Golden Globe nominees

Busy week for precursor nominations. First the Critics Choice Awards, then the Screen Actors Guild, and now this morning we have the slate from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. With all three groups, Lincoln leads in the nomination tally (though it's tied with Silver Linings Playbook and Les Miz for SAG).

For all the annual allegations about the Globes' "star-f***ing" tendencies, no one can ever accuse them of being a group without an identity. With all the critics likely to line up behind the same names over and over, it's refreshing to see some nominations spring up here that we're not likely to see repeated again this season. They're the first group to support Django Unchained in a big way, handing it five nominations after it was shut out by SAG. And I highly doubt we'll see Salmon Fishing in the Yemen mentioned by any more awards bodies this year.

Full list of motion picture nominees with accompanying commentaries after the cut.

Best Motion Picture - Drama
"Argo"
"Django Unchained"
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"
"Zero Dark Thirty"

Django is the surprise here. This is a much needed boost for its flagging Oscar prospects.

Best Motion Picture - Comedy Or Musical
"The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"
"Les Miserables"
"Moonrise Kingdom"
"Silver Linings Playbook"
"Salmon Fishing in the Yemen"
I would have anticipated all of these but for Salmon Fishing. It played TIFF last year, so I'm surprised it got remembered.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama

Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln"
Richard Gere, "Arbitrage"
John Hawkes, "The Sessions"
Joaquin Phoenix, "The Master"
Denzel Washington, "Flight"

With the segregation of Drama and Musical/Comedy, the HFPA actually had room to add one of the Best Actor outliers, and they chose Richard Gere's celebrated performance in Arbitrage. Need to catch up with that one.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
Marion Cotillard, "Rust and Bone"
Jessica Chastain, "Zero Dark Thirty"
Helen Mirren, "Hitchcock"
Naomi Watts, "The Impossible"
Rachel Weisz, "The Deep Blue Sea"

Does Hitchcock not qualify for Comedy because it failed to make me laugh at any point during the film? I still say calling it a Drama is a huge stretch. I think if you replace Weisz with Lawrence this may be your Oscar lineup.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy Or Musical
Jack Black, "Bernie"
Bradley Cooper, "Silver Linings Playbook"
Hugh Jackman, "Les Miserables"
Ewan McGregor, "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen"
Bill Murray, "Hyde Park on Hudson"

This is gonna be quite the showdown between Jackman and Cooper.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy Or Musical
Emily Blunt, "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen"
Jennifer Lawrence, "Silver Linings Playbook"
Judi Dench, "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"
Maggie Smith, "Quartet"
Meryl Streep, "Hope Springs"
With her chief competition Jessica Chastain in the Drama category, this is probably Jennifer Lawrence's one big win of the year.

Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Alan Arkin, "Argo"
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "The Master"
Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained"
Leonardo DiCaprio, "Django Unchained"
Tommy Lee Jones, "Lincoln"

While the Weinstein Co. managed to squeeze out Robert De Niro with two Django costars here, they're unlikely to pull the same trick with AMPAS. Vote-splitting could ruin both their chances.

Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

Anne Hathaway, "Les Miserables"
Helen Hunt, "The Sessions"
Amy Adams, "The Master"
Sally Field, "Lincoln"
Nicole Kidman, "The Paperboy"
The second citation of Nicole Kidman in as many days. Could she end up filling out what is at the moment a highly malleable Supporting Actress roster?

Best Director - Motion Picture

Ben Affleck, "Argo"
Ang Lee, "Life of Pi"
Steven Spielberg, "Lincoln"
Quentin Tarantino, "Django Unchained"
Kathryn Bigelow, "Zero Dark Thirty"

The Musical/Comedy directors Tom Hooper and David O. Russell were likely to miss out with this group, but I still say they have a good shot with the Academy.

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
"Silver Linings Playbook"
"Argo"
"Django Unchained"
"Zero Dark Thirty"
"Lincoln"
Lincoln takes this, no?

Best Animated Feature Film
"Brave"
"Frankenweenie"
"Wreck-it Ralph"
"Rise of the Guardians"
"Hotel Transylvania"
As with the BFCA, no credence was paid to the GKIDS lineup of foreign fare that are far more likely to impress the Academy's animation branch than, say, Hotel Transylvania.

Best Foreign Language Film
"The Intouchables"
"Amour"
"A Royal Affair"
"Rust and Bone"
"Kon-Tiki"
Only Rust and Bone was not submitted for Oscar consideration, but its countryman The Intouchables was.

Best Original Score - Motion Picture
"Anna Karenina"
"Life of Pi"
"Argo"
"Lincoln"
"Cloud Atlas"
Looking at the Best Original Score contenders for the whole year, nothing stands out as an obvious winner. In years like this, when there's nothing like The Artist or Up waltzing through the season as the clear front runner, the Oscar usually ends up being a consolation prize for some Best Picture nominee that won't win anything else (think Finding Neverland, Babel, Atonement, etc.)... which draws my eyes to Argo. Desplat has had yet another amazing year, but Argo is beginning to look like the runner-up in every category in which it was once considered the leader. It's gotta win something, right?

Best Original Song - Motion Picture
"FOR YOU"— "Act of Valor"
"NOT RUNNING ANYMORE" — "Stand Up Guys"
"SAFE & SOUND" — "The Hunger Games"
"SKYFALL" — "Skyfall"
"SUDDENLY" — "Les Miserables"
As usual, name recognition rules the day with this crowd. Adele, Keith Urban, Bon Jovi, and Taylor Swift are all nominees. Mind you, Schonberg and Boubil are bigger names to me, but that only indicates how out of touch I am with the music scene.