The Golden Globe nominations are in, and the awards season race is off and running! First out of the gate with an early surge is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Revolutionary Road is close behind. Australia has pulled up with a sprained (yet epic, Wizard of Oz influenced, with a splash of the melodramatic) toe. It may have fainted.
Well, one way to unite a country is to ignore the movie that’s named after it. Baz Luhrmann is drinking somewhere in a darkened bar with a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hanging around his neck. If you want to get us back on side you nominate someone we’ve spent the past year canonizing. Heath Ledger is in a surprisingly strong field for best supporting actor.
What’s even more surprising is people seem to think Tom Cruise could be a genuine threat in that field. Don’t get me wrong, his 5 minutes in Tropic Thunder wiped away a lot of the lunacy that preceded it, but the whole thing feels like some sort of gag nomination. It’s another example of awards being used to make up for ignoring a subject’s earlier, far worthier efforts (see Cate Blanchett’s Oscar for Aviator, Judi Dench’s statue for Shakespeare In Love and Martin Scorsese for The Departed).
It’s difficult to begrudge any of the film nominees (except perhaps for Mamma Mia!), but I must give a special shout out to Mickey Rourke and Maris Tomei of The Wrestler. The whole project screams ‘underdog’ with a slab of ‘comeback’ on the side. The last time Marisa looked so unlikely she picked up an Academy Award – so don’t count either of them out.
In other highlights…
- Brandon Walters has been nominated for the US Critic’s Best Young Actor award. At the rate Australia’s going, this is probably the only thing they’re going to be able to add to the poster. He’s got to fight off Dakota Fanning to score the prize, and that girl can scrap with the best of them.
- Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz cannot find anyone willing to pay them for photos of their first child. The world is as it should be.
- There are reports Britney’s new tour act will be a 3 act dramatization of her breakdown. I hope (and hope) this isn’t true – it sounds truly lame. The details make it worse. A circus will be used as an analogy for the last 2 years of her life. Because her life was like a circus. And her album is called Circus. Get it? It’s all layered and symbolic and deep and stuff. Is it possible that I am getting to the end of my marketing-strategy-swallowing tether on this comeback business? She’s back. Move on already.
