Maybe it's not so "Precious" after all

Earlier I admitted I was surprised that Lee Daniels did not recieve a Golden Globes director's nomination for Precious, which I once thought was a prime contender to win many of the top Oscars, including best picture. However, here's what Moviefone's Jack Mathews, a critic I respect, says about whether this film even has a shot at a best picture nomination:

"In any year before this one, no. And if the Academy hadn’t just doubled the number of Best Picture nominees from 5 to 10 this year, we wouldn’t be talking about Precious as an Oscar contender now. In fact, if director Lee Daniels had cleaned up the language a bit and eliminated an unnecessary rape clip, Precious might have found its natural home—as a movie-of-the-week on TV—and we’d be talking about its rightful fate of an Emmy winner.

"I am not convinced that Precious will make the Best Picture ballot. Most of the 6,000-plus Academy voters watch the contenders—selected for them by critics, guild nominations and box office results—at home. And as a person who saw this movie in a theater with six people, watching it alone is not easy. I don’t think Lee Daniels will receive a Directors Guild nomination; directors aren’t easily swayed by emotion and the ugly truth is that Precious is an awkwardly-directed film. The fantasy sequences are almost embarrassingly inept. I do believe Mo’Nique is a slam dunk supporting actress nominee—what she does in speaking her dialogue is more humiliating than what Halle Barre did going-for-broke in Monster’s Ball—but those who vote the novice Sidibe are voting for her character more than her performance.

"What (previous) race-conscious movies (Oscars have cited( have in common with each other but not with Precious is that they were made by established filmmakers with established actors. You can call them elitist, or job-protective, but the actors who make up the largest branch of the Academy aren’t going to go hog-wild honoring performances by non-pros, semi-pros and musicians desperate for acting careers. Mariah Carey is only great in Precious if you consider how badly she has done in previous roles (a little Glitter anyone?) or if you give her points for appearing without make-up. Otherwise, it’s a performance that could have been by any of scores of actresses. The only past Best Picture nominee with a central racial issue and a no-name cast was Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies. But Leigh himself was by then a well-established and respected director."

Golden Globe nominations

I'm looking over the list of Golden Globe nominations as most people do -- a harbinger to what the Oscar nominations might look like, even though the Globes' Hollywood Foreign Press Association has 88 voting members and the Oscars' Motion Picture Academy has more than 5,000.

My first reaction is that Inglourious Basterds got far more love from the Foreign Press than I believe it will receive from the Academy. It would be a mild surprise if the film made the list of the 10 best picture nominees (although, following the lukewarm reaction to The Lovely Bones, voters may be searching for a replacement) and it would be a major shock if Quentin Tarantino made the Academy's list of best director nominees.

I thought the best picture Oscar was a two-film race between Up in the Air and Precious. After the recent spate of critics' awards and seeing the Globes' list, I'm not so sure. I'm beginning to think the race is now between Air and The Hurt Locker and I might even rate Locker's Kathryn Bigelow as the favorite for the directing Oscar (as well as the Globe) for several reasons. It's interesting to note that one of the other finalists for the Globes' best director is James Cameron for Avatar, which means, if memory serves, this will be the first time an ex-man-and-wife competed against each other in this category. I must also admit I was mildly surprised that Precious' Lee Daniels failed to make the Globes' list of director finalists. And blogger Sasha Stone pointed out the omission of Clint Eastwood from the lfinal five.

The only other surprise to me was Robert Downey Jr.'s nomination in the category Best Actor, Comedy or Musical, for Sherlock Holmes. I have not seen the film, only the trailers, but the film looked more like an Indiana Jones-type adventure more than an outright comedy. I have seen Up in the Air and, while I would label that as a drama with some funny moments, I could more easily fit Air into a comedy genre than I could Sherlock Holmes. Admittedly, I saw a couple of funny moments in the trailers, but I also saw a lot of explosions and brutal fight scenes -- moments that usually don't tickle my funny bone.