Globe reactions

Late, as usual, but here we go.

Nominees are here if you want to follow along.

It's a fairly blah list overall, despite some very deserving (but mostly expected) nominees. Babel leading the field in the film categories pretty much sums it up. I wasn't excited by that movie and I'm not excited by these nominations.

Bobby's semi-surprising nomination as best drama film stands out as particularly bad. The Globes often make lousy choices but as I noted in my previous post I give them credit for skipping over Crash last year (although it's likely they would've nominated it if the voters knew it was headed for its Oscar victory, Globe voters always want to beat Oscar and Emmy to the punch). But Bobby, a sloppy drama that merits zero award consideration, is a far worse film than Crash.

Another poor choice worth singling out: Evangeline Lilly's lead actress nomination for Lost. Yeah, that's right, Kate is the only acting nominee from Lost. It would be hard to justify in any year, but it's especially moronic when Sally Field in Brothers and Sisters (how'd she miss out?), Jeanne Tripplehorn in Big Love and Mary McDonnell in Battlestar Galactica go unnominated.

And yet they nominated Ellen Pompeo for Grey's Anatomy. Lame.

TV was pretty much as expected, but it was a respectable surprise to see Masi Oka actually get a nom as Heroes' favorite Hiro.

It's par for the course these days to undervalue The Sopranos (Edie Falco got a nom but not Gandolfini or the series) and skip over Battlestar Galactica, Deadwood and The Shield. The Globes had a chance to right Emmy's wrong and recognize Forest Whitaker's work in The Shield, but they didn't. It's even weirder since one of the year's biggest Globe trends was double nominations and Whitaker is unsurprisingly nominated for his work in The Last King of Scotland.

Among the actual double nominees: Toni Collette, Emily Blunt, Chiwetel Ejiofor (a real surprise nominee in film's lead actor comedy category for Kinky Boots) and Annette Bening.

Clint Eastwood and Leonardo DiCaprio scored two nominations in the same category (directing and lead actor drama respectively). Clint can be a double nominee come Oscar time but, due to category rules, Leo can't. That causes concern that his two great performances this year may divide his support and he could wind up without an Oscar nomination. That would be a shame, since he truly is the year's Best Actor thanks to his career-best work in The Departed.

Helen Mirren also competes with herself in the telefilm lead actress category (for PBS' Prime Suspect and HBO's Elizabeth I, neither of which I've seen) and she trumps all multiple Globe nominees with a third mention for The Queen. Unless her TV work splits votes it's hard to imagine her not winning two awards. (If she does split votes maybe Annette Bening will make up for her Emmy loss, or Bleak House's very deserving Gillian Anderson.)

One of the biggest Globe surprises (besides Chiwetel Ejiofor): Maggie Gyllenhaal's best actress nomination for Sherrybaby, a movie which hasn't even made $300,000 in the U.S. Love Maggie, haven't seen the movie yet.

However, World Trade Center, another, much more successful, film featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal was shut out. Ditto fellow 9/11 drama United 93.

On the other hand arty suburban nightmare Little Children fared a little better than expected (a good thing). Nominations for best drama film, best actress and best screenplay might finally convince New Line to open the movie in more than a handful of cities.

The inaugural Animated film category was just as expected with Cars, Happy Feet and Monster House getting nominations. Go penguins!

Foreign language film also was predictable but satisfying with U.S. productions Apocalypto and Letters From Iwo Jima nominated with Germany's The Lives of Others and Spanish language Pan's Labyrinth and Volver. I haven't seen the American ones yet but the other three are easily among the year's best films.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing when foreign film is a much more exciting race than the main best picture categories?