News: Golden Globes Nominations

     The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their nominations today for the 68th annual Golden Globes show. Who were the winners and losers? The two biggest winners in my opinion were "Black Swan", which had four nominations (Best Picture Drama, Best Director, Best Actress Drama, Best Supporting Actress), and "The Fighter", which had six nominations (Best Picture Drama, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and two Best Supporting Actresses). Today's nominations, along with their relative success in the critics circuit, almost locks up an Oscar nomination for Best Picture in my estimation.


     Of course the two big powerhouses of the year, "The Social Network" and "The King's Speech", also did well, garnering six and seven (the most of any film) nominations respectively. I won't go over each films nominations, but both received the key Best Picture Drama and Best Director nominations. As for who will win, at the moment I am actually expected "The King's Speech" to take home the big prize, but if it does, it really has no bearing on who will win the Oscar's Best Picture. In fact, in recent years, the winner of Best Picture Drama has usually failed to win the Oscar for Best Picture, so if I was a producer on either movie I'm not so sure I would want the victory.

     The last film that rounded out the Best Picture Drama was "Inception", which also made a decent showing. As for the losers, I would say there were two. The smaller of them would be "127 Hours" which got three nominations, but failed to get into the Best Picture Drama. The biggest loser of the day though was definitely the Coen brother's "True Grit", which received a resounding thud of zero nominations. I get the feeling that while the film is liked, its not loved. It still should do pretty well with the Academy though, but any chances it had at winning in the major categories is slipping away. The other big loser in my view was the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for its ridiculous nominations in the comedy categories for "Alice in Wonderland", which I consider to be one of the worst movies of the year. If you have been reading my "Top 100" countdown, you'll know that I am a fan of some of Tim Burton's work, but "Alice in Wonderland" is easily his worst film, and nominating Johnny Depp for his hackneyed Mad Hatter was a poor decision too.

     On the TV front, I don't watch or haven't gotten to see many of the nominees, but I was a little disappointed with their Comedy nominations. The only show that I have seen a little of is NBC's "30 Rock", which is a mediocre show that is always overrated by critics. It is especially disappointing to see some of the other great shows surrounding "30 Rock", like "Community" and "Parks and Recreations", not get any nominations. If you would like to see the full list of nominations, click here.