If you need a reminder that awards season in general and the Golden Globes in particular are never to be taken seriously, the three nominations for “Big Eyes” should suffice. That film — a toxically high-spirited account of how Walter Keane stole credit for those campy 1960s waif paintings from his wife, Margaret — is one of the worst of the year and one of the worst in director Tim Burton’s career. Still, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated it for awards for best actor in a musical or comedy (Christoph Waltz’s grating performance as Walter), best actress in a musical or comedy (Amy Adams’s numb Margaret Keane), and best original song.
The nominations, announced Thursday morning, mark the official opening bell of Oscar season; coming after the major critics’ awards have been announced but well before Academy voters submit their own nominations, the Globes set the parameters for the rest of the race, narrow the field, reframe the arguments. Is it ridiculous to say one good movie is better and more deserving of attention than another? Of course it is. But the Golden Globe awards show itself is a fun, boozy affair, and what better way to absorb movies that want to unsettle and provoke us than by turning the end of the year into a runway competition?
On the plus side, Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” picked up five Golden Globe nominations — for best drama, director, supporting actress (Patricia Arquette), supporting actor (Ethan Hawke), and screenplay — which is welcome news for such an off-Hollywood project. “The Imitation Game,” a glossier and more typical awards season biopic, also received five nominations. The certifiably demented “Birdman,” a stylistic tour de force that has polarized audiences, led the field with seven nominations, including Michael Keaton for best actor in a comedy or musical. Wes Anderson’s audience-pleaser “The Grand Budapest Hotel” received four. And it’s nice to see Bill Murray get a nod, even if “St. Vincent” is one of the actor’s most conventionally sentimental roles. (Thankfully the Globes didn’t go the way of the Screen Actors Guild, whose nominations were announced earlier in the week and which honored Naomi Watts’ painful “St. Vincent” performance as a pregnant Russian stripper.)
Matthew McConaughey (left) and Woody Harrelson of "True Detective."
The Globe nominations also gave a leg up to some films that are as yet unreleased while snubbing others. “Selma,” Ava DuVernay’s drama about Martin Luther King’s 1965 voting-rights protest march, picked up four nods, including David Oyelowo for best actor (drama) and DuVernay for director, the first African-American woman to be so honored. Yet “Unbroken,” a grueling true-life story of WWII-era survival directed by Angelina Jolie, received no nominations at all, a major surprise for a film that has been touted as an Oscar-season bell-ringer.
Also coming up short — and still flying under the cultural radar — is “American Sniper,” the story of Iraq War veteran Chris Kyle (played by Bradley Cooper) that, against expectations, is one of the finer movies of director Clint Eastwood’s career. (Like “Unbroken,” it comes out on Christmas day.) Cultural politics and the mood of the moment have as much to do with awards nominations as merit, and it may be that “Selma,” a sturdy, earnest re-enactment, is taking energy from the racial conflagrations of 2014 while “American Sniper,” as clear-eyed as it is, is not a film anyone wants to be seen championing right now.