2005 Golden Globes In Retrospect

As I have said many times before, predicting any awards show can be hit or miss. All things considered I don’t think I did too badly. Now we can analyze what wins were a surprise, who got shafted, and what it means for the rest of the awards season most notably for the Oscars. I can only hope that some of my favorite films of the year Shrek 2, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Spider-Man 2, and The Incredibles will fare well in the technical categories because they sore don’t seem to have any presence at all in the major categories.

Television:

I’m glad to say that Nip/Tuck did win for best Drama though I didn’t think they would. It goes to show that the Golden Globe voters aren’t as narrow minded as I thought and that cable really is emerging, not just the HBO powerhouse, but smaller channels like FX are putting out quality shows.

Actor Drama, I haven’t watched Deadwood so I can’t really comment on this one. It was an off year for many of the actors who usually go up in this category so it is nice to see a fresh face.

I was right on with both of the actress categories even up to Teri Hatcher’s ditzy acceptance speech or lack thereof.

I think that Desperate Housewives shouldn’t have won for best Comedy series, but since they did give the best actor award to Jason Bateman who truly deserved it I can forgive them this faux pas.

Miniseries and actor in a minseries I picked straight off. If you haven’t seen this Peter Sellers biopic you really should, the mood and ambiance is spectacular.

Actress in a miniseries, well, I kind of knew this would happen even though I didn’t
want to admit it. Eleanor of Aquitane is just too good a part and this play is too well written for a skilled actress to not sweep viewers away in this role.

Supporting actor and supporting actress went to deserving stalwarts of television and film, enough said.

Film:

Some of these were givens, as I said, but some things were interesting and set up the Oscars to be a much tighter race than it has been in years past which will probably translate into lousy ratings, go figure.

The Aviator for Best Picture did not surprise me, I think it was a great film, probably the best of the year, but I also think that perhaps this year was not as strong as last year. What is interesting is that Martin Scorsese did not win for best director. That award went to Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby. Now the Golden Globes do split director and picture more often than do the Oscars but this sets up an interesting dilemma. My feeling is still that the Oscars will reward Scorsese for his body of work and that Clint won’t get the directing award of the film award come Oscar night.

Best Picture Musical went to Sideways which is not much of a surprise since it has been widely hailed, but that it also beat out Charlie Kaufmann for best screenplay I found unimaginable. I hope this trend doesn’t continue. That said Sideways didn’t win any acting awards, of course the magical Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind didn’t win anything at all. Probably a combination of the curse of a movie that opened too early in the year combined with the curse of anything starring Jim Carrey.

Best actor, I was thrilled to see Leo win for his stirring depiction of megalomaniac Howard Hughes though I was rooting for last year’s overlooked Johnny Depp. Jamie Foxx winning for Ray surprised no one.

The best actress race didn’t turn out anything like I expected somehow for me predicting the women winners in the television categories is easy and predicting the women winners in film is almost impossible. Hillary Swank won best actress in a drama for her boxing turn in Million Dollar Baby. I wonder what it is about film that boxing portrays so well? Annette Bening played an actress facing her later career in Being Julia won over my personal favorite Kate Winslet thus shutting out Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind completely. On well, I suppose it could win a technical award or something.

Supporting actor and actress is not divided by comedy or drama like the other categories. It is nice to see that Closer was the big winner here. I am thrilled that Natalie Portman is receiving kudos here as she has had a well turned career thus far and this will only serve to keep the quality of work available to her of the finest caliber. Which is something she deserves after having to utter the line ‘I truly deeply love you’ in the last Star Wars picture.

I loved the score for The Aviator and am glad to see that Howard Shore won though his house must be getting crowded after all of the hardware he took home previously for his work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I don’t know about best original song, I picked Counting Crows, but how could you give it to anybody but Mick Jagger? Chalk it up to temporary insanity to have suggested anything else.

Related posts:

1. Golden Globe Picks 2005
2. Golden Globes Review 2006
3. Golden Globes 2007 - Film
4. Golden Globes 2007 - Television
5. Golden Globe Redux 2007