Like every year the winners at the Golden Globes gave an inkling of what we can expect when the Academy Awards are given out on February 28.
Most presenters couldn’t mask their sarcasm about The Martian being nominated for (and winning) the Best Motion Picture – Comedy/Musical award. The Revenant’s Best Motion Picture – Drama win should be a cause of worry for Spotlight and Mad Max: Fury Road, which built up good buzz before the Golden Globes, but went winless. As things stand today, the biggest competition for director Alejandro González Iñárritu and The Revenant will come from Ridley Scott and The Martian.
Leonardo DiCaprio won Best Actor for his work in The Revenant. Unlike the previous times he has been nominated at the Academy Awards, DiCaprio is the front-runner this year (the last time he won at the Golden Globes, for The Wolf Of Wall Street, he came up against a juggernaut called Matthew McConaughey at the Oscars, and lost).
Brie Larson’s win for Room increased speculation about the Best Actress award at the Oscars, probably the toughest category this year, with such great performers as Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl), Cate Blanchett (Carol), Jennifer Lawrence (Joy) and Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn) in the mix.
Meanwhile, Kate Winslet and Aaron Sorkin won the Best Supporting Actress and Best Screenplay awards, respectively, for their work on Steve Jobs, and I would like it to remain so at the Oscars. It would also be fitting for Sylvester Stallone to repeat his Golden Globes success at the Oscars, winning the Best Supporting Actor award for portraying Rocky Balboa in Creed, 40 years after he first took on the role.
Who doesn’t want to hear that Rocky theme at the Oscars again!
However, the TV winners’ list at the Golden Globes was a mess.
Amazon’s Mozart In The Jungle took away two awards, one for Best Series – Comedy or Musical, and another for Best Actor – Comedy or Musical, for Gael Garcia Bernal. The show, surprisingly, beat much stronger contenders, like Transparent, Veep, Orange Is The New Black and Silicon Valley.
Bernal’s win, however, was the biggest upset of the night. Even Aziz Ansari, nominated for Master Of None, was hiding his face in a “How To Lose To Jeffrey Tambor With Dignity” book while his name was being announced. Tambor won an Emmy as well as last year’s Golden Globe for his performance in Transparent, and stood head and shoulders above his fellow-nominees, including Bernal.
Soon, though, a pattern emerged – the TV section of the Globes wanted to keep everyone happy. Nine shows got awards in 11 categories, a case of equally dividing the laurels among the lot (Screen Awards, anyone?). The snubs offered to Fargo and Kirsten Dunst in the Best Limited Series and Best Actress – Limited Series categories, respectively, were the other disappointments of the night.
Sam Esmail’s dark psychological thriller, Mr Robot, won the well-deserved Best Series – Drama award, while Jon Hamm and Taraji P Henson won the Acting trophies for their performances in Mad Men and Empire respectively.
Maura Tierney’s win in the Best Supporting Actress category for The Affair was another well-earned award. Ben Mendelsohn, though, has to be the unluckiest man in Hollywood currently, losing out the Best Supporting Actor award for his brilliant turn on Bloodline, to Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) at the Emmys, and to Christian Slater (Mr Robot) at the Golden Globes.
(Aniruddha Guha is a film & TV critic. Follow him on Twitter: @AniGuha)
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