From the cover
Globes: all questions, no answers So the 82 voting members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have punted.
They're either unable or unwilling to designate any sort of Oscar frontrunner and so have nominated as many as 12 films for either best drama or comedy, for the 65th annual Golden Globe Awards. Sprinkling their gold dust everywhere, the group handed out nominations for dramas, seven in all, for films such as Atonement, the World War II tale of love thwarted by a child's overactive imagination, to Ridley Scott's ode to drug lords, American Gangster, to the Coen brothers' violent modern-day Western No Country for Old Men.
And there were the five nominees in the musical or comedy category, including Sweeney Todd, based on the Sondheim musical about a barbarous barber; Hairspray, based on the John Waters film and Broadway play; the unplanned pregnancy comedy, Juno - and on and on.
Some of the films, like Across the Universe and Charlie Wilson's War, haven't set the critics afire, but what does that matter, when Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks can be nominated and invited to the party?
At least the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is providing an accurate reflection of the malaise and confusion of this Oscar season, in which there's no Titanic-like film destined to scoop up awards, and enough anxiety around to spark a run on Xanax. Given the fact that the Writers Guild of America has not yet revealed whether it plans on picketing the awards derby or specifically the Golden Globes, no one even knows for sure if the stars will show up.
Typically a wide-open Oscar field means one thing - studios will spend and spend and spend to try to nab one of those all-important gold statuettes. If there's no consensus on merit, then the old Hollywood adage kicks in: Let the money do the talking.
The foreign press nominations do reflect some accurate trends in the business - i.e., no one wants to see any topical films dealing with weighty subjects like the war in Iraq. Indeed, save for two nominations, the terror movies, like In the Valley of Elah and Rendition, were completely shut out.
Atonement, Joe Wright's adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel, took the most nominations - for actors Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, 13-year old Saoirse Ronan, director Wright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton - and it is the film that most walks and talks like past Oscar winners, particularly those of The English Patient variety.
