Award Season - The Queen has Golden Dreams

January 16, 2007

Only two films were repeat winners on tonights Golden Globes, Dreamgirls with three wins and The Queen with two. There were a few surprises along the way and some troubling signs for Oscar hopefuls.

Best Motion Picture - Drama

• Babel

• Dreamgirls

• Forest Whitaker in Last King of Scotland

• Helen Mirren in The Queen

• Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada

• Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat

• Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls

• Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls

• Martin Scorsese for The Departed

• The Queen

• Happy Feet for "The Song of the Heart"

• Alexandre Desplat for The Painted Veil

• Letters from Iwo Jima

• Cars

Notes and Reactions:

• Dreamgirls could be shaping up for a Chicago like run as it was the big winner tonight. Even more importantly, two of its three wins were not in split categories meaning the competition will not be tighter on Oscar night.
• On the other hand, Babel won only once despite being nominated seven times while The Departed went one for six. For both films this is serious trouble with the Oscars as they may have peaked too early.
• Forest Whitaker won, which is not a surprise given his performance, however, a lot of people seemed to think people would have forgotten about it by now.
• Martin Scorsese won for best director, which bodes well. However, he has won this award in the past only to come up short on Oscar night.
• Helen Mirren's win for The Queen was probably the least shocking event of the night.
• There were several categories where I was surprised who won. For instance, I disagree that Babel won Best Drama over The Departed, in fact, of the four categories where The Departed lost, I disagree with three of those decisions. Add in the other categories where I was rooting for the underdog and it was not a satisfying night for me.
• While I was expecting The Departed to do much better than it did, Pan's Labyrinth losing to Letters from Iwo Jima was the biggest disappointment for me. I still think Pan's Labyrinth has a good shot at Oscar glory, perhaps in the technical categories like Best Make-up.
• One final note, the Golden Globes were handed out tonight, but the word, "Oscar" appears in this story more than Golden or Globes does. That just goes to show you how much Oscar dominates award season.

Source: Hollywood Foreign Press

Filed under: Cars, Happy Feet, The Departed, Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, Dreamgirls, The Queen, Babel, The Last King of Scotland, Letters from Iwo Jima, The Painted Veil