Golden Globe Nominees 2010

It's the hap-happiest season of all!

Ah, 'tis the season of giving--awards!

The Golden Globe nominees were announced on Tuesday morning. Golden Globes, awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, are awarded to TV shows as well as movies and split some of their categories into both drama and comedy/musical categories, so there's lots of love to go around. The awards will be handed out on January 17, 2010 at a televised event hosted by Ricky Gervais. They haven't had a host at the Golden Globes in a while, but judging by his good reception when handing out awards at previous events, he should be a great host for the occasion.

Here I discuss some of the big contenders and laud the nominations of my own favorite movies and shows.

Up in the Air topped the movie nominations with six: feature (drama), actor (drama), director, screenplay, and two supporting actresses. Director Jason Reitman's last two features were Thank You for Smoking and Juno--he is on a great roll. I haven't seen Up in the Air yet, but I have every intention of doing so after it opens wide in the U.S. on Christmas day.

The Hurt Locker received nominations for best feature (drama), director, and screenplay. I've seen this at the top of many critics' 2009 lists, and I'm really interested in seeing it. It's being praised as perhaps the only Iraq war movie so far (and there have been many) that was actually good. It is an outstanding war movie in itself, but it is even more extraordinary in that it was directed by a woman (an extreme minority in directing film in general, but even more so in directing action/war films). I hope Kathryn Bigelow receives an Oscar nomination as well (and she has a good chance); if she does, she will be only the fourth woman ever to do so (there have been no winners among them).

Avatar received nominations for best feature (drama), director, score and song. Buzz has fluctuated for Avatar between positive and negative, so much so that I don't even know what it is at right now. But given that I am a fantasy/sci-fi geek, I am sure I will enjoy it, even if it's not the greatest thing ever. Neither was Titanic, which, if you've been living in a box, is the last feature that Avatar's director/writer James Cameron did--quite a lot to live up to. I intend to see this movie as soon as I can, though given my travels on its opening weekend, I will probably wait until after Christmas.

As you might have detected, I have not seen many of the movie nominees this year. This is somewhat surprising given that I like movies so much, but it is somewhat less surprising in that I am a grad student with little life outside studying. I am sad to say that the only Golden Globe movie nominees that I have already seen are District 9 (awesome, awesome movie), nominated for best screenplay, and Up, nominated for best animated feature.

And I wasn't that much better in the TV categories. Luckily, one of the shows that I love got a lot of love from the Golden Globes, too. Glee received four nominations, making it the most nominated freshman series of the year: TV series - comedy or musical (it's both!), actress (comedy or musical) for Lea Michele, actor (comedy or musical) for Matthew Morrison, and supporting actress for Jane Lynch. I think Jane Lynch is the standout actress, even if she is one of maybe two actors on the show who hasn't had to sing, but the supporting actress category is stiff competition given that it includes not just comedies, musicals and dramas but also miniseries and made-for-TV movies.

The other nominees from shows I love are Michael Emerson, nominated for his amazing role as Ben on Lost, and Neil Patrick Harris as the legendary Barney on How I Met Your Mother. Emerson has received three Emmy nominations for the role, finally winning for it this past year, but this is his first Golden Globe nomination. This is NPH's second Golden Globe nomination for his role.

Well, I'm pretty excited about the awards season, though I'll be a little more excited once I've seen more of the movies. Congrats to all the nominees.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!


A full list of the Golden Globe nominees can be found here.