Awards Watch: The Globes

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Golden Globes are not known for their logic. This is, after all, the group that named Scent of a Woman best picture of the year in 1992, over The Crying Game, Howards End and Unforgiven. And this year's awards are shaping up to be no different with the recent news of certain category placements.

The HFPA's eligibility committee recently deemed the following films, which mix elements of comedy and drama, as contenders in their comedy or musical races: Charlie Wilson's War, The Darjeeling Limited, Juno, Lars and the Real Girl, Margot at the Wedding, The Savages and Waitress. Conversely, I'm Not There, the biopic of music legend Bob Dylan, will compete in the dramatic races. In the acting categories, There's Cate Blanchett (along with Hairspray's John Travolta and The Assassination of Jesse James' Casey Affleck) will compete in the supporting categories, while Russell Crowe will go head to head with himself in the lead category for both American Gangster and 3:10 to Yuma.

However, most controversial is their decision to place the star of Foreign Language film nominee La Vie en Rose, Marion Cotillard, in the Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical category. The Globes are notorious for throwing music biopics (Coal Miner's Daughter, Walk the Line) into these categories, where, more often then not, they or their actors win over actual comedic or musical films or performances. Newsflash to the Globes: just because a movie contains someone singing (or, like Globe winner Jamie Foxx in Ray, lip-syncing to the real singer's original recordings) does not mean it is a musical. And of course, with Cotillard (not to mention Margot's Nicole Kidman and Savages' Laura Linney) in this particular race, it throws my original predictions for this category out the window. Plus, it pretty much hands the Best Actress - Drama prize to Globe darling Angelina Jolie (she's won every one of her past three nominations) for A Mighty Heart. So much for a balanced competition.

In other determinations, nine films (excluding Persepolis) are eligible for the second Globe award for Animated Feature, while 61 films (including Persepolis) are up for the Foreign Language prize.

Links via HFPA.org and LATimes.com.