As you may have heard, the annual Golden Globe nominations were announced yesterday, for better or worse depending on who you've been rooting for this awards season.
One thing I'll say, is that the Golden Globes are always the most exciting, bat crazy awards show. They've long eclipsed the Screen Actors Guild and Emmys in relevancy, and honestly, have some better choices than the Oscars in most cases. Last year they made history for nominating the incredible Ava DuVernay for Best Director, the first black woman ever nominated for the award. Oscar did not follow suit. In fact, if you look at their slate of nominees and winners last year, a lot of them are better than what Oscar ultimately picked.
This year's awards race is honestly all over the place, and while the Globes did a better job than SAG at forming a consensus, I still couldn't tell you what films have the edge at this point. But confusion aside, there are some really good nominations here, five of which really stood out to me.
Easily the most criminally underrated auteur working today, Todd Haynes seems like he's finally on track to earn his first Oscar nomination for Best Director. "Carol," is Haynes' sixth feature film, and it's incredible to me that the man who gave us "Far From Heaven," "Velvet Goldmine," and "Safe" only has one Oscar nomination to show for it. That's right, Haynes has only been nominated once for his screenplay for "Far From Heaven."
That seems like it's going to change this year, however. "Carol" is his most acclaimed feature, and has been cleaning up with the awards lately. It swept the New York Film Critics Circle, and even though the LA Film Critics preferred "Mad Max: Fury Road," Haynes was the runner-up for their Best Director award. Tie in "Carol" leading the Globe nominations yesterday and a heft of Independent Spirit Award nominations, and the stars definitely seem to be aligning for Haynes.
"Spy" is still my biggest surprise of 2015. Though director/writer Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy always make magic together ("Bridesmaids" and "The Heat"), this exceeded all of my expectations. The film doubles as a great, solid spy film, while also being a great takedown of the genre.
What really makes "Spy" work, however, is its amazing ensemble. No other group of actors worked as well this year (sorry team "Spotlight"); Every performance, no matter how small, is incredibly important to making the film work. This is McCarthy's most fully-realized performance to date, while Rose Byrne delivers what is honestly an brazenly Oscar-caliber performance. Seriously, is there anything this woman can't do?
Allison Janey, Jason Statham, Bobby Cannavale, Jude Law and newcomer Miranda Hart are all amazing too, however. I wish the Oscars weren't so resistant to recognizing great comedy films, but good on the Globes for recognizing the film and McCarthy's work in it.
Alicia Vikander is definitely 2015's big breakout star. Not only has she been in a mind-boggling five films this year, but she's delivered some of the most memorable performances as well. Not since Jessica Chastain in 2011 has an actress' breakout been so domineering.
Much like awards groups centered around Chastain's work in, "The Help" as a way of recognizing her for her body of work, Vikander's performance in "The Danish Girl" has been attracting a lot of buzz (despite all that category fraud talk). The Globes boldly chose to nominate her work in "The Danish Girl" in Lead Actress, and recognized her hypnotic, star-making turn in "Ex-Machina" in Supporting Actress.
After winning the LA Film Critics prize for Supporting Actress last weekend, I wondered if maybe this performance had more of a chance than people were giving it. The Globe nomination certainly doesn't cement an Oscar nomination, but I was still thrilled when her name was announced. Sci-Fi films, and the performances they contain, never seem to break through the awards bias against the genre, no matter how great they are. Vikander is incredible in "Ex-Machina," and good on the Globes for nominating her against frontrunners like Kate Winslet in "Steve Jobs." This could be the only major award this performance could be nominated for this season, and that would be enough.
Seriously, it's that good.
The question everyone found themselves asking prior to the start of awards season: Will "Mad Max" be a serious contender? Being one of the best and most successful films of the year is a great feather in any Oscar contender's cap. But we all know how the Academy is when it comes to strange, genre films, and as much as I love "Mad Max," it's one of the weirdest films I've ever seen.
That's not a knock against it by any means. The film is definitely in my top 10 for the year. But its awards season hopes have been steadily rising over the past week, reaching new heights with these pretty hefty Globe nominations. It's a film that will undoubtedly clean up in the tech categories, and I think that bottom-line support will translate to some major Oscar nominations. But again, good on the Globes for throwing their weight behind it. They could have easily nominated "Bridge of Spies" or worse ("Trumbo").
It's no secret that I absolutely adore Kirsten Dunst with every fiber of my being. Though most people would say, "That's Mary Jane from 'Spider-Man' right?" Dunst has delivered a plethora of memorable performances throughout her very long and accomplished career. She came pretty close to an Oscar nomination in 2011 with "Melancholia," but has been awards-worthy more than once ("Interview With the Vampire," "All Good Things").
So when I heard she had been cast as one of the leads in FX's brilliant anthology series "Fargo" I got excited. Television has been so kind to so many underrated actresses in ways film could never dream of (Viola Davis, Taraji P. Henson, to name a few), and I was glad to see Dunst join the list, though I had no idea what she could possibly be doing. Early promos showcased her Minnesota accent (which is hysterical) and great period costumes (the show takes place in the 70s), but nothing on what exactly who her character, Peggy Blumquist, really was.
Early episodes, in terms of the amount of heft to Dunst's work, disappointed me. The show seemed more focused on Patrick Wilson's brilliant work, and the rest of the starry ensemble consisting of Jean Smart, Nick Offerman, Ted Danson and Jeffrey Donovan. But as the show progressed, I noticed a slow, nuanced build in the work Dunst was doing, all of which led up to what might have been the most thrilling hour of television this year.
"Loplop," the show's eighth episode, is a showcase for Dunst's incredible talent as an actress. Focused entirely on the misadventures of Dunst's Peggy and her husband Ed (played by Jesse Plemons), we see the actress tackle a whole obstacle course, running a gamut of emotions, which she aces. In fact, watching this episode made me think back to past episodes where we only saw glimpses of who Peggy was, and how those small moments amounted to a full characterization. That's a testament to the high level Dunst is working on as an actress (and of course, the brilliant writing on "Fargo" in general). There's a dark humor that, in the hands of a less capable actress, could have floundered, or been missed in the execution. And of course, her character's OCD and pathological tendencies add shades of complexity. But the most thrilling part of it all, is simply watching her juggle it all, and turn this small-town hairdresser into a bougie Lady Macbeth.
This is the kind of work that normally gets passed over in favor of more starry, less accomplished turns from bigger names (like fellow nominee Lady Gaga from "American Horror Story"). But the Globes championing this masterful, tragi-comicperformance really is the cherry on top, and hopefully she wins. But even if she doesn't I hope this opens up more opportunities for her as an actress.
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