Golden Globes nominations

"Mank" and "Promising Young Woman" exceed expectations, as Globes voters embrace some bold choices.

The Golden Globes nominations are out, traditionally the first big step in the annual film awards dance. Winning here doesn’t mean you’ll get an Oscar, but a Globes nomination can put a movie on the map for the Academy and the various industry guilds that might otherwise have overlooked them.

Obviously things are rather different this year, but I think it gave the Globes voters — the notoriously anonymous Hollywood Foreign Press Association — an excuse to be a bit more audacious with their picks.

You can see the whole list here.

I was really glad to see the “Mank” love with the most nominations. It’s a classic “Oscar bait” movie — historical piece, featuring a respectable veteran performer, with great production values. And it’s a movie about Hollywood, which Hollywood always loves. I’ve been surprised by it not getting much respect from the critics’ groups, including my own Indiana Film Journalists Association.

Sad about “Ma Rainey,” my #1 for the year, not making the best pic list. It's obviously a drama but you could slide it into the musical category where it'd have a better chance. But then it would mess up the dramatic acting noms for Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman, both well deserved.

Guess I'll have to watch "The Father" and "The United States vs. Billie Holiday" after they scored a raft of nominations out of the blue. The DVDs have been sitting on my desk.

I saw "Minari" got put in the foreign language category, which is arguable at best. The Oscar is now called International Feature, and I don't see how they can call a movie set and shot in America international. On the other hand, it might give it a shot I don’t think it’ll get for an Academy best picture nomination.

REALLY happy about the Emerald Fennell directing and screenplay nominations. I have problems with “Promising Young Woman,” but it's hard to deny it's a bold, original vision. Three out of five of the directing nominees are women, so that's cool, because they deserve it. My money’s on Chloé Zhao for “Nomadland.”

I’ll confess to experiencing a thrill up my leg at the the awful "Da 5 Bloods" getting blanked, mostly because this means I don't have to finish watching it. I’ve never walked out of a movie in the theater but I have shut plenty of streaming ones off, including Spike Lee’s lazy, self-indulgent effort.

I liked “The Trial of the Chicago 7” just fine, though it’s one of those movies that’s more a series of speeches than a true story.

It’s practically a lovefest for Sacha Baron Cohen, who’ll get a career revival out of this I think, even though I thought the “Borat” sequel even more overrated than the original. Had trouble even getting through it.

“Emma” and “The Personal History of David Copperfield” both got some love, though not as much as I’d give.

In terms of snubs, I guess people are saying Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and Ben Affleck got hosed, though none of their films got the praise or play you’d expect of a serious awards contender. Just being “a name” isn’t enough; you’ve got to have the goods up there on the screen.

Everything’s a bit harder to judge this year without box office tallies to rely upon for popularity, as Netflix, Amazon Prime and the various VOD services don’t provide specific numbers for rentals/watches. Though who knows, maybe for once that means people will feel free to actually vote for the movies they thought the most deserving.

By Globes (admittedly low) standards, this was a pretty bold crop of nominees.