Are Oscars Ready For One More Battle w/ Hamnet?

The party at a restaurant on the ninth floor of Beverly Hills Maybourne Hotel was quite lively the minute the Hamnet group made their triumphant entrance after winning the final award of the night at the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture Drama. They were in a partying mood with star Jessie Buckley, who also had to wait until the end of the three-hour-plus ceremony to win for Lead Female Actor Drama. I caught the ebullient Buckley standing on the cushions of her corner booth rocking out to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” with director/producer/co-writer Chloé Zhao right by her side joining in the celebration.

Chloé Zhao and Jessie Buckley party after their Golden Globes wins for ‘Hamnet’

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Before leaving late Sunday afternoon for Netflix’s elegant and fun watch party at Spago (right across the street from the Maybourne), I filled out my Gold Derby predictions, and one of them was that Hamnet would prevail with its overwhelming emotional power. It was a very good weekend for the film as just the night before I was down the street at the Beverly Wilshire hotel for the AARP Movies For Grownups Awards, where Hamnet won Best Film and Zhao ,Buckley and co-star Paul Mescal were on hand to accept (as were a lot of other A-listers for the awards designed to appeal to the over-50 crowd). So after watching One Battle After Another win all season long at critics group events, this was a big one, even if it came on the same night that film also won big with four trophies including Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, Director, and Screenplay for Paul Thomas Anderson. That is the beauty of the Globes: They split their Best Picture prizes between those genres even if this year the word “comedy” is a loose definition of the films nominated in that category.

Paul Thomas Anderson onstage at the Golden Globes

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Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski was still somewhat shocked at the late-inning win, having sat for three hours seeing no wins for his three nominated films that also included Bugonia and Song Sung Blue. It finally was a biggie that comes perfectly poised to capitalize on its new status as perhaps the movie that might, if there is any hope at this point, be a contender to give One Battle a run for its money at the Oscars. Voting for Academy Award nominations starts Monday and runs through Friday. The Phase 1 campaigning and gladhanding will be slowing down considerably this week as Oscar voters check off their ballots. Emotional movies like Hamnet, even if it has been slow to ignite at the box office, often count for a lot with Academy members. Having (producer) Steven Spielberg start your acceptance speech is also not a bad thing at all. Many Globes viewers may not have heard of the movie, or thought it was a misspelling of Hamlet, but Spielberg’s words and actions carry weight.

‘Hamnet’ director Chloé Zhao and producer Steven Spielberg at the Golden Globes

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Another Focus executive, pumped up for action, told me “we’re coming for you, One Battle!” Focus has never won a Best Picture Oscar, though many thought it would with Brokeback Mountain in 2006 (it lost shockingly to Crash). Kujawski was trying to remember the last time they won this category. “I think it was probably Atonement,” he said of that 2007 film that actually won the year the Globes were shut down due to the writers strike and instead winners were just simply announced at a press conference. This win will have more impact, dontcha think? Certainly Zhao was almost speechless when I spoke to her at the Maybourne. She couldn’t remember if she thanked anyone except her shout-out to Ryan Coogler in the audience, whose film Sinners had just lost. She asked Kujawski for assurance that everyone did get thanked (Spielberg covered many).

Of course the night’s really big winner was Anderson, who was called to the stage three times (the pic’s Teyana Taylor was a surprise Supporting Actress winner to kick off the night), and it seems like an almost inevitable Best Picture Oscar winner as we head into nominations being announced January 22. As I said after last week’s Critics Choice victory, it wins every. single. time. It remains the unquestioned front-runner, and this Globes victory certainly doesn’t hurt. However the Oscars uses a preferential ballot only for Best Picture in order to get a consensus, so your second- and third-place choices on the list of 10 nominees can be just as important as your first-place choice. This is how Moonlight beat La La Land at the infamous 2016 Oscars. That kind of rank voting certainly can benefit a movie like Hamnet, which seems to have a knockout effect on many viewers (and voters) like Sharon Stone, who broke into tears just describing it in presenting the Best Film prize at Movies For Grownups on Saturday, or Jane Fonda, whose endorsement of the movie at the Palm Springs Film Festival Gala could be an ad Focus should take out.

Wagner Moura accepts his Best Actor prize at the Golden Globes

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The Golden Globes are now largely voted on by 300 or so genuine international critics, most recruited from the Fipresci group who travel to film festivals and favor global cinema. That can explain the leading 21 nominations for Neon, which is distributing the lion’s share of foreign-language films it left Cannes with, and the significant wins for Brazil’s The Secret Agent, which won Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language, as well as Best Actor Drama for Wagner Moura (I have been told Brazil has a very large contingent of actual Globes voters). This is the second weekend in a row for Secret Agent winning the Foreign Film prize after doing the same thing at Critics Choice. That won’t be lost on Oscar voters. Stellan Skarsgård’s Supporting Actor win for Sentimental Value, that Cannes-premiering Norwegian film’s only victory on eight nominations, also should help get over the sting of SAG’s Actor Awards‘ complete shutout of every actor in a foreign language performance this week. Also the Animated Feature and Best Song wins for KPop: Demon Hunters, the smash South Korean film that has broken all Netflix records, is yet another win for golden global cinema (it won the same two awards at CCA and seems locked and loaded for Oscar).

Stellan Skarsgård onstage at the Golden Globes

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I was sorry to see Guillermo del Toro’s magnificent Frankenstein get shut out at the Globes after taking four wins at CCA last week, but the Globes don’t have craft categories, where it is expected to prevail at Oscars. The one that it does have for Best Original Score was not broadcast for the first time and presented during a commercial break with no mention of it on the show itself. Sinners won for Ludwig Göransson, but you’d never know it. I heard nominee Hans Zimmer in the audience was very upset about the treatment to his category, and I know Frankenstein nominee Alexandre Desplat was too, as he told me Saturday at the BAFTA Tea shortly after he heard it had been dropped, and then again at the uber-packed post-show Netflix party Sunday night. I told him to look on the bright side, “at least no one will know you lost!” He laughed.

Rose Byrne at the Golden Globes

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As for the ultimate impact on Oscars, the Globes have a spotty record; depends on the year. Last year both of its Best Motion Picture picks, Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist, lost the Best Picture Oscar to Anora. And out of six acting winners, just two — Adrien Brody and Zoe Saldaña — matched Oscar, so there is room to hope to fight another day here. The awards-giving season is young, even if the odds are getting longer to take on One Battle After Another. Interestingly, four of the Globes’ acting winners — Skarsgard, Taylor, Moura, and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’s Rose Byrne — did not get a chance to try out their Oscar speech at Critics Choice, so this was new territory to make some impact when it counts. And with Timothée Chalamet and Buckley repeating their victories from CCA last week, it increasingly looks like that pair may just go all the way to the Dolby Theatre stage come March 15. Many pundits were predicting a big Best Motion Picture Drama win for Sinners, and that might have been very popular for the audience at home, which actually has heard of and maybe even seen that hit film. Alas, it had to settle for what they are now calling the “Barbie Consolation Prize” of the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award. Yes, it is for making a lot of money. Other than that, Sinners was shut out except for the Best Music Score award, which as noted was not broadcast.

Delroy Lindo, Ryan Coogler, Li Jun Li, Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian, Wunmi Mosaku, Omar Benson Miller, Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton and others at Golden Globes

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In terms of television, there is not much to say. The Golden Globe winners followed the lead of the Critics Choice winners, which followed the lead of the Emmy winners. That is to say Netflix again dominated in Limited Series with four wins for Adolescence. Apple won big for The Studio. And HBO Max again triumphed with The Pitt. Oh, and Jean Smart won again. “I am a greedy bitch,” she slyly said.

Stephen Graham receives a Golden Globe from presenters Kathryn Hahn and Melissa McCarthy at the Globes

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Watching it all unfold for TV rather than in the room this year, there were definite highs and lows. The highs included host Nikki Glaser’s smart and funny monologue, especially her fearless dig at CBS News said on CBS: “The award for most editing goes to CBS News. CBS news, America’s newest place to see BS news.” Brave, and right on. Most of her bits landed, and that is no small task. She did a good job, second year in a row. Have her back. Her subtle tribute at end to Rob Reiner via the Spinal Tap cap she was wearing was spot-on. I also still love the loose and fun atmosphere; the format of a dinner works well and always has for this show.

Host Nikki Glaser wears a Spinal Tap cap at the Golden Globes

CBS

On the other hand, lose the announcers and the insipid play-by-play they added after each winner was named — no doubt a production decision to have no dead air as stars had to snake their way through tightly placed chairs. It sounded like they might as well have been describing floats at the Rose Parade. Also the complete lack of any film clips — or clips of any kind except for the new podcast category, for some reason — was an unintentional comment on the importance of the films and TV shows being honored. “No need to see what they are nominated for, let’s just show the stars.” And the betting-odds graphics for something called Polymarket was another miss, forget the fact that we had no idea where these useless stats were coming from. It was insulting to the nominees. Fortunately, those in the ballroom didn’t see any of this.

Finally I noticed this was an awards show with the smallest number of standing ovations I can recall. It was so noticeable, especially when Julia Roberts came out to present Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical at the end and got a heartfelt one. Otherwise this was an audience that appeared to want to stay seated except ,as always, at commercial breaks when all they want to do is mingle or go to the bar.

Next stop: the Oscar nominations on January 22.

Are Oscars Ready For One More Battle w/ Hamnet?

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