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Not quite the Oscars

Keira Knightley in Atonement
  • Posted at 2:38pm
  • 11 January 2008
  • by AndrewCollins-RT
  • 2 comments

For the baffled, here's the key difference between the season's two major US film award ceremonies: the Golden Globes are voted for by the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association; the Academy Awards by the industry.

Because the Globes come first, they're regarded as a dry run – as well as a tip sheet – for the Oscars. Some years, it's as if the 6,000-plus members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have simply copied the HFPA's homework.

The Golden Globes would normally be handed out at a fundraising dinner – far more informal and pally than the traditional showbiz spectacular – and, like our Baftas, also honour the best of television.

This year, however, the dinner has been cancelled because of a strike by the Writers Guild of America over royalties. Key stars (including George Clooney) have said that, to show their support of the strike, they will not cross the WGA picket line. So the awards organisers have no choice but to call a news conference instead to reveal the winners.

More esoteric than the Oscars, the Globes are the sophisticate's choice. The Globes separate drama from comedy/musical, which at least opens up the field to those frothier films often overlooked by the self-conscious Academy. It means that one of this year's most fancied films, the hard-centred political satire Charlie Wilson’s War (released on 11 January), starring Tom Hanks and written by The West Wing's Aaron Sorkin, battles it out not with Atonement and American Gangster, but with the all-singing, all-dancing Sweeney Todd and Hairspray, where it suddenly feels like the heavyweight choice.

Atonement's seven Globe nominations make it this year's Most Likely to Sweep the Board. Good news for British film industry patriots, it sees Keira Knightley up against Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: the Golden Age) and New York Critics Circle winner Julie Christie (Away from Her) – although James McAvoy does look a little pale next to Clooney (Michael Clayton) and Daniel Day-Lewis (a shoo-in, I predict, for his head-spinning turn in Paul Thomas Anderson's period epic There Will Be Blood, released here in February).

And it's only a couple of weeks until the Screen Actors Guild Awards. I was going to say that you may be sick of the sight of Day-Lewis and Knightley come the end of the season. But if the strike continues, perhaps not.

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  • Posted on 18 January 2008
  • at 12:36pm
  • by AndrewCollins-RT

I suspect the Oscars will also turn out to be a press conference, as so few actors would turn up (also - no writers to write Jon Stewart's speech as host). My feeling is that when it comes to the Screen Actors Guild, Hollywood actors turn out to be rather principled.

  • Posted on 14 January 2008
  • at 12:21pm
  • by lastgang

I wonder if the nominated actors that refused to cross the picket lines would have done so if it was the Oscars? It will be interesting to see if the strike is still on when the Oscars is due if the actors stay loyal to the cause or reveal themselves to be hypocrites.

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