' ' Cinema Romantico: Who Was The Golden Globes-iest Golden Globes Nominee?

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Who Was The Golden Globes-iest Golden Globes Nominee?


Nominations for the 77th Golden Globes were announced Monday. And hey, look! One year after the Hollywood Foreign Press Association failed to nominate a woman for Best Director one year after Natalie Portman memorably, righteously threw a stink bomb right in the middle of an awards announcement when she called out the HFPA for failing to nominate a woman for Best Director the HFPA failed to nominate a woman for Best Director even though, I dunno, like, Marielle Heller, as we’ll get to later this week, did some damn fine directing for “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” Not that the HFPA (motto: none of you know who any of us are anyway) would ever be contrarian. I don’t mean that as snark. The HFPA would never be contrarian – like, truly, really, honestly. They’re not here to impress their taste upon anybody; they don’t have taste; they’re here to paaaarty!

The Globes, as we remind everyone every single year complaining about what the Globes got “wrong”, like this is a MacArthur Genius Grant (I watched “Marriage Story” too!), are all about hobnobbing and rubbing elbows, not getting things “right”. And that is why, once again, Cinema Romantico is here not to contextualize this set of nominees in any meaningful way but merely to examine them and then determine which Golden Globes nominees is the Golden Globes-iest. It is a pre-awards show award we have deemed The Honorary Meryl Streep HFPA Award, so named for Meryl Streep having been nominated for 77 consecutive Golden Globes because the HFPA always wants her at the party. (Ms. Streep was, of course, nominated this year in the TV category for “Big Little Lies.”)

Nominating Taylor Swift, as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber, for Best Original Song for “Beautiful Ghosts”, a new contribution to “Cats”, initially appears pretty Golden Globes-y. I mean, my God, man, it’s “Cats.” This is such excessive pandering, in fact, that it ceases to be festively self-serving and just becomes degrading. We have to eliminate it from consideration.

This is low, even for the HFPA.
The Getting It Wrong faction is likely to pinpoint Todd Phillips for getting a Best Director nomination for “Joker.” I cannot speak to the veracity of his nod because I am deliberately waiting to watch this one some summer night when it’s too hot outside and I have literally nothing else to do. But then, who wants to hang out with Todd Phillips? Dude sounds like a faux-victimized drag. I assume the Golden Globe bar will have too many microbrews for his taste and, gawd, you know, beer being too hoppy now is just another sign of PC culture run amok. No, this nod smells conspicuously like the GGs assuring us they are part of The Discourse. That’s been happening more in recent years and I, for one, am disappointed by it seeing as how it runs afoul of the HFPA’s star-***ing mission statement.

The “Bombshell” nominations are of particular note and speak to the HFPA’s clever nominating strategy. Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie were both nominated for “Bombshell” but Nicole Kidman, her eminence, was not. But that’s because Nicole Kidman was nominated for “Big Little Lies” under the TV umbrella, ensuring all three women are at the party. Had, say, Robbie been nominated for some TV show in where’s she trying to solve a small-town crime then Kidman would have nominated for “Bombshell.” I see you, HFPA!

Undoubtedly Eddie Murphy was nominated so every member of the HFPA could snap a selfie with him, but he is pretty damn good “Dolemite Is My Name” and so that’s not Golden Globes-y. Ditto Awkwafina for “The Farewell.” Everybody wants Awkwafina at the party. I invited Awkwafina to my Christmas party! (Response still pending.) But she’s good and so is “The Farewell.” No, we have to look elsewhere in Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, where Awkwafina was nominated and which, of course, is a category entirely invented to allow for ten Best Actress/Actor spots rather than five to extend more party invitations. And that’s where we find Cate Blanchett in “Where’d You Go, Bernadette?”


This was not a well received movie. You will not find this movie nominated for anything by any other voting body. But as the Mia Vicino noted in her “Where’d You Go, Bernadette?” review, “The mistake Linklater and team make is putting the should-be-missing Bernadette in nearly every scene, a choice seemingly hinging on the star power and talent of multi-Academy Award winner Blanchett”, essentially describing what the HFPA is doing too. Star power is what counts for everything in our pre-awards show award. You think someone else deserved to be nominated (Elisabeth…cough, cough…Moss) and maybe they should be. But you can’t have the Hollywood Office Christmas Party without Cate. So, here she is. She’s the Golden Globes-iest.

No comments: