The Golden Globes missed out on a few gems, but the next few awards shows could name them the big winners.
New year, new awards season! 2019 opened with the first big awards show, in the form of the 76th Golden Globe Awards. Handing out awards for both motion pictures and television, the Globes are often viewed as a good barometer for who will get nominated and who will win the Oscars and the Emmys in the next few months.
The nomination—and wins—of minorities are something to watch for every year, and this year saw actors Rami Malek, Sandra Oh, Regina King, and Mahershala Ali taking home their own Globes. Still, many were shocked by winners in some categories, particularly when one looks at the other nominees.
Bohemian Rhapsody has been called out for winning Best Picture – Drama in light of the film’s many shortcomings, including replacing director Bryan Singer in the middle of production, inaccuracies in actual chronological events, and supposedly downplaying Freddie Mercury’s homosexuality and AIDS. In fact, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the organization that hands out the Golden Globes, didn’t even have Singer or anyone involved with Bohemian Rhapsody nominated for Best Director. Instead, the award went to Alfonso Cuaron, director of Roma, even if his film was not nominated for Best Picture – Drama. Roma went home with Best Picture – Foreign Language.
The film adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians generated a lot of hype and popularity, and shone a light on Asian and Asian-American actors, yet it did not take home a Golden Globe. Despite nominations for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy, and Constance Wu for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy, no Asians were handed Golden Globes for this movie.
If films were given trophies just for hype, then the Bradley Cooper-directed A Star is Born would be winning awards left and right. Already making a killing in cinemas, the motion picture was nominated for Best Picture – Drama while Cooper earned himself nominations for Best Director and Best Actor – Drama and Lady Gaga was nominated for Best Actress – Drama in her first major motion picture. Yet Best Director went to Cuaron, and Malek took home Best Actor. And veteran Glenn Close scored the “upset” over Gaga, for her performance in the period drama The Wife. A Star is Born didn’t go home empty-handed, however, as “Shallow” won Best Original Song – Motion Picture.
Sandra Oh didn’t just host the awards show, as the Korean-Canadian actress also won Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama, as middling MI-5 desk officer Eve Polastri for BBC America’s Killing Eve. Oh beat out Keri Russell’s strong performance as Russian sleeper agent Elizabeth Jennings, in the sixth and final season of The Americans.
Russell’s co-star and husband in real life and on The Americans, Matthew Rhys, already won an Emmy for this show last year. Nominated again this year, for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama, Rhys went home disappointed, as Game of Thrones alumnus Richard Madden won the category for his portrayal of the title character in the BBC drama Bodyguard.
With no Game of Thrones, and the third seasons of The Crown and Stranger Things still in production, the award for Best Television Series – Drama was up for grabs with strong first seasons from Killing Eve and Bodyguard. Critical favorite The Americans took this one home.
Still, there were other shows that could have been afforded a nomination in this category. Ozark’s Jason Bateman earned a nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama, and family drama Succession was popular too, but neither show was even nominated in this category.
To say that Marvel Studios’ Black Panther generated hype would be a huge understatement. Directed by Ryan Coogler and with a largely African-American cast, it was gold at the box office and preceded two other huge Marvel films, namely Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp. The fact that Black Panther even got nominated for Best Picture – Drama was a big achievement, yet several quarters were up in arms when the Chadwick Boseman star-turning vehicle lost to Bohemian Rhapsody.
Speaking of Marvel, the studio, together with Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation, closed 2018 with big effort in the form of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. This one was a curiosity, considering that previous Spider-Man films have all been live-action and centered around Peter Parker, and that Marvel’s animated efforts have largely focused on television. It seemed to come from out of nowhere. The choice of Miles Morales was unusual too, given that he was better known among comic book readers rather than movie-goers, but making him lead in Spider-Versewas a risk that proved to be worth it. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won Best Motion Picture – Animated, beating out two big Disney sequels in the form of Incredibles 2 and Ralph Breaks the Internet.
In perhaps the clearest case of traditional network television shows once again taking a back seat to streaming services, the eight-episode Netflix series The Kominsky Methodwon Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy over HBO’s Barry, Showtime’s Kidding, NBC’s The Good Place, and Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The series about revered fictional acting coach Sandy Kominsky also earned Close’s Fatal Attraction co-star Michael Douglas his own Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy in the title role. This was a particularly stacked category as Douglas took down Sacha Baron Cohen (Who Is America), Jim Carrey (Kidding), Donald Glover (Atlanta), and Bill Hader (Barry).
Now the nominations, wins and losses have pundits and critics figuring out who will take home the next big awards. What’s your bet?
