Golden Globes Snub 'Milk,' Love Everything On HBO

James Franco: His Golden Globe nomination for Pineapple Express (that's him in the front seat, with concerned Seth Rogen in back) is a nice surprise. Sony Pictures

 

by Linda Holmes

Golden Globe nominations are out, and there are a few surprises on the list.

Movie Nominations

First and foremost is the lack of a Best Drama nomination for Milk, which lost out to The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, and Revolutionary Road. It picked up a nomination for Sean Penn, but that's it. That gives Milk the same number of nominations as the far inferior The Duchess, which got its sole nomination for Ralph Fiennes' performance as a repressed, unfeeling nobleman.

(To be honest, Fiennes in The Duchess left me utterly cold -- to me, it was every unfeeling aristo in every "married to the king, but in love with another" story ever told, but I was in the emphatic minority on that point, so the nomination is not a surprise.)

Does this mean Milk won't get an Oscar nomination? It's hard to imagine. Not only has the critical praise bordered on outlandish, but the film is full of people Hollywood has loved in the past: Penn, Josh Brolin, and director Gus Van Sant among them. It's been a robust November-December for dramas, but look for Milk to get its Best Picture nod.

Note that not one of the Best Drama nominees has been in wide release as of nomination day, which again brings up the annoyance of shoving every award hopeful (other than summer blockbusters) into the last six weeks of the year, creating a false sense of despair for the other 46 weeks.

In any event, the other Milk news that's most interesting is that James Franco was passed over for that film, but was rather delightfully nominated for Best Actor in a comedy or musical for Pineapple Express. Milk is a more important movie, obviously, but Pineapple Express would have been in far more trouble had James Franco broken a leg and dropped out than Milk would have been.

Not so welcome is the silly nomination of Tom Cruise for his wildly overpraised cameo in Tropic Thunder, which was a prosthetics stunt, and not acting. Robert Downey, Jr. is also nominated for his supporting work in that same film, and would be infinitely more deserving. Because comedy and drama are combined in this category, Cruise's nomination comes at the expense of the aforementioned James Franco and Josh Brolin in Milk, to name just two. Badly done, Hollywood Foreign Press.

Heath Ledger did get the nomination for The Dark Knight that many expected, but it was the only recognition the film received.

Note also the strong showings for Doubt, which got acting nominations for Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Viola Davis, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, in addition to one for John Patrick Shanley's script; Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the top-nominated comedy, and Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, which received nominations for Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, and an original song from Bruce Springsteen.

What's up on the TV side, after the jump...

Television Nominations

The Golden Globes have sometimes supported television shows that lack Emmy recognition. Their Best Drama in 2004 was Nip/Tuck; between 1994 and 1997 they gave Best Drama to Party Of Five once and The X-Files three times. Unfortunately, they've been no better than the Emmys at recognizing the two most overlooked shows of the last two or three years: Friday Night Lights and The Wire.

This year, they've given the nod to four cable shows: Mad Men, True Blood, In Treatment, and Dexter, along with House, the lone network nominee. Nominated comedies include The Office and 30 Rock on the network side, but again, cable dominates, with HBO's perennially baffling award nominee Entourage nominated alongside Showtime's Weeds and Californication.

Perhaps the most perplexing television nominee is Debra Messing for Best Actress in a comedy for The Starter Wife, a choice that speaks more to the small number of comedies with lead actresses than it does to the quality of that show, which is not exactly racing up a lot of critical must-watch lists. (Not that Californication necessarily is, either.)

Including miniseries/movie nominees Recount, John Adams, and Bernard and Doris, HBO walked off with 22 nominations, five more than the four broadcast networks put together.