The Race: of Dreamers and Performers

With the Golden Globes behind us and the Guilds all but finished with their announcements, we focus our race now on the Oscar nominations. Due out on Tuesday, the Academy's choices will invariably reflect the direction we've sensed the race has been headed for some weeks now, while almost certainly introducing an unknown component, some kind of variable to shake our perceptions of what this thing means.

It does seem interesting to me that the films that will potentially be about dreams, ideas and performers -- some of the very things cinema itself is about. In my review of Inception back in July, I said (in so many words) that it was a critical appraisal of the cinema as much as it was a grand summer blockbuster, deeply embedded in the sense that to watch a movie, to experience a movie, is to dream, to lower one's consciousness in a dark space and allow images and events to enter your mind.

But that's not the only place where I see this year's race as being about "Big Ideas" or "Dreamers."

Costume Design Guild Nominees

Guess what? "Black Swan" and "The Social Network" are still the only two films to be nominated in every single guild.

Excellence in Contemporary Film

Black Swan, Amy Westcott
Burlesque, Michael Kaplan
Inception, Jeffrey Kurland
The Social Network, Jacqueline West
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Ellen Mirojnick

Excellence in Period Film

The Fighter, Mark Bridges
The King's Speech, Jenny Beavan
True Grit, Mary Zophres

Excellence in Fantasy Film

Alice in Wonderland, Colleen Atwood
The Tempest, Sandy Powell
TRON: Legacy, Michael Wilkinson and Christine Bieselin Clark

'King's Speech' rules BAFTA nods

As expected, The King's Speech is the runaway favorite for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, with 14 nominations.

Best Picture

Black Swan
Inception
The King's Speech
The Social Network
True Grit

Best Director

Danny Boyle, 127 Hours
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Christopher Nolan, Inception
Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Actor

Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King's Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours

Best Actress

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Noomi Rapace, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

'The Social Network' triumphs at Globes

We don't know what it can be. We don't know what it will be. All we know is, it's cool.
--The Social Network

I want to thank everyone at Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, for his willingness to allow us to use his life and work as a metaphor for which to tell a story about communication and the way we relate to each other.
--Scott Rudin, producer 


Sony's The Social Network inevitably stole the evening. I'll be doing a rundown of the show as a whole for tomorrow's The Daily Gamecock, but for now, let's focus on what I said this weekend was all about: the mirrors.

Phase II is over. We blew through the Critics Choice and the Golden Globes in two days. Next Tuesday, we finally get the Oscar nominees, and then it's on to Phase III: the Guilds.

But with The Social Network winning four Golden Globes (Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Score), and The King's Speech, its supposedly biggest competitor and the nominations leader at the Globes, walking away with just the Best Actor trophy for Colin Firth, it feels like we're dealing with a wholly different beast.

And, for those who care about how accurate my predictions were: for film categories, I was 10/14. For television, I was 4/12, making me 14/26 overall. Combined with my performance at the Critics Choice, I was 31/51 on the weekend. Not my best work. Now for some analysis.

The Golden Globes LiveBlog

The 68th Annual Golden Globe Winners

Film

Best Picture, Drama: The Social Network
Best Picture, Comedy: The Kids Are All Right
Best Actor, Drama: Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Actress, Drama:Natalie Portman for Black Swan
Best Actor, Comedy: Paul Giamatti for Barney's Version
Best Actress, Comedy: Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale for The Fighter
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo for The Fighter
Best Director: David Fincher for The Social Network
Best Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network
Best Score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for The Social Network
Best Song: "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" from Burlesque
Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3
Best Foreign Language Film: In a Better World


Television

Best Series, Drama: Boardwalk Empire
Best Series, Comedy: Glee
Best Miniseries/TV Movie: Carlos
Best Actor, Drama: Steve Buscemi for Boardwalk Empire
Best Actress, Drama: Kaey Sagal for Sons of Anarchy
Best Actor, Comedy: Jim Parsons for The Big Bang Theory
Best Actress, Comedy: Laura Linney for The Big C
Best Actor, Miniseries/TV Movie: Al Pacino for You Don't Know Jack
Best Actress, Miniseries/TV Movie: Claire Danes for Temple Grandin
Best Supporting Actor: Chris Colfer for Glee
Best Supporting Actress: Jane Lynch for Glee

Globes predictions: locked and loaded

Film

Best Picture, Drama: The King's Speech
Best Picture, Comedy: The Kids Are All Right
Best Actor, Drama: Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Actress, Drama: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor, Comedy: Kevin Spacey, Casino Jack
Best Actress, Comedy: Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, The Fighter
Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Best Score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for The Social Network
Best Song: "You Ain't Seen the Last of Me," Burlesque
Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3
Best Foreign Language Film: Biutiful


Television

Best Series, Drama: Boardwalk Empire
Best Series, Comedy:  Modern Family
Best Miniseries/TV Movie: The Pacific
Best Actor, Drama: Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Best Actress, Drama: Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men
Best Actor, Comedy: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Best Actress, Comedy: Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie
Best Actor, Miniseries/TV Movie: Al Pacino, You Don't Know Jack
Best Actress, Miniseries/TV Movie: Claire Danes, Temple Grandin
Best Supporting Actor: Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family
Best Supporting Actress: Jane Lynch, Glee

How Golden are the Globes?

My mantra for this awards weekend has been: The race is not over.

There's a tendency to "call it" as soon as there's a frontrunner. And for many, "The Social Network's" four Critics Choice awards on Friday night were a validation that it will ultimately do much the same at the Academy Awards, that anything we write about from here on out is just dramatics.

The people who think this way will react tonight's Globes ceremony in one of two ways: when "The King's Speech" wins, they'll say, "the Globes have only matched the Oscar once since 2003. They're becoming increasingly meaningless." Or, when "The Social Network" wins, they will say, "it won the weekend! It's the clear frontrunner."

We can write any angle we want on the race, but I see it as much more of a beast and much less of a bygone conclusion.