory

By Andy Goldberg Jan 11, 2012, 14:20 GMT

US actor and director George Clooney attends the premiere of his movie \'The Ides Of March\' during the 36th annual Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Canada. Clooney was nominated for a Best Director Golden Globe, 15 December 2011, for his work on \'The Ides of March\'. EPA/WARREN TODA

Los Angeles - Hollywood's royalty will turn out in all their finery Sunday night for the Golden Globes, kicking the Hollywood awards season into high gear six weeks before the Oscars.

Movie fans from around the world will tune in to see stars like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Meryl Streep stroll jauntily down the red carpet for an event that is widely regarded as second only to the Academy Awards in the Hollywood calendar.

But why do the Golden Globes matter? That's a Hollywood mystery that's almost as hard to solve as why Paris Hilton is famous. After all, the prizes are awarded by a little known cabal of some 90 foreign correspondents at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, many of whom do not work for major publications, and zealously prevent widely respected film journalists from joining.

The HFPA members are also accused of being too in thrall to the star power of the actors they are meant to judge, not to mention the fancy junkets offered by studios chasing their votes.

Be that as it may, the 69th annual Golden Globes, with Ricky Gervais at the helm, are sure to be a lot of fun for award watchers. Gervais, the acerbic British comedian, loves nothing more than a good laugh at the expense of the Hollywood elite everyone else fawns over. And though his jibes can provide some uncomfortable moments for the stars and their millions of adoring fans, they're always a good reminder that the affair is not the Nobel Prize - or even the Oscars.

The Globes don't even have much of a track record in predicting the Oscars, having managed that feat only once in the past seven years, despite the fact that in choosing separate winners for dramas and comedies they have a double shot at predicting the Oscar best movie.

In fairness, they did have a good track record from 1993 to 2003 when they matched the Oscar choice ten out of 11 times. An analysis this week in the Hollywood reporter found that the Globes also have a great track record in the major Oscar categories such as best actor, director, actress and screenwriter, matching Oscar choices 91 times out of a possible 140 in the last 20 years.

So who's in line for the spotlight this year? Award watchers point to the choices of Hollywood's guilds - the actors, producers, directors and writers - as the best indication for awards season success, and these industry insiders appear to favour three films.

According to Steve Pond, the awards expert at industry trade site TheWrap, the biggeset winners will be The Artist, The Descendants and Midnight in Paris, which were all nominated by the guilds for every eligible prize. Four other films have also shown well in the guild nominations: Bridesmaids, Hugo, The Help and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

That means that movies such as The Ides of March, Moneyball, War Horse, 50/50 and My Week with Marilyn must rank as outsiders at the Golden Globe, and their participants can probably forego preparing an elaborate acceptance speeches.

Goldderby.com, another site that relentlessly tracks the Hollywood awards season, has come up with its own odds for the winners that appear to give overwhelming profile to two movies to take the top prize. The Descendants, director Alexander Payne's wry family drama starring George Clooney has a 60 per cent probability of being named the best drama, the site calculated, based on critical reviews, other awards and expert opinion. Martin Scorsese's Hugo was the closest challenger with just a 15-per-cent probability.

French director Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist is an even stronger certainty to be named best comedy or musical. The top nominee at the Golden Globes with six nods, the enchanting romantic comedy and tribute to the silent movie era has a 71-per-cent chance of taking the top prize, with Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris a distant second at 13 per cent in the category.