Kate Winslet, Leonardio DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road (top); Winslet, David Kross in The Reader (bottom)
There were few surprises among the 2009 Golden Globe winners.
The biggest one was Kate Winslet's best actress, drama, win for Revolutionary Road. Pundits everywhere — including those in this blog — were predicting either Anne Hathaway or Meryl Streep.
Sally Hawkins' best actress, comedy or musical, win may have caught some by surprise — those who were expecting Meryl Streep for the box-office hit Mamma Mia!. But considering that Hawkins has been a critical favorite (New York, Los Angeles, National Society of Film Critics) and that she's a likely Oscar contender, Golden Globe prognosticators shouldn't have been too shocked, even though Happy-Go-Lucky is hardly what one would call a blockbuster.
Kate Winslet seems destined to win the best supporting actress Oscar — even though her role in The Reader is not exactly what one would call "supporting." That means Penélope Cruz's chances, despite all the critical praise and critics' awards, have been drastically reduced. That is, unless Academy members opt for Cruz for fear that Winslet will spend too many precious Oscarcast minutes thanking every person she's ever met. (Her thank-you list at the Globes was quite extensive.)
Upon accepting Heath Ledger's (very much expected) posthumous best supporting actor trophy for The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan said, "All of us who worked with Heath on The Dark Knight accept with an awful mixture of sadness but incredible pride. After Heath passed, you saw a hole ripped in the future of cinema."
Going home empty-handed: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, Gran Torino, and Milk, which only had a single nomination (for Sean Penn) to begin with.