When the Globes are upon us, can the Oscars be far away? Sunday night will give us a good idea of who's really in the shake-up for the Academy Awards in February.
There's plenty of Irish interest across the Globe categories this year, and hopefully that will translate into a couple of gongs to cheer everyone up on Monday morning. Harry Guerin uses head and heart and rolls the dice on the winners.
Best Picture: Drama
Nominees: Carol, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Room, Spotlight
We're still dumbfounded that Mad Max: Fury Road - visually superb but basically a remake of The Road Warrior - could find itself here when a film like Sicario didn't even get a look-in, but that rant will run and run. And so to the matter at hand: Carol had old school class; The Revenant has hold-your-breath tension; Room is a triumph of true love and Spotlight never flinches in asking the hardest questions. It's also too important a film to be overlooked and given that it shows the best work of the press, we think director Tom McCarthy and his great ensemble will be making their way to the podium.
TEN Tip: Spotlight
Best Picture: Comedy or Musical
Nominees: The Big Short, Joy, The Martian, Spy, Trainwreck
Aside from the Globes sages, is there anyone else on planet Earth who actually considered The Martian to be a comedy? Sure, it had a couple of laughs, but far more in the way of tears. In a perfect world Ridley Scott's marooned masterpiece would be in the Best Picture: Drama category ahead of Mad Max: Fury Road. Instead, it's here and while The Big Short has its fans, we can't see past the red planet wonder.
TEN Tip: The Martian
Best Director
Nominees: Todd Haynes - Carol, Alejandro González Iñárritu -The Revenant, Tom McCarthy - Spotlight, George Miller - Mad Max: Fury Road, Ridley Scott - The Martian
Todd Haynes has been honoured by the New York, Boston and National Society of Film Critics in the US already and Carol feels like too good a film not to win something on Sunday night. The most obvious challengers are The Revenant's Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, who won Best Screenplay last year at the Globes for Birdman but lost out on the directing award to Richard Linklater for Boyhood; and Spotlight's Tom McCarthy, who was runner-up with the National Society of Film Critics. We'll take a punt that Haynes' crafting of the complicated mess of human feelings and frailties into such a compelling movie as Carol will see him win out.
TEN Tip: Todd Haynes, Carol
Best Actor: Drama
Nominees: Bryan Cranston - Trumbo; Leonardo DiCaprio - The Revenant, Michael Fassbender - Steve Jobs, Eddie Redmayne - The Danish Girl, Will Smith - Concussion
It's probably being too optimistic (and patriotic) to think it will be third time lucky (after Shame and Twelve Years a Slave) for Michael Fassbender. The intensity of his performance in Steve Jobs is stunning, but it seems like it's written in the stars that this is Leonardo DiCaprio's awards year, and that the Globe will be followed by the Oscar. DiCaprio toughed it out in the wilds for his art in The Revenant and Hollywood loves a bit of dirt-under-the-fingernails duress. He's won twice before at the Globes - for The Wolf of Wall Street and The Aviator - and we're expecting the hat-trick this weekend.
TEN Tip: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Best Actress: Drama
Nominees: Cate Blanchett - Carol, Brie Larson - Room, Rooney Mara - Carol, Saoirse Ronan - Brooklyn, Alicia Vikander - The Danish Girl
What a line-up - you look at all five nominees and think they all should win. But we reckon it's between Brie Larson and Saoirse Ronan. They've both picked up plenty of gongs for their respective performances in Room and Brooklyn already, but the fact that Larson tests viewers' feelings more in Room could see her shade it. Our heart says Ronan but our head says Larson - with some consolation that it's an Irishman, Lenny Abrahamson, who directed her.
TEN Tip: Brie Larson, Room
Best Actor: Comedy or Musical
Nominees: Christian Bale - The Big Short, Steve Carell - The Big Short, Matt Damon - The Martian, Al Pacino - Danny Collins, Mark Ruffalo - Infinitely Polar Bear
Shunted into this category, Matt Damon looks like a shoo-in for the win. To borrow from Hollywood parlance he has to 'carry' Ridley Scott's celebration of the human spirit and spends most of the time onscreen alone. Hacks love that kind of thing and in this category we can't see anyone in the same universe as Damon. Question is, will he squeeze on to the Oscars shortlist? He deserves to be there.
TEN Tip: Matt Damon, The Martian
Best Actress: Comedy or Musical
Nominees: Jennifer Lawrence - Joy, Melissa McCarthy - Spy, Amy Schumer - Trainwreck, Maggie Smith - The Lady in the Van, Lily Tomlin - Grandma
Lawrence, once again, did herself proud in the watchable but uneven biopic Joy - the only real competition we see her having here is Lily Tomlin's autumnal tour-de-force in road trip Grandma. So does the award go to a 25-year-old who has won twice in the past three years (for The Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle), or a 76- year-old who's also nominated in the corresponding TV category for Grace and Frankie? We reckon Lily will give the speech of the night.
TEN Tip: Lily Tomlin, Grandma
Best Supporting Actor
Nominees: Paul Dano - Love & Mercy, Idris Elba - Beasts of No Nation, Mark Rylance - Bridge of Spies, Michael Shannon - 99 Homes, Sylvester Stallone - Creed
As with the Oscars, the supporting categories are always the most intriguing, honouring those who do more with less. They also bring to mind that great adage about how there are no small parts, only small actors. This year it looks like a contest between two heavyweights: icon Stallone as his career-making character Rocky Balboa in Creed, and theatre titan Rylance as spy Rudolf Abel in Bridge of Spies. In terms of an actor having limited screen time but elevating a film by the second, Rylance gives a masterclass in Steven Spielberg's Cold War thriller - but he's also in with a shout in the TV categories for Wolf Hall and 38 years on from Stallone's last Globe nominations (ironically for Rocky) it'll be fascinating to see if the voters feel his time has come. In a perfect world both men would share the award.
TEN Tip: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Best Supporting Actress
Nominees: Jane Fonda - Youth, Jennifer Jason Leigh - The Hateful Eight, Helen Mirren - Trumbo, Alicia Vikander - Ex Machina, Kate Winslet - Steve Jobs
For many, Jennifer Jason Leigh is the best thing about The Hateful Eight. She's done brilliant work with some of the best down the decades but has only ever been nominated once for a Golden Globe in the past - for Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle in 1995. While Fonda could be a dark horse for Youth, sometimes you just get a feeling - like Patricia Arquette last year with Boyhood - that things are all about to fall into place for someone.
TEN Tip: Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Best Screenplay
Nominees: Emma Donoghue - Room, Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer - Spotlight, Charles Randolph, Adam McKay - The Big Short, Aaron Sorkin - Steve Jobs, Quentin Tarantino - The Hateful Eight
Here's where we think that Irish co-production Room could double up. It's in the heaviest of company, but first-timer Emma Donoghue did a stunning job of bringing her own book to the big screen without losing anything in terms of spirit or substance along the way. Hopefully she'll do a lot more of these 'nixers' in the future. Regardless of the outcome here, an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay seems assured and, timing wise, the Globes ceremony and Oscar shortlist next Thursday couldn't be better - Room is in cinemas Friday week.
TEN Tip: Emma Donoghue, Room
Best Animated Feature
Nominees: Anomalisa, The Good Dinosaur, Inside Out, The Peanuts Movie, Shaun The Sheep The Movie
No contest here. Disney-Pixar's trip to the brain Inside Out has helped critics around the world rediscover their hearts and has taken up residency in the minds of the masses. Anomalisa looks brilliant and equally soul-stirring, but there's such momentum behind Inside Out that the Globe, and Oscar, are sure things.
TEN Tip: Inside Out
Best Original Song
Nominees: Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Goulding, Fifty Shades of Grey; One Kind of Love - Brian Wilson, Love & Mercy; See You Again - Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth, Fast & Furious 7; Simple Sound #3 - Sumi Jo, Youth; Writing’s on the Wall, Sam Smith, SPECTRE
If only the Bond powers-that-be had gone for Radiohead's theme tune for SPECTRE instead! In terms of affection and serendipity, we reckon that Brian Wilson has this award for composing a song for the biopic of his own life. But it's not the best track here - check out the jaw-dropping Simple Sound #3 from Youth when you have time.
TEN Tip: One Kind of Love - Brian Wilson
TEN will be following all of the action and happenings from tonight's Golden Globes on the site and at @RTE_TEN.
