Reduced to a press conference last year because of the screenwriters’ strike, the Golden Globe awards ceremony goes ahead on Sunday night in Beverly Hills with all its traditional red carpet hoopla.
Four Irish actors are among the nominees: In Bruges co-stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, competing for best actor in a film (comedy or musical); and Gabriel Byrne (for In Treatment) and Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) competing for best actor in a TV drama series.
In the film nominations, Doubt, Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button lead the field with five nominations each.
Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Globes are influential in generating
publicity for the nominees at a time when the Oscar voters are marking their ballots.
A much more reliable Oscar indicator is the list of nominations released this week by the Producers Guild of America (PGA). In 12 of the past 19 years, the PGA award recipient has gone on to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
This year’s PGA nominees are Slumdog Millionaire (opening today and reviewed on page 8), The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Milk. Up for best animated feature are Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda and Bolt. Nominated for best documentary are Man on Wire, Standard Operating Procedure and Trouble the Water.
