THE Oscars may still be almost two months away, but Hollywood is already in the grip of awards fever.
The Golden Globe Awards will be handed out, four days before the Oscar nominations are announced, in a week in which the focus of so much Hollywood effort will either be richly rewarded or shunned.
The ceremony will air in Australia on pay TV's Fox8 at noon
(AEDT) on Monday.
Serious film types often dismiss the Globes as largely
irrelevant to the inner workings of Hollywood, since the awards are chosen by a
small and self-selected group of foreign film journalists, few of whom are
credentialled to major media organisations.
But that hasn't stopped the awards show from becoming one of the
best-known Hollywood events of the year, which succeeds in attracting all the
major stars, and which is capable of giving winning movies a powerful boost
with audiences.
Since 1956 the Globes have been honouring the best of television
as well as film, unlike the Oscars, which focus only on movies.
In the past, the Golden Globes have had a haphazard record at
predicting Oscar success. That is unlikely to change this year.
But with critics acclaiming this year's crop of movies one of
the most award-worthy in recent memory, there's bound to be a significant
overlap.
That augurs well for 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle, the
two movies which came out on top of the nominations, earning seven nods apiece.
Unlike the Oscars, the Golden Globes split their choice in two -
choosing separate pictures for best drama and best comedy or musical.
That means that Steve McQueen's haunting tale of a free black
man kidnapped into slavery in pre-civil war America is the clear favourite to
win the award for best drama, while David O. Russell's finely crafted caper
about an FBI corruption sting operation is just as sure to win for best comedy
or musical.
The odds are best reflected in a closely-watched poll of experts
conducted by entertainment awards site GoldDerby.com. Of the 19 experts it
asked, 18 predicted victory for American Hustle, with just a single dissenter
going for the poignant tale Nebraska.
The other nominees are Her about a man who falls in love with
his computer, Inside Llewyn Davis, a rom-com set in the folk music scene of
1960s New York, and The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's keenly observed
critique of the excesses of the finance industry.
Similarly, 14 of GoldDerby's experts chose 12 Years a Slave as
the best drama, with the other five going for Alfonso Cuaron's brilliantly-made
space thriller Gravity. The other nominees are maritime thriller Captain
Phillips, Formula 1 epic Rush, and Philomena, about a woman's quest to track
down the baby she gave away for adoption.
If such equations take much of the suspense out of the show,
there's still plenty of other reasons to tune in to the broadcast. Last year,
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler earned some of the strongest raves for hosts of an
awards show with their charming, down-to-earth and often hilarious stint as the
co-hosts.
In contrast to other recent Oscar and Golden Globe hosts, they
seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as many in the audience, and had no
need to descend into vulgarities or character assassinations in an effort to
induce laughter. Fey and Poehler are returning on Sunday night.
Film fans also will not want to miss the cavalcade of glamorous
stars who will be strutting the red carpet, and enjoying the endless supply of
fancy champagne and a gourmet dinner made with local California ingredients.
This year' faces will include Cate Blanchett, Sandra Bullock,
Judi Dench, Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, who are up for best actress in a
comedy or musical, as well as Amy Adams, Julie Delpy, Greta Gerwig, Julia
Louis-Dreyfus and Meryl Streep, who are competing for the best dramatic actress
prize.
Among the men, Christian Bale, Bruce Dern, Leonardo DiCaprio,
Oscar Isaac and Joaquin Phoenix are the nominees for the best actor in a comedy
or musical, while Chiwetel Ejiofor, Idris Elba, Tom Hanks, Matthew McConaughey
and Robert Redford are vying for the dramatic acting award. Redford has never
been nominated for an acting Golden Globe, so now, at the age of 77, it may
finally be his time to shine.
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