Golden Globes 2010: Meryl Streep has seven statuettes from a total of 25 nominations
Double 2010 Golden Globe nominee Meryl Streep’s Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy win for Nora Ephron’s two-pronged comedy-drama Julie & Julia was her seventh. Her loss for Nancy Meyers’ It’s Complicated – also in the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy category – was her 18th.
In Julie & Julia, Streep brings to life renowned television chef Julia Child while her Doubt costar Amy Adams plays her modern-day wannabe counterpart, blogger and aspiring cook Julie Powell. Of note, Adams has been completely bypassed this awards season.
Also of note, beginning in the late 1970s Meryl Streep has been nominated for a total of 25 Golden Globes, both in the motion picture and television categories.
Last year, Streep had the dubious honor of losing twice.
Of note, not that long ago there was a time – a very long time, stretching from the early 1970s to the dawn of the 21st century – when seemed that it was all but impossible to come up with five award-worthy female contenders in English-language films. In the last decade or so, that has radically changed.
And keep in mind that in the not-too-distant future, Meryl Streep and The Blind Side star Sandra Bullock will be battling it out for the Best Actress Academy Award. U.S. critics, for their part, have mostly favored Streep and An Education actress Carey Mulligan.
‘Vessel for other people’s stories’
While accepting her seventh Golden Globe at the Jan. 17 Golden Globes ceremony at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Meryl Streep told the crowd that because she has played many extraordinary women, people have come to believe that she’s one as well. She proceeded to put things in perspective: “I’m a vessel for other people’s stories, and other women’s lives.”
From there, Streep got fellow Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy nominee Sandra Bullock (for Anne Fletcher’s The Proposal) all teary eyed when she reminisced about her mother, who “had no patience for gloom and doom.” She then added, “I’m not like that.”
Meryl Streep was trying to make a point about her attempts to reconcile her being at the Glitzy, Glamorous, Glorious Golden Globes a few days after the deadly Haiti earthquake. (Estimates now place the number of dead between 50,000 and 200,000.) In her speech, she mentioned Partners in Health, an organization that has been providing assistance to Haiti’s poor for quite some time.
Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, and Leonardo DiCaprio (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio presented Martin Scorsese with the Cecil B. DeMille Award, voted by the Board of Directors of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, for his “outstanding contribution to the entertainment field.”
In his intro, DiCaprio stated that Scorsese’s movies will be remembered something like 1,000 years from now. Scorsese’s 21st-century muse, DiCaprio (Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, the upcoming Shutter Island) literally put Scorsese on the same plane as Pablo Picasso, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Francis Bacon. When the camera focused on Scorsese’s face, it was hard to tell whether he was stifling a laugh or a tear.
During his acceptance speech, Scorsese became self-controlled enough to remember the names of several major filmmaking predecessors, among them Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Ousmane Sembene, Alfred Hitchcock, Satyajit Ray, and Cecil B. DeMille.
He then proceeded to explain who DeMille was (as most at the Beverly Hilton and at home likely had never heard of him or any of those other filmmakers mentioned in the previous paragraph), and compared his desire to make movies to DeMille’s. He did, however, admit that GoodFellas and The Greatest Show on Earth don’t have all that much in common. (Though DeMille would have been proud of something as bombastic as The Aviator.)
Already a two-time Best Director Golden Globe winner (Gangs of New York, 2002; The Departed, 2006), Scorsese also thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for their contributions to film preservation, including the restoration of 70 classic films, including Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory and Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd.
More recently, Scorsese himself has been passionately involved in another HFPA-sponsored restoration: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s British-made 1948 color musical The Red Shoes. Michael Powell was the husband of editor Thelma Schoonmaker, one of Scorsese’s frequent collaborators.
Scorsese’s next effort, Shutter Island, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer, Michelle Williams, Mark Ruffalo, and Max von Sydow, will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival next month. The mystery thriller opens in the U.S. on Feb. 19.
Always keep in mind that timing is (nearly) everything.
Something else to keep in mind: How many old movies and television shows have any of those wealthy, fancily dressed movie and TV people have helped to restore?
Among Scorsese’s others career honors are the Venice Film Festival’s Career Golden Lion (1995), the AFI Life Achievement Award (1997), and the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award (2003).
Previous Cecil B. DeMille Award recipients include Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Gregory Peck, Alfred Hitchcock, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Paul Newman, Barbara Stanwyck, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn, Robert Redford, Al Pacino, and DeMille himself back in 1952 – a time when his The Greatest Show on Earth came out and the director wanted to expurgate the Directors Guild of “communists.”
Tobey Maguire and Jennifer Meyers (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Golden Globe nominee Tobey Maguire – in the Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama category for Brothers – recently made entertainment headlines following his announcement that he’ll not return for Spider-Man 4. Rumored replacements have ranged from Michael Cera and Chace Crawford to Robert Pattinson and Zac Efron.
Veteran Jessica Lange was one of the nominees in the Best Actress in a Television Movie or Miniseries category for her performance in Grey Gardens. Lange’s costar, Drew Barrymore, was the winner. To date, Lange has been nominated for 11 Golden Globes, winning four times.
Golden Globes 2010 moment to be remembered, like Martin Scorsese’s movies, 1,000 years from now: One of the stage escorts stepped on Chloë Sevigny’s ruffled Valentino dress as she walked onto the podium. Clearly irked, the Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film – for playing one of the wives of Fundamentalist Mormon patriarch Bill Paxton in HBO’s Big Love – prefaced her acceptance speech with “I can’t believe you just ripped my dress!”
Christoph Waltz (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
In his acceptance speech, Christoph Waltz thanked Quentin Tarantino for his “gravitational pull,” and went on to make several out-there analogies between the making of Inglourious Basterds and celestial bodies and constellations. The 53-year-old Vienna-born actor has appeared in nearly 100 big-screen features and television productions since 1977 but has become an international name only now.
Matthew Morrison (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson, (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA)
Christina Aguilera (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA)
Halle Berry (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA)
Robert Downey Jr (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA)
For some, the highlight of the 2010 Golden Globes ceremony was Robert Downey Jr.’s speech, in which he pretended not to thank anyone for his Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy win for his portrayal of the title character in Guy Ritchie’s blockbuster Sherlock Holmes.
The chief characteristic of the Golden Globes is that their nominees and winners tend to either be or feature stars. Not that the Academy Awards or most U.S.-based critics groups are all that different, but the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has a televised party – with food, drinks, crass jokes – to worry about. If HFPA members can nominate songs composed by Clint Eastwood (or Bono), songs sung by Miley Cyrus, supporting performances by the likes of Tom Cruise, they’ll do it.
Looking at the Golden Globe nominees for Best Picture – Drama of the last ten years, the only three films that didn’t feature at least one major name at the time of their nominations were Billy Elliot in 2000, Mulholland Dr. in 2001, and last year’s unavoidable Slumdog Millionaire.
Best original score and original song presenter Cher, mangled the name of best score winner Michael Giacchino (for Up), calling him “Michael Giancino,” while Felicity Huffman, of both Desperate Housewives and Transamerica, made a funny mess of her Hollywood Foreign Press Association announcement. “This was not at all how it was gonna go,” she exclaimed at one point, before telling the audience and the millions of television viewers that the HFPA has donated “$10 million to film-related charities.”
Something else that seemed a little messed up was the introduction of screen legend Sophia Loren to the tune of “Three Coins in the Fountain,” the theme song from a 1954 romantic comedy-drama of the same title. Though set in Rome, Three Coins in the Fountain doesn’t feature Loren anywhere.
Felicity Huffman (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA)
Ricky Gervais (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA)
“I like a drink as much as the next man … unless the next man is Mel Gibson,” said Ricky Gervais as he introduced Gibson, who, until he began working on his latest vehicle, the thriller Edge of Darkness, had kept pretty much to himself since his drunken driving to-do a few years back. (Not counting his tabloidized – and very expensive – divorce.) Some found Gervais’ joke daring (though not daring enough), but according to Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood, Gervais called Gibson beforehand to make sure it was okay. Gibson gave the Golden Globes’ host his consent.
Finke adds that Gibson was much less agreeable when Sam Rubin, of the Los Angeles television station KTLA, asked him about his time away from the screen since the drunken driving incident and his widely reported anti-Semitic tirades. Gibson leaned forward in an aggressive manner, saying, “I gather you have a dog in this fight. … Do you have a dog in this fight?” Rubin is Jewish. (You can watch a clip from the interview here.)
“The winner for Most Incoherent Speech,” wrote Richard Corliss in Time, “would have to go to Drew Barrymore, whose thank-you — in recognition for her work in the HBO mini-series Grey Gardens — was a ditsy dither that seemed to channel both Sarah and Michael Palin.”
Ricky Gervais didn’t get good grades from The Wrap’s Naomi Serviss. In her piece, “More Like: Leaden Globes,” Serviss lambasted Gervais, for among other things he “mercilessly plugged his poorly reviewed, soon-to-be-released-DVD, The Invention of Lying.”
“Before Sunday night’s Golden Globes ceremony, host Ricky Gervais was promising a gloves-off performance,” writes Brian Logan in The Guardian. ‘There were about five things [the producers] didn’t like in rehearsal,’ he boasted. ‘I said I wouldn’t do them – but I’m going to. It’s live. They can’t stop me.’ By his words so must we judge him. Was this the no-holds-barred comic performance he told us to expect?”
Logan doesn’t quite think so, complaining that Gervais’ “trademark selfregard [is] wearing very thin. And so too here, where egotistical material about The Office – and, worse, his penis – made a duff start. When will he learn that his spoof self-absorption is as obnoxious as the real thing?”
The Hollywood Reporter, for its part, called Gervais’ performance “toothless,” despite remarks such as “one thing that can’t be bought is a Golden Globe. Officially. I’m not going to do this again, anyway.” Gervais then added that if you were to buy a Globe, the man to contact would be Philip Berk, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Brian Logan adds that Gervais did “pull some punches,” e.g., “joking about Mel Gibson’s drinking is one thing – but off the leash, Gervais would surely make hay with Gibson’s anti-Semitism too.” Julianna Margulies, for her part, didn’t make any cracks about drinking or anti-Semitism, opting instead to thank CBS for believing in the “ten o’clock drama.” Margulies won the best actress in a television series (drama) Golden Globe for The Good Wife.
As usual, movies that did (or are still doing) well at the domestic box office did quite well at the Golden Globes, too. The blockbuster Avatar wasn’t even nominated for best screenplay and none of its actors were nominated in the various categories, but the film still managed to win the best picture prize. The blockbuster comedy The Hangover didn’t get a matching best director or best screenplay nomination, and none of its actors were nominated, but it went on to win the Golden Globe in the Best Picture – Musical or Comedy category.
Avatar isn’t just a back-to-nature epic; it has gotten a number of good reviews, it’s considered one of the most innovative and groundbreaking movies ever made, and its message may bother some (the far right, the Vatican) but it has been embraced by tens of millions the world over. In other words: HFPA voters can go pagan (and populist) without being afraid of being excommunicated by serious-minded pundits.
At this year’s ceremony, the only movie that hasn’t become a major box office hit to win Golden Globes was Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart, which earned Jeff Bridges a best actor (drama) Globe and a best song (“The Weary Kind”).
The Hurt Locker, which has won numerous critics awards across the United States, didn’t win a single Golden Globe. Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq War drama grossed only $12.6 million at the domestic box office.
Up in the Air had topped the nominations roster with six nods, but its only winner turned out to be the screenplay co-written by director Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner.
Topping the crowded and highly eclectic Golden Globe field with six nominations, Jason Reitman’s comedy-drama Up in the Air was oddly shortlisted as a drama, especially when one considers the herculean effort the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association make to find five (or six) worthy nominees in the Musical or Comedy category.
Indeed, the “prestige” comedy/musical field is more sparse than the drama one, which explains why members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association must at times bend over backwards and sideways in order to include five nominees each year. Even if that means stretching their Best Picture – Musical or Comedy category to include dramas with musical numbers (e.g., Ray, Walk the Line) or dramas with humorous sequences (e.g., Pride & Prejudice).
Tom Hanks’ “nice guy” image nearly came crashing down when he said that Meryl Streep goes to bed with Alec Baldwin in the Best Picture – Musical or Comedy nominee It’s Complicated, and that she goes to bed with Stanley Tucci in her other comedy nominee, Julie & Julia. Hanks added that Streep’s second partner was “a substantial move up” from her first. Tucci, though a step up on Streep’s sex ladder, didn’t seem to find the joke funny. Some other audience members didn’t, either, as some loud oooooooohhhhhs were heard in the room.
A similar reaction greeted host Ricky Gervais when he made a joke about presenter Paul McCartney traveling coach so as to save money, an allusion to McCartney’s expensive divorce last year. McCartney then plugged Robert Zemeckis’ planned 3D remake of Yellow Submarine, and told the audience that “animation is not just for children, but it’s also for adults who take drugs.”
Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, and Sigourney Weaver (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Justin Bartha, Heather Graham, Bradley Cooper, and boxer Mike Tyson (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Best Actress (drama) winner Sandra Bullock got teary-eyed while listening to Meryl Streep’s speech, in which the Best Actress – Musical or Comedy winner remembered her mother’s optimistic nature. Bullock later gave her own emotional speech, and got to speak both German and English while at it. Her performance in The Blind Side has earned her some good reviews, and the film itself has become a major box office hit. So much so that Bullock was voted the top box office star in the United States in 2009. Her other releases last year were the hit The Proposal, with Ryan Reynolds, and the box office disappointment All About Steve, with Bradley Cooper.
“Quentin, I’m still waiting for them to say your name. I’m really confused, now,” said best screenplay co-winner Jason Reitman. Reitman, his Up in the Air co-writer Sheldon Turner, and Quentin Tarantino (for Inglourious Basterds) had been in the running in the Golden Globes’ single screenplay category. The Oscars, however, have two. So, Reitman will likely not be confused come Oscar time, as his and Turner’s screenplay is an adaptation of a novel; Tarantino’s is an original.
Also, in his acceptance speech, Reitman thanked his father, director Ivan Reitman, and his star George Clooney, whom he called “one of the greatest men I’ve ever met in my life.”
Courtney Cox (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA)
Emily Blunt and John Krasinski (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Gabourey Sidibe (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Fergie’s Nine, a box office disappointment, failed to win a single Golden Globe. Josh Duhamel’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, wasn’t up for any Globes despite its high grosses. On the other hand, some assert that it’ll be up for several Razzies as the worst film of 2009. Nominations will be announced in early February.
If Hollywood Foreign Press Association voters had wanted to cozy up to the Weinstein Co. folks, they might have selected Nine as their top choice. But it looks like a nomination for the widely panned musical extravaganza was enough cozying up.
Heather Graham (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA)
The Golden Globes show ratings were up this year. According to some, that’s because box office friendly movies such as Avatar, The Hangover, The Blind Side, Sherlock Holmes, and It’s Complicated were in the running. Apparently, the impact of television series fans who might have wanted to see Michael C. Hall or Tina Fey is irrelevant. Just as irrelevant is the fact that the Globes were broadcast live for the first time on both coasts.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, the Golden Globes ceremony hosted by Ricky Gervais “drew 16.9 million viewers and a 5.4 rating among adults 18-49, according to early, time zone-adjusted estimates.” That’s up 10 per cent from last year. As per the Reporter, it also “marks NBC’s best rating in the time period, excluding sports, in five years.”
James Cameron (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA)
James Cameron, who received his best director Golden Globe from neighbor Mel Gibson, said he expected his former wife Kathryn Bigelow to be the winner. The 2009–2010 awards season’s runaway favorite, Bigelow surely expected that herself, and so did most everyone else.
The Hurt Locker is prestigious, it is perceived as a director’s film, she’s a woman who has succeeded as the director of a “man’s film,” she was married to James Cameron and achieved success on her own and now is competing against him, she has a good chance of winning an Oscar.
But her film, the Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker, grossed less than $15 million at the domestic box office. Avatar grossed $15 million domestically on a bad day, and to date it has taken in nearly $500 million.
Besides, Bigelow isn’t a star filmmaker like Quentin Tarantino or James Cameron – or Barbra Streisand, the only woman to win a Best Director Golden Globe (Yentl, 1983).
Neither Sam Worthington nor Zoe Saldana – or any other Avatar cast member, for that matter – was nominated for a Golden Globe. According to Steven Zeitchik in his Los Angeles Times blog, Cameron remarked that “everything [that the avatars in the movie] do is determined by the actors … There’s a bit of a learning curve for the acting community to really understand what we did.”
Paul McCartney (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA)
“You’re really screwing up my under-appreciated status here,” said 40-year film veteran Jeff Bridges as he accepted his Golden Globe for best actor (drama) of the year. In Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart, Bridges plays an aging, troubled country singer who has a “healing” affair with a much younger journalist (Maggie Gyllenhaal).
Although he’s been mentioned as a favorite for the Oscars – a sort of career achievement award for the four-time nominated actor – the Golden Globe was expected to go to George Clooney for his corporate-downsizing expert in Up in the Air. After all, the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are well known for their love of big movie stars. Additionally, Clooney has won most best actor awards from critics groups in the United States (though that could be because many of them haven’t watched the much smaller Crazy Heart, yet).
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock spoke English and German during her a tad long-winded acceptance speech. (The orchestra actually dared to remind the top box office star in the United States to wrap things up quick.) This year, Bullock received two Golden Globe nominations, both for major box office hits: The Blind Side, a drama in which she goes blonde, and The Proposal, a comedy in which she costars with Ryan Reynolds. She won for the former; she lost to Meryl Streep (for Julie & Julia) in the latter category. Both Bullock and Streep can now be considered the two top Oscar contenders come next March – even though the nominations haven’t even been announced.
Who would have thought a mere six weeks ago? I don’t believe many were expecting The Blind Side to earn even one quarter of what it has so far ($220 million at the domestic box office and counting) or that Sandra Bullock would be named the top moneymaking star of 2009, the first woman on that spot since Julia Roberts back in 1999.
Critics weren’t crazy about The Blind Side, but the public is. And for the most part even critics aren’t screaming bloody murder over the fact that Bullock has been nominated for a best actress SAG Award and will be probably up for an Oscar when nominations are announced on Feb. 2. After all, Bullock has been around for about two decades, she’s paid her dues, and hers is the rebirth story of the year. And she’s so darned cute. It’s her time to get some kind of recognition.
Last year’s top box office star in the United States, Sandra Bullock won the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Golden Globe for John Lee Hancock’s sleeper blockbuster The Blind Side, in which she plays a conservative, well-to-do wife and mom who adopts an inner-city black teenager.
Bullock is also up for this year’s Best Actress SAG Award, and will undoubtedly receive an Oscar nomination next Feb. 2.
Nicole Kidman (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Toni Collette (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Toni Collette
Toni Collette was named Best Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy for The United States of Tara. Collette had been previously nominated for three Golden Globes (different categories): Muriel’s Wedding (1995), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), and Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006).
Michael C. Hall
Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama winner Michael C. Hall had been undergoing cancer treatment, which explains the skullcap he was wearing at the 2010 Golden Globes ceremony. And yet a New York Times blogger ignorant of Hall’s condition mocked the cap on, where else, Twitter. The writer later apologized.
Jeff Bridges (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Jeff Bridges
A folksy looking and sounding Jeff Bridges, not George Clooney (for Up in the Air), got the chance to thank family (including father Lloyd Bridges and his mother, who died last year), friends, and coworkers. Although Bridges’ win wasn’t a total surprise, George Clooney was the type of guy the Hollywood Foreign Press Association would go for.
Steadily in movies since 1970, Jeff Bridges, 60, had never won a Golden Globe until this year. He was named 2009’s Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for his performance as an aging country singer in Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart. His three previous Golden Globe nominations (in different categories): Starman (2004), The Fisher King (1991), and The Contender (2000).
Although looking increasingly like Buffalo Bill, Bridges will be seen in the not too distant future as another cowboy: The eye-patch-wearing Rooster Cogburn – previously played by John Wayne – in Joel and Ethan Coen’s remake of Henry Hathaway’s True Grit.
T Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
T Bone Burnett & Ryan Bingham
T Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham won the Best Original Song Golden Globe for “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart. Bingham also has a supporting role in the film. Note: This Ryan Bingham is not to be confused with the corporate downsizer of the same name played by George Clooney in Up in the Air.
Mo’Nique (Golden Globe Awards | © HFPA).
Mo’Nique
Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Golden Globe winner Mo’Nique (Precious) delivered an emotional speech, alternately choking up with tears and bursting out with joy, while talking about her dreams of becoming a star and eventually dedicating her award to women who have been sexually abused.
According to Brian Brooks at indieWIRE, Mo’Nique also delivered a quotable speech the previous evening at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s awards dinner, held at the Century City Intercontinental Hotel (about a stone’s throw from the Golden Globes’ Beverly Hilton Hotel).
In that particular speech, she explained that she hadn’t been looking at the Precious rushes, and only realized the impact of her performance as Gabourey Sidibe’s abusive mother after she received a phone call from director Lee Daniels.
“Lee said to me, ‘Bitch!’ I mean, he said to me, ‘Biiiiiitch! You gave me far more than I could have ever expected….”
It’s unclear whether another gay filmmaker, Rob Marshall, paid a similar compliment to Dame Judi Dench, Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, or any of his other female Nine stars. Or, for that matter, to Daniel Day-Lewis.
Golden Globes 2010 presenters
Here’s the list of presenters at the 2010 Golden Globes ceremony:
- Two-time Oscar winners Tom Hanks (Philadelphia, 1993; Forrest Gump, 1994), Jodie Foster (The Accused, 1988; The Silence of the Lambs, 1991), Robert De Niro (The Godfather Part II, 1974; Raging Bull, 1980), and Mel Gibson (both for Braveheart, 1995)
- Oscar winners Sophia Loren (Two Women, 1961), Kate Winslet (The Reader, 2008), Cher (Moonstruck, 1987), Helen Mirren (The Queen, 2006), Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich, 2000), Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball, 2001), Nicole Kidman (The Hours, 2002), Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line, 2005), and Paul McCartney (Let It Be, 1970).
- Oscar nominees Amy Adams (Junebug, 2005; etc.), Felicity Huffman (Transamerica, 2005), Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator, 2004; etc.), Harrison Ford (Witness, 1985), Kate Hudson (Almost Famous, 2000), Josh Brolin (Milk, 2008), Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, 1994), and Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler, 2008).
- In addition to: Justin Bartha, Sam Worthington, Bradley Cooper, Kristen Bell, Jane Krakowski, Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler, Chace Crawford, Sally Hawkins, Sofia Vergara, Matthew Fox, Taylor Lautner, and Christina Aguilera.
- And: Ashton Kutcher, Olivia Wilde, Jim Parsons, Amy Poehler, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Garner, Lauren Graham, Ed Helms, Zoe Saldana, Neil Patrick Harris, Colin Farrell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Kiefer Sutherland.
Immediately below is the list of this year’s Golden Globe winners and nominees. The nominations were announced on Dec. 15.
Golden Globes 2010: winners & nominations
FILM
Best Motion Picture – Drama
* Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
Up in the AirBest Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
(500) Days of Summer
* The Hangover
It’s Complicated
Julie & Julia
NineBest Foreign Language Film
Baarìa – Italy
Broken Embraces / Los abrazos rotos – Spain
The Maid / La nana – Chile
A Prophet / Un Prophète – France
* The White Ribbon / Das weiße Band – GermanyBest Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
* Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
George Clooney – Up in the Air
Colin Firth – A Single Man
Morgan Freeman – Invictus
Tobey Maguire – BrothersBest Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
Emily Blunt – The Young Victoria
* Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
Helen Mirren – The Last Station
Carey Mulligan – An Education
Gabourey Sidibe – PreciousBest Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Sandra Bullock – The Proposal
Marion Cotillard – Nine
Julia Roberts – Duplicity
Meryl Streep – It’s Complicated
* Meryl Streep – Julie & JuliaBest Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Matt Damon – The Informant!
Daniel Day-Lewis – Nine
* Robert Downey Jr. – Sherlock Holmes
Joseph Gordon-Levitt – (500) Days of Summer
Michael Stuhlbarg – A Serious ManBest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Matt Damon – Invictus
Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
Christopher Plummer – The Last Station
Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
* Christoph Waltz – Inglourious BasterdsBest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Penélope Cruz – Nine
Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air
Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air
* Mo’Nique – Precious
Julianne Moore – A Single ManBest Director
Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
* James Cameron – Avatar
Clint Eastwood – Invictus
Jason Reitman – Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious BasterdsBest Screenplay
Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell – District 9
Mark Boal – The Hurt Locker
Nancy Meyers – It’s Complicated
* Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner – Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious BasterdsBest Original Score
* Michael Giacchino – Up
Marvin Hamlisch – The Informant!
James Horner – Avatar
Abel Korzeniowski – A Single Man
Karen O & Carter Burwell – Where the Wild Things AreBest Original Song
“Cinema Italiano,” music & lyrics by Maury Yeston – Nine
“I See You,” music by James Horner & Simon Franglen; lyrics by James Horner, Simon Franglen & Kuk Harrell – Avatar
“(I Want to) Come Home,” music & lyrics by Paul McCartney – Everybody’s Fine
* “The Weary Kind,” music & lyrics by Ryan Bingham & T Bone Burnett – Crazy Heart
“Winter,” music by U2; lyrics by Bono – BrothersBest Animated Feature Film
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
* UpTELEVISION
Best Miniseries or Television Film
Georgia O’Keeffe
* Grey Gardens
Into the Storm
Little Dorrit
Taking ChanceBest Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film
Joan Allen – Georgia O’Keeffe
* Drew Barrymore – Grey Gardens
Jessica Lange – Grey Gardens
Anna Paquin – The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler
Sigourney Weaver – Prayers for BobbyBest Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film
* Kevin Bacon – Taking Chance
Kenneth Branagh – Wallander: One Step Behind
Chiwetel Ejiofor – Endgame
Brendan Gleeson – Into the Storm
Jeremy Irons – Georgia O’KeeffeBest Television Series – Drama
Big Love
Dexter
House
* Mad Men
True BloodBest Television Series – Musical or Comedy
Entourage
* Glee
Modern Family
The Office
30 RockBest Actor in a Television Series – Drama
Simon Baker – The Mentalist
* Michael C. Hall – Dexter
Jon Hamm – Mad Men
Hugh Laurie – House
Bill Paxton – Big LoveBest Actress in a Television Series – Drama
Glenn Close – Damages
January Jones – Mad Men
* Julianna Margulies – The Good Wife
Anna Paquin – True Blood
Kyra Sedgwick – The CloserBest Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy
* Toni Collette – United States of Tara
Courteney Cox – Cougar Town
Edie Falco – Nurse Jackie
Tina Fey – 30 Rock
Lea Michele – GleeBest Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy
* Alec Baldwin – 30 Rock
Steve Carell – The Office
David Duchovny – Californication
Thomas Jane – Hung
Matthew Morrison – GleeBest Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film
Jane Lynch – Glee
Jane Adams – Hung
Rose Byrne – Damages
Janet McTeer – Into the Storm
* Chloë Sevigny – Big LoveBest Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film
Michael Emerson – Lost
Neil Patrick Harris – How I Met Your Mother
William Hurt – Damages
* John Lithgow – Dexter
Jeremy Piven – Entourage
Golden Globe nominations
Besides, the Golden Globes often have dramas in the more sparsely populated Musical or Comedy categories, but this year they just had to go the other way.
Not that Up in the Air is an out-and-out comedy – and there’s certainly nothing funny about the current unemployment figures in the U.S. – but we felt that the HFPA would classify Reitman’s film as such so as to leave more room in their Best Picture – Drama category for the likes of The Last Station, The Lovely Bones, and the uplifting “We Are the World, We Are the People” Invictus.
Now, at this stage, things don’t look at all lovely for The Lovely Bones, which has received several negative (or quasi-negative) reviews, while being basically ignored by U.S.-based voting groups. At the Golden Globes, this supernatural drama about a murdered girl in heaven and her murderer on Earth received only one nod: Best Supporting Actor for Stanley Tucci’s psycho child-hater.
After all, they chose Sandra Bullock for the box office hit The Blind Side, Meryl Streep for the box office hit Julie & Julia, and Robert Downey Jr for the box office hit Sherlock Holmes. Crazy Heart, a drama about an aging country singer, has grossed about 1/1000th of what those movies made. Up in the Air, though hardly a gigantic hit, is doing quite well at the box office, and as I said before, George Clooney is, well, George Clooney.
The real big surprise of the evening, however, was James Cameron’s win. Again, that wasn’t a total surprise, mind you, but I believe that most people (including winner Cameron) were expecting to hear the name of The Hurt Locker’s Kathryn Bigelow despite her movie’s meager $12 million at the domestic box office. She’d have been a female best director winner (the second one, after Barbra Streisand), and it’d have shown that HFPA members are almost like movie critics in their discerning taste.
To hell with critical acclaim, the HFPA voters finally decided. And that’s how critics favorite Bigelow was bypassed in favor of audience favorite Cameron. Having just passed George Lucas’ Star Wars, Avatar is well on its way to becoming the #2 – perhaps even the #1 – all-time hit at the domestic box office (not adjusted for inflation, etc. etc.). And speaking of audience favorites, The Hangover was named the Best Picture – Musical or Comedy of 2009.
Among the five nominees in that category, it was by far the highest grosser, with more than $200 million at the domestic box office. Losers included Nancy Meyers’ It’s Complicated. Note: None of the five nominees in the Best Picture – Musical or Comedy category has a matching best director nomination. Only one of them had a matching Best Screenplay nod, It’s Complicated.
Apart from Crazy Heart, which also won for best song (T Bone’s “The Weary Kind”), non-blockbusters had to content themselves with the Honor of Being Nominated. The Hurt Locker, in fact, didn’t win a single Golden Globe. Neither did Nine.
Nine, a movie version of the Broadway show that itself was a musicalized adaptation of Federico Fellini’s 8½, received mostly mediocre reviews and did poor business. Oscar chances are iffy, but since Oscarexpert Harvey Weinstein is pushing Nine don’t be too surprised if it ends up getting a whole array of Oscar nominations – including best picture – and perhaps even a statuette or two.
Speeches at the 2010 Golden Globes ranged from the moving to the mundane. Mostly the mundane. The awards show itself wasn’t the most exciting thing on planet Earth, but at least it was over in about three hours.
What I was most curious about wasn’t who was going to win Best Actor – Drama or Best Director or Best Screenplay or Best Actress – Musical or Comedy. What I was most curious about was: Will someone throw a shoe at Mel Gibson when he shows up as a presenter? Will he be heckled? Will he get a standing ovation? Will he get shoes, heckles, and a standing ovation?
Much to my disappointment, I missed Gibson’s initial appearance. Karma, I was told. But I saw that his jokes were well received by the crowd, so I’m assuming that what’s past is past whether or not it’s truly past.
Since the Gibson Affair was quite underwhelming, the most interesting part of the evening for me took place when Meryl Streep obliquely mentioned the Haiti earthquake disaster in her speech while reminiscing about her optimistic mother. My friend and co-watcher’s favorite moment took place not on the podium, but on screen, when at the very end of the Nine montage, Penélope Cruz purrs, “I’ll be waiting for you. With my legs open.”
Nine, which has been a box office dud, now has one guaranteed ticket sale on Monday.
When it came to the 2010 Golden Globe speeches, there wasn’t much for posterity. Unless, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s remarks about half of Avatar’s revenues being used to alleviate California’s budget deficit is your idea of wit. Remember: The Terminator actor is currently the governor of a state on the brink.
When asked about the Haiti earthquake backstage, Best Actor in a Miniseries of Television Movie Kevin Bacon (Taking Chance) remarked, “You feel weird, you feel guilty putting on your monkey suit. But on the flip side, it’s good to come out to talk about it.”
“Golden Globes 2010” notes
Best Foreign Language Film hopefuls
Unlike the Academy Awards, where the Best Foreign Language Film category is more than anything a World Cup-like competition among countries (see 2010 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar longlist), the Golden Globes allow multiple entries from the same country. Out of a record 69 eligible entries, France had 16 titles (including co-productions) – far more than any other country. Brazil, on other hand, had zero.
Here are a few notable Best Foreign Language Film entries – oddly, the list was announced shortly before the nominations themselves were made public – not mentioned elsewhere in this article:
- About Elly – Iran
- Cannot Live Without You – Taiwan
- Cell 211 – Spain
- City of Life and Death – China
- Coco Before Chanel – France
- Dawson, Island 10 – Chile
- Eden Is West – France
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Sweden
- I Killed My Mother – Canada
- John Rabe – Germany
- Lebanon – Israel
- Letters to Father Jacob – Finland
- London River – Algeria*
- Micmacs – France
- Mother – South Korea
- Police, Adjective – Romania
- Reverse – Poland
- Samson & Delilah – Australia
- The Secret in Their Eyes – Argentina
- Thirst – South Korea
- Vincere – Italy
- Welcome – France
- Winter in Wartime – The Netherlands
Of note, Cary Fukunaga’s well-received, mostly Spanish-language U.S.-Mexico immigration drama Sin Nombre failed to be included on the roster of eligible entries.
* The London-set, mostly French-financed London River was directed by Parisian-born filmmaker Rachid Bouchareb (of Algerian background), written by Bouchareb and fellow Frenchman Olivier Lorelle, and stars British actress Brenda Blethyn and Malian actor Sotigui Kouyaté.
Shades of Costa-Gavras’ Z, a mostly French production directed by a France-based Greek filmmaker† but listed as an Algerian entry at the 1969 Academy Awards.
† Costa-Gavras’ Eden Is West is one of the titles above.
Very slim chances for Non-English-language fare in ‘regular’ motion picture categories
At the 2010 Golden Globes, Penélope Cruz might have been nominated for Pedro Almodóvar’s noirish drama Broken Embraces, a Best Foreign Language Film Globe nominee that also earned her a Goya Award nod.
Yet however much HFPA voters may like non-American performers – and they do like these “foreigners” – but almost invariably as long as they’re cast in or direct English-language fare.
In the last couple of decades, for instance, only four actresses have been nominated in the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama category for performances in non-English-language films: Kristin Scott Thomas for Philippe Claudel’s I’ve Loved You So Long (2008; last year’s Golden Globes), Penélope Cruz herself for Almodóvar’s Volver (2006), Fernanda Montenegro for Walter Salles’ Central Station (1998), and Juliette Binoche for Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors: Blue (1993).
During that same period, a mere four directors have been nominated for movies made at least partly in a language other than English: Eventual winner Ang Lee for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Clint Eastwood for Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) and eventual winner Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire (2008).
Golden Globes website.