Craig's MovieBlog

Golden Globe Nominations 2006

My notes on the nominations:

• Bobby?  Really?  Gosh, I wonder if Sharon Stone will finally show up at the Golden Globes this year...
• Leo vs. Leo in Best Actor and Clint vs. Clint in Best Director.  I guess that means Ryan Gosling doesn't get to bring Rachel McAdams to the party, and Bill Condon doesn't get a nomination for Dreamgirls.  Neither does Paul Greengrass for United 93.
• Look at the films nominated for Best Actress (Drama): Volver, Notes on a Scandal, Sherrybaby, The Queen, and Little Children.  Wow - are any of those playing anywhere in this country other than the coasts?  The combined box office take of those films is: $29.3 million, and $24.7 of that comes from The Queen.
• United 93 seems to have lost some momentum here, but the Hollywood Foreign Press likes to nominate stars... and the film had none - unlike Bobby.
• The real surprises to me are Babel racking up the most (7) nods, Mark Wahlberg and Thank You For Smoking getting noticed (deservedly), Notes on a Scandal getting 3, and going back to the Jack Sparrow well for a second time.
• Oh, and on the TV side, Alec Baldwin got nominated for his work on 30 Rock (perfect) but Studio 60 got zippo.  That's gotta hurt NBC, since they air the Golden Globes.  And I did not see a nomination for Dexter's Michael C. Hall coming...
• Best line from David Poland: "Harvey got his meaningless Bobby nomination. Thank God Roger Friedman will have somewhere to sit at the awards."

Best Picture (Drama)

• Babel
• Bobby
• The Departed
• Little Children
• The Queen

Best Actor (Drama)

• Leonardo DiCaprio - Blood Diamond
• Leonardo DiCaprio - The Departed
• Peter O'Toole - Venus
• Will Smith - The Pursuit of Happyness
• Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland

Best Actress (Drama)

• Penelope Cruz - Volver
• Judi Dench - Notes on a Scandal
• Maggie Gyllenhall - Sherrybaby
• Helen Mirren - The Queen
• Kate Winslet - Little Children

Best Picture (Musical or Comedy)

• Borat
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Dreamgirls
• Little Miss Sunshine
• Thank You For Smoking

Best Actress (Musical or Comedy)

• Annette Bening - Running with Scissors
• Toni Collette - Little Miss Sunshine
• Beyonce Knowles - Dreamgirls
• Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada
• Rene Zellweger - Miss Potter

Best Actor (Musical or Comedy)

• Sasha Baron Cohen - Borat
• Johnny Depp - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• Aaron Eckhart - Thank You for Smoking
• Chiwetel Ejiofor - Kinky Boots
• Will Ferrell - Stranger Than Fiction

Best Supporting Actor

• Ben Affleck - Hollywoodland
• Eddie Murphy - Dreamgirls
• Jack Nicholson - The Departed
• Brad Pitt - Babel
• Mark Wahlberg - The Departed

Best Supporting Actress

• Adriana Barraza - Babel
• Kate Blanchett - Notes on a Scandal
• Emily Blunt - The Devil Wears Prada
• Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls
• Rinko Kikuchi - Babel

Best Director

• Clint Eastwood - Flags of Our Fathers
• Clint Eastwood - Letters from Iwo Jima
• Stephen Frears - The Queen
• Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - Babel
• Martin Scorsese - The Departed

Best Screenplay

• Babel
• Little Children
• Notes on a Scandal
• The Departed
• The Queen

Ben Affleck Wins Best Actor and the Love of a Junket Reporter

Have we entered a parallel dimension where Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro are scraping by on reality TV shows?  Is Martin Scorsese doing TV movies of the week on Lifetime?  Because Ben Affleck won Best Actor for his role as George Reeves in Hollywoodland at the Venice Film Festival.

However this happened, it's definitely got to be a relief for Ben.  Not only has he been hammered by the press recently for his poor film choices and weak box office performance, been trailed endlessly since his relationship with J Lo and then Jennifer Garner, but because his 2004 boozy grope-fest with reporter/junket whore Anne-Marie Losique has made it onto YouTube, and it is ugly.  I remember her interviewing Ben at the Pearl Harbor junket, and it was the same thing, only Ben wasn't completely shitfaced.  This clip was a few years later for Jersey Girl.

Note: I'm using the junket-whore term in a completely non-sexual way (which you may not believe when you watch the video), but that's what these people are.  I admit doing this myself for two years (before I truly understood how the system worked), and it's gross.  I got to interview amazing celebrities, but I was flown out to a great city, was put up in a gorgeous hotel, got access to movie stars, was able to see films before everyone else in fantastic screening rooms, and then I'm supposed to review the film with an unbiased perspective?  Please...  Oh, and if you don't say nice things, you're not invited back.  Eric D. Snider recently wrote some funny columns about his experience at the World Trade Center junket, and then how his blog got him banned from future junkets or local press screenings.  Heeee-larious.

If you want to read about my "confessions of a junket-whore" days, here are a few trip reports that I wrote back in the day.  My friends tell me they're quite funny, but they could just be making me feel good:

• 9/9/2000 - The Toronto Festivus for the Rest of Us
• 10/15/2000 - Right in the Kisser from Charlize
• 12/12/2000 - Four Movies, Three Nights
• 12/22/2000 - Spider-Man, Neo, and The Lord of the Rings
• 5/28/2001 - American Cheese (Pearl Harbor junket)

Hollywoodland Trailer

I wonder if the folks at Focus and Miramax are nervous about the negative buzz surrounding Superman Returns... because here comes another Superman-related movie: Hollywoodland.

Admittedly, this isn't really about Superman, but the actor who played him and his apparent suicide.  The trailer has a real LA Confidential feel to it, but it feels a little heavy on the melodrama.  Plus, after watching the trailer, are there any surprises left?  Don't you feel like you just watched the whole film?

Plus, the lack of Ben Affleck in the trailer is hilarious...