Golden Globe Nominations

Golden Globe Nominations; Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” led the characteristically surprising 2010 Golden Globe Award nominations, which honored the film in seven categories including best drama, best director, best screenplay, best musical score, as well as acting nominations for Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush.  “Speech” was joined primarily by David Fincher’s “The Social Network” and David O. Russell’s “The Fighter,” which both garnered six nominations including best drama and best director. Other major nominees included Christopher Nolan’s “Inception,” Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” and Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Kids Are All Right,” all of which was generally expected.

What was not expected was a complete shut out of nominations for Joel & Ethan Coen’s “True Grit,” particularly in the best actor category, where Jeff Bridges was left out for a lineup of James Franco, Colin Firth, Jesse Eisenberg, Ryan Gosling and, most surprisingly, “The Fighter”‘s Mark Wahlberg (that film’s entire cast – including Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo – got nominations).

Also shut out completely were Mike Leigh’s “Another Year,” Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer,” Peter Weir’s “The Way Back,” James L. Brooks’ “How Do You Know,” and Nigel Cole’s “Made in Dagenham” (the latter two notable as they were eligible in the comedy/musical categories where competition was clearly minimal), while Ben Affleck’s “The Town,” Debra Granik’s “Winter’s Bone” and John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole” were limited to one acting nomination each, for Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicole Kidman, respectively.

Not so lucky as those three in the acting categories were the likes of Robert Duvall (“Get Low”), Matt Damon and Hailee Steinfeld (“True Grit”), Tilda Swinton (I Am Love, which did get a foreign film nomination), Sam Rockwell (“Conviction”), Javier Bardem (“Biutiful, which also got a foreign film nod), Dianne Weist (“Rabbit Hole”), and Lesley Manville (“Another Year”).  The fact that Swinton, Bardem, Weist, and Manville all missed out on yesterday’s Critics Choice Awards unfortunately is not a very good sign regarding future award nominations (though Thursday’s SAG Award nominations could change that).

The folks that did make the cut included some pleasant duos (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams both making it in for “Blue Valentine”) and some unpleasant, very-true-to-the-spirit-of-the-Golden-Globes ones (Johnny Depp getting two nominations for critically reviled “The Tourist” and “Alice in Wonderland,” and then Angelina Jolie joining him for her work on “The Tourist”).  Less unpleasant was “Burlesque” managing a pair of best song nominations, and a comedy/musical picture nom.

The Golden Globes ceremony, to be hosted by Ricky Gervais, will be broadcast live on Sunday, January 16, 2011 from The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles.  Last year, “Up In The Air” topped the nominations, which in the acting categories would nominate 18 of the 20 eventual Oscar nominees (though the Globes themselves have 30 acting nominees), missing out only on The Hurt Locker s Jeremy Renner (nominated this year) and “Crazy Hearts Maggie Gyllenhaal.