My Award Nominations: Best Actress

People are always moaning about this being a weak category. Every year it seems. I don't know about you, but I had a hard time deciding who to leave off this ballot. There are just as many worthy contenders missing the cut here as there are in the Best Actor race.

I'd love to shine my light on more of the under-recognized actresses of 2014, but these five (a handful of them already Oscar-nominated) were tops for me. Herewith, my Best Actress nominees:

My Award Nominations: Best Original Song

There weren't that many films with good original songs this year (basically there was Begin Again and then everything else), but the songs that did I decide upon I rather like. Have a listen to my five Best Original Song nominees after the cut:

One Category at a Time: Original Song

It feels strange whenever there's a year in which the music branch doesn't do something outright embarrassing. I guess you could disparage the disqualification of Antonio Sanchez's percussive Birdman score, but that's not so much a fresh embarrassment as the branch simply continuing to follow their own foolish rules.

But in regards to their Best Original Song selections, we have nothing on the level of 'Alone-Yet-Not-Alone-gate' from last year, or the hilarious two-nominee field from 2011. The music branch mostly obeyed the rules, singling out the three main songs that most people expected to be nominated, plus shining a light on couple of lower-profile tunes without any embarrassment.

Or at least without any overt embarrassment.

Golden Globe nominations: Big gain for 'Selma', death knell for 'Unbroken'?

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association have announced the their nominees for the Golden Globe Awards, adding fuel to the campaign fires of some borderline contenders, but also dousing those of others.

I'll mention my specific commentaries for each individual category after the cut, but for now, a few immediate observations:

-Yesterday's SAG shutout of Selma proved merely to be a byproduct of its late entry into the race, as it popped up in four categories today (including Picture and Director).

-Conversely, Unbroken pulled up a big ole goose egg with both organizations. If any group was gonna chomp at the bit for Angelina Jolie's celebrity, it was the HFPA. It could still squeak out a Best Picture nomination a la War Horse -- another perfect-on-paper Oscar bait movie that disappointed on arrival -- but its hopes are dwindling fast.

-All of yesterday's SAG nominees repeated except for Naomi Watts, which means it'll be hard to anticipate who gets edged out come Oscar time. There's no way we're gonna have a perfect match-up across all three groups.

-The most unhappy snub of the day: John Carney's wonderful Begin Again being completely shut out of the Comedy/Musical categories and even Best Song! Criminal.

Check out all the film nominees and my quick thoughts below:

Summer catch-up

Just reserving this space to comment on a few spring/summer flicks I never got around to writing up proper. It's not like I have anything better to do until the awards movies start creeping out of their fall festival hidey holes.