Golden Globe Nominations Announced, Make Even Less Sense than Usual

The Golden Globe awards have long been considered a joke in the film industry. The criteria by which the Hollywood Foreign Press Association picks its winners are frequently puzzling, to say the least. Voting members seem more dazzled by star power than by actual talent or quality, and have been known to enjoy being wined and dined in exchange for votes. Nonetheless, even by the Globes’ own mystifying and sordid history, some of this year’s nominees are just… strange.

The full list of this year’s nominees can be found on the official Golden Globes web site. I’m not going to reprint the whole thing here, but we’ll take a look at some of the more bizarre choices.

First off, ‘The Tourist‘ received three nominations in major categories (Best Motion Picture, Best Actor – Johnny Depp, and Best Actress – Angelina Jolie) despite overwhelmingly negative reviews. In addition to our own Drew calling it “terribly tedious,” the movie currently has a miserable 20% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which drops to only 7% among the Top Critics. As if that weren’t odd enough, all three of its nominations were given under the Comedy or Musical category!

Say what? Is this movie either a musical or a comedy? I thought it was bad when ‘Fargo‘ was nominated in the same Comedy or Musical category back in 1996, but at least you could make a (half-hearted) argument that the film was a black comedy. (And it was actually a good movie.) By all accounts, the only comedy in ‘The Tourist’ is the unintentional kind.

Burlesque‘ likewise received three nominations, one for Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical and two for Best Song. At least this one is actually a musical. The Tomatometer on ‘Burlesque’ currently reads a paltry 37% (26% among the Top Critics). You can tell just by looking at the trailer that this is total trash.

On the TV front, Piper Perabo was somehow nominated for Best Actress – Drama for ‘Covert Affairs‘. You know, I found the show passably entertaining when I recapped it over the summer, but there’s no way that anything about it is award-worthy, least of all Perabo’s performance. She is laughably outclassed by her competition in this category: Julianna Margulies for ‘The Good Wife’, Elizabeth Moss for ‘Mad Men’, Katey Sagal for ‘Sons of Anarchy’, and Kyra Sedgwick for ‘The Closer’.

Mrs. Z would also like me to ask how the hell Jennifer Love Hewitt scored a Best Actress in a Miniseries or Made for Television Movie nomination for her atrocious Lifetime flick ‘The Client List‘? She’s up against Dame Judi Dench, ferchrissakes!

Most of the other nominations were predictable enough. Some of them even make sense. But these are just inexplicable.

The only reason anyone pays attention to the Golden Globes at all is that the organization holds a glitzy awards dinner at the Beverly Hilton every year, where the alcohol flows freely and celebrities are known to get a little tipsy before making their acceptance speeches. It’s an entertaining ceremony, certainly more so than the Oscars, which is usually just a slog to watch all the way through. I’m sure I’ll be tuning in on January 16th for that reason alone.

So, tell us in the comments which nominations you agree with, which made you facepalm, and what worthier movies or TV shows you think got overlooked.

4 comments

  1. Hmm. Now I can’t help but want a musical version of ‘The Tourist.’

    Could it be that the comedy nomination is an indication of how bad the movie was? Like ‘The Room,’ maybe someone in charge at the Golden Globes thought ‘The Tourist’ was so bad it was funny!

  2. ilovenola2

    I’m sure some of the nominees are worthwhile like “The King’s Speech” and “The Social Network” — and even a few more. But on the whole, things are even worse than last year. If this is the Globes’ lineup, what will Poor Foolish Oscar do trying to find 10 films to nominate admist the dreck from 2010’s metroplex lineups.
    I know some will join me in mourning the fact that “Let Me In” was virtually ignored– except for deserved nominations (against each other!!) for the two young stars!

  3. Jane Morgan

    Halle Berry’s performance in ‘Frankie and Alice’ is almost as good as her NAACP Image Award performance in ‘Swordfish.’

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