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Because I Need to Question My Judgement By Alex Carrigan QuailBellMagazine.com Award season is underway! This Sunday is the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, a night full of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler comedy, celebrities getting to drink, and people watching at home pretending to understand what the Hollywood Foreign Press Association does. For most people who follow film awards, this is the ceremony that kicks the entire shebang off. Trying to predict the Golden Globes is often a bit ore chaotic than predicting the Academy Awards, mostly because the GG audience seems to be harder to read. Most years, the awards go to some weird choices, and some of the nominees come right out of nowhere. In 2011, they nominated The Tourist, a spy drama, for Best Musical/Comedy and nominated its stars Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp for leading roles, even though the film was poorly received and not a musical or comedy. It's that kind of blatant rating stunt that threatens the legitimacy and dignity of such an awards show. So while the Golden Globes are harder to predict, especially since they have no previous awards shows for reference or betting, I will make an attempt to predict. I’m not going to predict the TV awards since I don’t feel as qualified to judge them, nor do I think they’re as relevant as the film categories. Here we go: Best Picture-Drama: My pick is Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. I’ve written about the film at length, but in short, I think it’s got a little more going for it than the other four nominations. It’s more experimental and probably something that could hold up years from now. I have a feeling The Imitation Game could be the surprise winner, though, simply due to its hype, but I’m hoping it’s Boyhood. Best Picture-Musical/Comedy: My pick is The Grand Budapest Hotel. I haven’t seen Birdman, which I think could be the surprise winner, but The Grand Budapest Hotel has that timeless charm and energy to it. Wes Anderson has a unique style, one I think will be appreciated years from now, and I think this film is such a prime example of his oeuvre that it’s worth giving the award to. Best Actor-Drama: I’m going to be shooting in the dark because I haven’t seen any of the movies nominated, and I have reason to assume it could be any of the five men in this category. If I have to give my best guess, it would be Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game. I’m going to an old trick when picking award winners; pick the person who seems obscure, mostly from not being a previous winner, but has enough star power that winning an award would pull people in their fan base to watch the ceremony. Yes, I’m relying on the Sherlock fan base to give Benedict the win. That's where I'm at. Best Actress-Drama: It’s Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl. I legitimately believe she’s the best out of the five and did a phenomenal job playing one of the most complex characters in a movie last year. I’m not sure if any of the other nominees can challenge her, but once again, I’m hoping for the winner to be someone who doesn’t normally win awards to get it. Best Actor-Musical/Comedy: This one sucks. I honestly like all five people nominated, and even though I haven’t seen all their movies, I think all of them could win. I’m probably feeling the strongest for Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel, but I also have heard enough buzz to see it go to Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice (which I am absolutely reviewing for this site once it finally shows up in my area.) I’ll probably be fine with the result to whoever it goes to. Best Actress-Musical/Comedy: This one also sucks, but for other reasons. Whereas the last one had people whose roles I’ve seen enough acclaim for and could understand any of them winning, this one is a lot harder to pick. My guess is that it will be Julianne Moore in Maps to the Stars if only because she won the same award at Cannes (although American award shows almost always ignore Cannes). I really don’t know who else it could go to, although I always feel Amy Adams deserves more awards than she gets, and Quvenzhane’ Wallis is so adorable she deserves to have a long lasting career. Best Supporting Actor: My pick would probably be Ethan Hawke in Boyhood, mostly because this was a role he spent twelve years on, managing to show how he could grow as an actor over twelve years and use that to show his character’s growth over the period of time as well. Hawke is really great in Linklater’s hands, and I think he should be rewarded for that. I’ve heard really good things about J.K. Simmons in Whiplash, so I could see him winning too. Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette in Boyhood, for the same reasons as Hawke. Keira Knightley is probably her biggest threat. Best Director: I don’t want to sound biased, but probably Richard Linklater for Boyhood. I think the other four directors were well chosen and I think they all brought a unique point of view and style to their films. To me, Boyhood is just more audacious and well made. This project could have gone wrong in so many ways, but for it to have such consistency and style makes it the best pick. I feel like David Fincher for Gone Girl is probably a popular choice and could win it as well. Best Screenplay: I think I’d choose Gone Girl, written by Gillian Flynn. Again, I think all the scripts in this category are good. I think Flynn’s is more interesting because she wrote the book the film was based off, so it was a challenge for a novelist to write a screenplay (which I can tell you from personal experience is not easy). She had to transform her book into a new medium, changing a lot about the story and the style and making it adaptable for film. Was it a complete success? No, but I think it’s still really impressive. Best Score: I never feel like I can predict this one because I always think it’s going to go to the most unique and exciting one, but it instead goes for the one that makes the best music that you never really think about while the movie is playing. At the same time, I think it’s also about picking a composer and not the music, so it can lean towards certain composers as opposed to what kind of music they made and how it fit with the film. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score for Gone Girl is probably my best guess, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be wrong. Best Original Song: Everything is Awesome from The Lego Movie. Oh, wait. That’s not nominated. Damn. Okay, in all seriousness, this one is easier to judge since they put the songs on YouTube, so I can make an educated guess without having to see the movie. A few of the artists nominated are fairly current, and I can see the appeal in awarding it to one of them for being timely. I’m honestly fairly unimpressed with these five songs, two of which are funeral dirges and two of which reek of award bait. I’d probably go with “Yellow Flicker Beat” by Lorde from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 1 for sounding the most unique and being somewhat tied to the movie. I don’t even think that’s the best song on that soundtrack (my personal favorite is CHVRCHES’ “Dead Air”), but I think Lorde will get it. Best Animated Feature: I feel this is a fairly good crop, especially since the big Disney film in this group is Big Hero 6, which I honestly didn’t think was that great, meaning a more independent studio (or Dreamworks) could win. If I had to pick, I’d go with The Lego Movie, because this could have just been a cheap cash-in, but ended up being one of the most postmodern and existential children’s films in a long time. It was also really funny and had one of the best voice casts in a long time. I really liked How to Train Your Dragon 2, so I’d be happy to see that win as well. Best Foreign Film: Ehhhhhhhhhhhh. I wanted to see a few of the movies here, but never could. Just from what I read, I’d guess it’d be more likely to be Force Majeure (Sweden) or Ida (Poland/Denmark), since those have both received similar amounts of acclaim from a variety of critics and festivals. After Sunday, this will either look hilariously misinformed or surprisingly accurate. I’ve never been really good at award show betting, and those two options are generally how it goes. #Real #GoldenGlobes #Film #Movies #BestScore #BestAnimatedFeature #BestForeignFilm #PopCulture #Arts #Media Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. 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