Gosh, I didn’t really think anyone liked Babel this much. And check out all the stars whose Hollywood Foreign Press Association payola teams worked extra hard, scoring them more than one nomination in a single year: Clint Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio, Toni Collette, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Emily Blunt, Annette Bening. Christ, Helen Mirren has three fucking nominations, including two in the Best Actress in a TV Movie category. Granted, everyone loves her, but can we quit lady-fellating the Teaching Mrs. Tingle star and come up for air for just one second?
Also, any organization that nominates Beyonce Knowles for an acting award (in the same category as Meryl Streep, no less) isn’t worth the Mrs. Dalloway-like effort I’ll surely be putting into my annual Korbel-swilling Golden Globe party come January. We’ve seen Dreamgirls, and we can’t help but resent Ms. Knowles’ lox-like inability to sink her teeth into the rich camp opportunity of playing a Diana Ross composite. Kim Cattrall gave a livelier performance during the scenes in Mannequin where she’s actually a mannequin.
And they nominated Bobby for Best Drama, which…how to put this politely…um…no.
I love how the HFPA Web site posts the nominations blog-style, as if it’s just another piece of operational news for them, as if they existed year-round as a functional organization that does anything but receive “complimentary” watches from Sharon Stone.
64th Annual Golden Globe Nominations [Hollywood Foreign Press Association]
Dreamgirls doesn’t even come out till next Friday, and yet it’s already been a rollercoaster month for Jennifer Hudson. The all-but-anointed Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner for her role as Effie is assuring The Gays of her love and support, despite previous comments to the contrary (possibly planted in the Dallas Voice by Beyonce, who has to be cursing J. Hud’s accolades).
To be fair, the Voice has a tendency to overreach in painting celebrity’s comments as homophobic (remember last month’s Carol Channing debacle?) - it occasionally reads like that old David Sedaris short story about “Glenn’s Homophobia Newsletter.” We’re pretty sure Jen was just trying to say that even though she was raised to believe homosexuality is a sin, she reconciles her faith with basic human respect for others. And, of course, most of her best friends (and her sister) are gay.
Frankly, if I had to spend two months facing roomfuls of bitchy entertainment journalist queens asking, “Do you feel like you have to be a role model for all the large, African-American girls out there?” I might get a little bigoted too.
‘Dreamgirl’ says, Gay is a sin [Dallas Voice]
12/7/06 Blog [Jennifer Hudson Online]
So, some Oscar pundits saw Dreamgirls last night, and (embargoes be damned) they loved it, so apparently we have our Best Picture winner.
Which means that - one year after the Crash “Let’s loot Barneys in an act of gay rebellion” debacle - the film industry’s highest honor will go to a film starring Beyonce, Eddie “Paycheck” Murphy, and some American Idol finalist. Oh, the humanity.
That finalist, of course, is Jennifer Hudson, long presumed a Supporting Actress frontrunner for the knock-’em-dead role of Effie. She’s apparently so good that there’s talk of bumping her into the Best Actress field, which means that the woman who lost to Fantasia Barrino could win an award for acting over Mirren, Streep and Dench (not to mention Kate Winslet, who re-writes the book on Mommy Malaise in Little Children).
It’ll be a cinderella story for a night, I suppose. And then she’ll struggle to find a worthy follow-up, the knives will be sharpened, and “whatever happened to Jennifer Hudson? Can we revoke her Oscar?” stories will pop up faster than you can say Tatum O’Neal.
It’s about here that most bloggers would complain about the protracted, mechanical inevitability of most Oscar seasons, and bitch that they should just give the movie the award now, and do next year’s while they’re at it. Not me. I’m going to savor every moment between now and the time Hudson waddles down the red carpet in gown that “flatters her curves.”
‘Dreamgirls’ is a dream come true - a perfect film [The Envelope]
20 Weeks to Oscar - 15 Weeks to Go [Movie City News]
