Sunday, January 13, 2013

Predicting the Golden Globes

This truly is an intriguing, one-of-a-kind award's season.  2012 was such a great year for movies, with so many films released that just swept audiences, critics, and people in the film industry, genuinely off their feet.  With this being such a high quality year, there is no clear frontrunner, as can be seen the other night with the Critics' Choice Movie Awards.

They awarded Argo for Best Picture and Best Director, where as Ben Affleck got snubbed at the Oscar nominations that very morning, so there is no shot for him with Best Director, and there has not been a film that wins Best Picture without being nominated for Best Director since Driving Miss Daisy at the 1990 Academy Awards, so Argo's chances of repeat success are slim.

What I'm getting at here, is that the race is wide open.  It's highly likely that a different film will win the Critics' Choice, the Golden Globe, the SAG Ensemble Award, the BAFTA, and the Oscar.  There has not been a year like this in a long time, and it makes me all the more excited to watch each award's show when they come on.

Tonight is the 70th Annual Golden Globes' ceremony, hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (which if they don't get too political, will be quite funny).  Unlike the Oscars, which are voted on by the Academy (which is basically a large sampling of the best and brightest talent in the film industry, from actors to set designers), the Golden Globes are voted on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

To understand the difference between the HFPA and the Broadcast Film Critics Association which put on the Critics' Choice Movie Awards the other night, the BFCA are a collection of North American film critics, where as the HFPA are a collection representing the world press, therefore, in a nutshell, foreign film critics.  Unlike the Critics' Choice or even the Oscars, they are not swayed by American success or opinion, but are typically swayed by international success and opinion, making their award's show, often very different from all the rest.

This year's Golden Globes looks to be one of the more heated in years, with so many categories that are almost too close to call, but I'm going to try anyways, cause as I said the other day, these shows are just so much more fun when you're predicting.

There are four races that I feel are really going to be big battles tonight, and they are:  Best Drama, Best Comedy/Musical, Best Director, and Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.  Whenever predicting the Globes, you have to think of how that film played internationally, which is why I'll be surprised to see Lincoln win big tonight.  Of course, crazier things have happened.

Similar to a few years back when Avatar was the big winner, bringing home both Best Drama and Best Director, I feel that international hit, Life of Pi, may very well steal those two awards this year, because of international success, but it could go any which way.  Then there's the Best Comedy/Musical categories, and I think most of them will be split right down the middle between Les Miserables and Silver Linings Playbook, with the real battle being whether or not the Globes loved Hugh Jackman's singing more so than Bradley Cooper's soulful performance.  We'll see tonight.

As per usual, I wont try and predict the TV side of things, because I am just not informed enough on that side to make good guesses.  As well, for a full list of nominations check here, and for my predictions, look below:

Best Drama - Life of Pi
Best Comedy/Musical - Silver Linings Playbook
Best Director - Ang Lee, Life of Pi 
Best Actor in a Drama - Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Best Actress in a Drama - Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy - Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy - Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Best Supporting Actor - Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Best Supporting Actress - Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Best Screenplay -  Tony Kushner, Lincoln
Best Foreign Language Film - Amour
Best Animated Feature - Wreck-It Ralph
Best Original Song - "Skyfall" from Skyfall
Best Original Score - John Williams, Lincoln

Tune in tonight on NBC at 8/7 central to see who wins, and as usual, I'll update my tally after the show and give my final thoughts on the night.  Cheers.

UPDATE:  Okay, I cannot reiterate enough how crazy this award's season is, and we're just getting started.  I went 7 out of 14 on my predictions, but honestly this just makes the award's shows to come all the more exciting, and harder to predict.  I overestimated Life of Pi and vastly underestimated Argo, which speaking of Argo, I think tonight pretty much sealed up the Director's Guild Award for Ben Affleck, as well as putting Argo firmly back into the Best Picture hunt at the Oscars.

This year, the Academy moved up their voting deadline a few weeks, and if it were any other year, Ben Affleck would have probably been nominated for Best Director, alas I am seeing a scenario forming where Argo pulls off the Oscar rarity and wins Best Picture without its director being nominated.  It's clear from it winning big both tonight and with the critics, that there is huge love for the film, and the sympathy for Affleck not getting nominated may very well push Argo over the hump.  We'll see, but all the Golden Globes did was really make this award's season more up in the air. 

Could this be one of those years where the Best Picture winner wins nothing other than Best Picture?  That's an even greater rarity, but I actually see it possibly happening, because I don't think it will win Adapted Screenplay, and it isn't nominated for acting or directing, and most likely wont win the tech categories it's up for, so wouldn't it be interesting if out of all its nominations and snubs, Argo only wins one Oscar and it's Best Picture?  An interesting, one-of-a-kind year indeed.  For a full list of winners, check here, and be sure to tune in tomorrow, where I start my Best of 2012 coverage. 

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