Around the Globes

 

The Sooner Theatre in Norman, Oklahoma, had seen better days when this photo was taken. The Sooner was the launch pad for most of my fantasies when I was growing up in Norman. The Sooner avoided a last picture show ending when it was converted into a performing arts center and Norman's Main Street came back to life as an arts district. 

Photo from “Ticket to Paradise – American Movie Theaters and How We Had Fun” by John Margolies and Emily Gwathmey

Movie awards are like Santa Claus. It's can be devastating when you discover that neither of them are real.

I had lots of times to reflect on my love affair with movies during what I now artistically call my orange period. 

It began in boyhood, when going to the Sooner Theatre by the Santa Fe railroad tracks in the Dust Bowl college town of Norman, Oklahoma, wasn't so much as escape as a passage to a magical Somewhere Else. 

Lots of somewheres, actually, full of distant adventures, Jerry Lewis laughs, and dewy stirrings of something I couldn't yet name looking into Audrey Hepburn's eyes on the big screen. 

Mine wasn't an unhappy childhood, even after my mother died when I was six. But movies helped fill the lonely spots. That screen was alive with cowboys and Indians, and heroes of recently won World War II. The movies were where whole city blocks of strangers were liable to break into song, and life's challenges usually led to happy endings.

Academy Awards were the seal of approval. In my young eyes, they were prizes won as surely as you won a running race by being the fastest.

It wasn't until decades later, after I had turned my childhood fantasies into something that passed for a career writing about being entertained, that I reluctantly realized the truth about the Oscars and other awards the industry bestows upon itself at this time of year. 

What they signified had become impossible to ascertain. Instead, they were just one more marketing niche. The late film critic Gene Siskel once ventured that the Oscars were a way Hollywood could pretend it had a higher purpose than just raking in the bucks providing lowest-common-denominator diversions for the masses. It's when the beautiful people get political, get sentimental, grow a conscience.

Now Oscar races spawn multimillion-dollar ad campaigns – some of the most vicious managed in recent years by disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein. This despite the fact that audiences for Oscar contenders are often minuscule, compared to those that flock to the Marvel Comics universe.

Interestingly, it's the same artists, on both sides of the camera, who make blockbusters and, ahem, prestige pictures. Artistically, one genre is as challenging as the other, just in different ways. One makes money, and fans, and the other usually doesn't. Quick now, who remembers the winner of last year's best-picture Oscar?* Did you see it? And what about the year before that …? 

All of which is a roundabout way of saying the Golden Globes ceremony happens Sunday. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will be back to host, which should be fun. The Globes are presented by something called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (membership at last count: 87). For a long time the ceremony was a cheesy alternative to the Oscars, wryly summed up in horny lyrics by the late John Hartford, who had his own version of what the Globes were all about.

But then everyone started noticing that the Globes telecast, with Jack Nicholson in the front row radiating coolness in his tux and Ray-Bans, was way more fun than the stodgier Oscars. Maybe because it was in a ballroom where everyone could drink. The TV audience for the show – enlarged by fashionistas and office-pool betters – is bigger than the audiences for all the best-picture hopefuls, combined

The Globes have their own categories, differentiating between drama and comedy (with or without music), And there are TV prizes, too – although who can tell the difference between TV and movies anymore?

So now, because I've got one reader hanging on my words to place his bets (not a good idea), here's the Golden Globe forecast in the major movie categories I've been able to distill from online pundits, along with my own cranky comments when warranted. 

 Best Motion Picture, Drama

 “The Father"

“Mank”

“Nomadland” – will win, should win

“Promising Young Woman”

“The Trial of the Chicago 7”

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama

Viola Davis, “Ma Rainey's Black Bottom” – will win

Andra Day, “The United States vs. Billie Holiday”

Vanessa Kirby, “Pieces of a Woman”

Frances McDormand, “Nomadland”

Carey Mulligan, “Promising Young Woman”

Viola Davis is the woke vote, but my choice would be Vanessa Kirby or Carey Mulligan, because Frances McDormand already has plenty of statues and I haven't seen Andra Day's performance yet.

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama

Riz Ahmed, “Sound of Metal”

Chadwick Boseman, “Ma Rainey's Black Bottom” – will win

Anthony Hopkins, “The Father”

Gary Oldman, “Mank”

Tahar Rahim, “The Mauritanian”

This is a lifetime achievement prize for a creative life cut way too short, even though Boseman has given better performances, many of them, and August Wilson' s writing plays better on stage than on screen. The great Anthony Hopkins gets props for acting his age, but my vote would go to Riz Ahmed's portrayal of a heavy metal drummer beset by deafness. 

Best Director – Motion Picture

Emerald Fennell, “Promising Young Woman” (Focus Features)

David Fincher, “Mank” (Netflix)

Regina King, “One Night in Miami” (Amazon Studios)

Aaron Sorkin, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix)

Chloé Zhao, “Nomadland” (Searchlight Pictures) – will win

Many are predicting a wave of wins for “Nomadland,” but my choice is Regina King for casting an imagined meeting of Mohammed Ali, Malcolm X, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke in a Miami motel room as a moment of Shakespearean dimensions.

Best motion picture, musical or comedy

“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”

“Hamilton”

“Music”

“Palm Springs” 

“The Prom”– will win

Everything about “The Prom” made me wonder, what were they thinking? This “Glee” for grownups didn't work for me. At all. Sleeper “Palm Springs” – a shaggy-dog time-travel romance – is great fun, but my vote goes to “Borat” for sheer courage amidst all writer-star Sasha Baron Cohen's other gifts. 

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

Maria Bakalova, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”

Kate Hudson, “Music”

Michelle Pfeiffer, “French Exit”

Rosamund Pike, “I Care a Lot”

Anya Taylor-Joy, "Emma" – will win

Having missed most of these performances and despite being captivated by Anya Taylor-Joy in “The Queen's Gambit,” my nod goes to newcomer Maria Bakalova for stealing whatever scene she's in from her genius father in “Borat.”

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

Sacha Baron Cohen, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” – will win, should win

James Corden, “The Prom”

Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Hamilton”

Dev Patel, “The Personal History of David Copperfield”

Andy Samberg, “Palm Springs”

Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture

Sacha Baron Cohen, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” 

Daniel Kaluuya, “Judas and the Black Messiah” 

Jared Leto, “The Little Things” 

Bill Murray, “On the Rocks” 

Leslie Odom, Jr., “One Night in Miami” 

No forecasts for this one. Assuming Sacha Baron Cohen wins for “Borat,” my second choice would be Leslie Odom, Jr., for channeling Sam Cooke in “One Night in Miami,” and because I haven't seen the others.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture

Glenn Close, “Hillbilly Elegy”

Olivia Colman, “The Father”

Jodie Foster, “The Mauritanian”

Amanda Seyfried, “Mank”– will win

Helena Zengel, “News of the World” 

Can't quibble with Amanda Seyfried's portrayal of Marion Davies, the best thing in “Mank.” Then again, Glenn Close gets points for the fat suit, Olivia Colman is superb as always, but my own vote would go to 12-year-old Helena Zengel for doing her part along with Tom Hanks to make “News of the World” my favorite movie of 2020.

I'll stay away from the television races since I've barely seen any of the contenders, other than to sing the praises of “The Queen's Gambit” – one of the great delights on any screen last year.

* “Parasite”