Oscarathon 2019: Golden Globes Reaction

In All, Movies, Television by David

And so we have finished another Golden Globes. I am going to wait until after the Critics’ Choice Awards to do a true update of the overall Oscar race, but here are my immediate reactions to all that happened, with a simple winners and losers section (mainly about the movies, but I will briefly speak about some TV).

Winners

Green Book

  • I mean, I knew something might be brewing when this film won Best Screenplay, but I held out hope that the Globes wouldn’t unleash this evil on us, and then they did, by having Green Book beat The Favourite and Vice for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy. Then Peter Farrelly walked up and insisted that this film was for everybody and that we can all learn from a white man and a black man forming an unlikely friendship, and just, goddammit. Green Book is now, if nothing else, shifted into the favorite tier for the time being, especially with its Best Screenplay win as well (honestly, that infuriates me even more than the Best Picture win, because that is simply preposterous). And who knows, now that one group has given a tacit approval making it okay to vote for this, maybe the other groups will give into their dumbest impulses as well, so this could seriously be the beginning of a major run of wins for this movie. The fact that Mahershala Ali has established himself as the favorite for Best Supporting Actor also can do nothing but help. Overall, I was fully preparing myself to deal with having Green Book and A Star Is Born being the two new frontrunners and this being the worst case scenario for the awards season, and then the Globes were like, hold my beer…

Bohemian Rhapsody 

  • Seriously? Seriously!? There had been lots of rumblings that the Hollywood Foreign Press loved this movie, but no one thought it would actually get the win, even the people that love this movie. Instead, the HFPA decided to go full Globes on us, and now a film that is still not totally guaranteed to be a Best Picture nominee has won one of the biggest awards of the season. Now, that probably isn’t actually true, as it is hard to believe this film will fail to get a nomination now, but that just shows you how far down the list it was before this win. So there is probably no bigger winner tonight than Bohemian Rhapsody, and if this film can win somewhere else, like, say, the SAG Awards, then, well, this could really get out of hand.

Rami Malek

  • For all the issues with the film he is in, no one has any issues with Rami Malek winning, because everyone agrees he is amazing. That probably should have been enough for the HFPA to show their love for this movie, but it was clearly not. Anyhow, Rami Malek is probably now the favorite even over fellow winner Christian Bale, especially with the raised profile of his film. Thankfully, Rami Malek is awesome, and at least you can always be happy for him, even if you don’t want to be happy for his film.

Roma

  • This one may seem strange, but the fact that the two Best Picture winners were films that had been either fading, in the case of Green Book, or simply not a serious contender, in the form of Bohemian Rhapsody, helps Roma, seeing as it wasn’t eligible for either Best Picture category. Instead, it picked up Best Foreign Film and Best Director, which still leaves it strongly positioned to pull off a historical win come Oscar night. A lot would have to go right for a foreign film to win Best Picture, but if no other film can truly emerge this season that could allow Roma to pick up the win. At the very least, Roma is still in the top tier of contenders, and may not fade as quickly as one would have originally thought.

The Oscar Race

  • No matter what you think about the surprising results tonight, one thing is clear–this could really be the most chaotic Oscars ever. There were already some real questions about whether any film should be considered a frontrunner, and now that the A Star Is Born myth has been further debunked, we really are in a wide-open race. We could really be seeing a year in which there is a real case to be made for almost any of what will ultimately be the Best Picture nominees. We’ll see what happens at the Critics’ Choice Awards, but it is possible this race could actually reflect the fact that none of this year’s movies really stand out that much from the rest.

Glenn Close

  • The Best Actress race seemed heading towards a showdown between Olivia Colman and Lady Gaga, but the Globes decided to throw a curveball with this Glenn Close win. Close is at least now assured of a nomination, and well, given that she is Glenn Close and she gave such a great speech, she could really start to pick up momentum, and that could easily take her to a victory in the end.

Regina King

  • There is not much to say here other than that King did not see her momentum halted in any way, and looks like the one person you could almost predict now will win her category come Oscar time, especially if she keeps giving fiery speeches like the one she gave at the Globes.

Sandra Oh

  • Besides the obvious that she won a Golden Globe for Best Drama TV Actress and became the first Asian woman to not only be nominated in this category but also win, Oh was also an amazing host. Her parents being in the audience was amazing, and she gave an extremely powerful capstone speech to end the opening monologue. Oh should be allowed to host anything else she wants to at this point, and hopefully this win will also allow her to keep finding more and more success going forward, because she deserves all of it.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

  • Look, let’s not get our hopes up too high, but this is an extremely good sign that we could at least for one year end the tyranny of Pixar and Disney in this category at the Oscars. The Globes are generally very conservative with what wins this category, and out of the twelve years this award has existed, the Globes and the Oscars have matched nine of twelve times. So yeah, things are looking good for Spider-Verse. Let’s see how the Critics’ Choice Awards go, but there is a good chance we are heading toward a new day in the Oscars animation category.

The Kominsky Method

  • Lost in the Best Picture shenanigans is that the Globes decided to pick The Kominsky Method for Best TV Comedy over The Good Place, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Barry. I don’t even have the mental energy to fully deal with this, but like, umm, this is just so random. The Globes has a very low attention span, so it is not surprising that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel didn’t win again, but this still feels a bit out there, especially after already awarding Michael Douglas for Best Actor, which meant they could have easily spread this award to someone else. Still, good for a show dealing with the issues of senior citizens getting awards attention. That is probably progress, even if that progress came in form of older white men… okay, so maybe not progress. I don’t know. This is dumb. But still, you had a good night, The Kominsky Method.

Netflix

  • What a night, Roma and The Kominsky Method picked up big wins, and rivals Amazon and Hulu mostly fell short. Add in Richard Madden’s win for The Bodyguard, and Netflix got a ton of praise from winners saying how wonderful they are. Netflix has struggled for years to truly breakthrough in a lot of awards categories, and this year their projects won some of the most important awards of the night. That has to be a relief for a company that has been going hard for awards for years, but which has come up short more times than not.

The Americans

  • This was truly a pleasant surprise. After years of coming up short at awards time, The Americans picked up a major win for the show’s final season. This was years in the making, and it allows a show that many considered the best on television for much of its run to finally have a major award agreeing with that unofficial assessment.

Fiji Girl

  • Forget Green Book or Bohemian Rhapsody, the biggest winner of the night was the Fiji Girl, who found herself photobombing every celebrity imaginable on the red carpet and is on her way to being the new meme of the moment (move over Bird Box). Some industrious user already made a parody account for her, and well, let’s just say she is likely going to be a part of meme culture for at least the foreseeable future. Hopefully, this fame will also transfer to the girl itself, but right now she helps make all of us a winner.

Losers

A Star Is Born

  • Look, this film’s Best Picture frontrunner status was always a bit of a stretch. It hadn’t actually won anything, and even if this property is beloved by the Academy, it has never actually won Best Picture in the past. Still, it is hard to believe this movie only won one Globe (for Best Song). This is a huge blow, and the film is going to need some sort of boost to reverse this slowed momentum. It is still a pretty easy Best Picture nominee to predict, but it is no longer anywhere close to the frontrunner, and it found its acting and directing chances take real blows as well, as Lady Gaga lost ground and Cooper missed a real opportunity to gain momentum with a win in either category he was nominated in. Luckily for it, this film still has the SAG awards to lean on potentially, but this was a very bad night for A Star Is Born.

The Favourite

  • The film most affected by the Globes’ love of Green Book, The Favourite found a lot of its momentum halted. Olivia Colman did manage to maintain her frontrunner status, but this was not the night that this movie seemed headed for before the awards happened. The only thing that makes this not as bad a night for The Favourite as it was for A Star Is Born is that the Critics’ Choice Awards still look to be a positive for this film, as it leads with 14 nominations, but it really needs to win at them now, or things could slip away from this movie really quickly.

BlacKkKlansman

  • Then there is BlacKkKlansman, which probably saw its chance at a real shot at Best Picture slip away after it failed to pick up any wins at all. This film has trended downwards for a while, and it could really have used a victory here. Luckily it still has a chance to shine at the SAG Awards, but things are looking bleak for Klansman to be more than one of those movies that picks up many nominations but wins nothing come Oscar night.

The Good Place

  • This is more just sad, as The Good Place can never truly be a loser, but it does feel like there was a real opportunity for the show, and instead, the Globes went and awarded The Kominsky Method. It feels like this was the best chance for The Good Place to win a major award, and now that it has passed, the show will continue to get overlooked going forward, which is just bullshirt.

The Globes’ Credibility

  • I will just leave this here…

  • I mean, what the hell, Globes!? It was like you just wanted to lean into your reputation as hard as possible this year. These picks reek of favoritism and short sightedness combined with a desire to be liked and to reward movie stars for “slumming” in TV. Add in the show itself feeling rushed as hell, which left many of the speeches feeling underserved, and it is kind of hard to take the Globes seriously. That may sound rich coming from a person who makes fun of the Globes all the time, but that is how ridiculous this shit was: it lowered a bar I didn’t think could go much lower.

The Oscar Race

  • It is nice that this year’s race could be really exciting, but damn, the cost is high. The Oscars feel like they could set back years of work if Green Book gets real legs as a Best Picture winner. Now, let me just say that there is a place for movies like this one, and they tend to have inspiring messages that can do some good. But like this is another example of overly rewarding movies that make white people feel better about racism because it puts some of the onus for fixing issues on black people. Green Book is a good movie, and it might very well be one of the better versions of this kind of movie, but we should be past these type of films winning Best Picture, especially in a year that is full of many, much better films talking about racism and most importantly, from an African-American perspective. Green Book having a real chance in this race is not a good look for the Oscars, and the fact that we are going to have to have debates about the film, and the numerous stories about how Don Shirley’s family felt about this film, are not good for this year’s race. Especially if we are going to have to hear Peter Farrelly constantly give speeches defending the film against critics in his acceptance speeches.
  • Then there is Bohemian Rhapsody, a film that not only has the Bryan Singer issue hanging over it, but also has had a lot of criticism over how it handled Freddy Mercury’s sexuality, which is covered here, here, and here, just to name a few places. Now look, there is something to be said for the fact that maybe we are going too far in how we look at movies, and making it where what wins Best Picture is just the film that can avoid the least amount of controversy, but in both of these cases this is not even shit that is hard to find. Like, they are central in their movies. These are not the kind of films that should be winning Best Picture, especially when we have such a wide number of excellent alternative choices right now. It looked like we were moving away from these movies that would have such easy flaws to find, but instead, we now have to consider both (at least for now) as real threats for Best Picture, which is just sad.

Me…

  • J/K… kind of. Though, dear God, now I have to listen to way more bullshit than I ever thought I would about two movies that should have had all chances of winning eliminated tonight. So thanks, Golden Globes. Thanks.

At least there is always Regina King being awesome.

Anyhow, that’s it for my reactions to the Golden Globes. It was certainly a crazy night, and the Oscar race is now completely in chaos, at least for one night. Keep checking back in, and look for a real new post about the state of the major races after the Critics’ Choice Awards.

-David