|
Coen brothers crime film tipped for glory at strike-hit Globes
2008-01-13
A Golden Globes stripped of stars and struggling to demand attention takes place here Sunday with bleak crime thriller "No Country For Old Men" tipped to walk off with top honors. Hollywood's writers strike has dominated the headlines so far during this year's awards season, with the bitter dispute leading to the cancellation of the Globes' traditional ceremony after actors vowed to boycott the event. The fallout from the cancellation has relegated the race for this year's honors to a virtual afterthought, when normally they are scrutinized with interest by pundits looking for clues to likely Oscar winners. A victory at the Globes can often give a film precious campaigning momentum in the run-up to the Oscars, which this year take place on February 24. "The promotional value of the Globes for Hollywood studios and people organising Oscar campaigns has been pretty much gutted," Maxim film critic and awards season expert Pete Hammond told AFP. "The studios are still going to use the Globes winners in newspaper advertisments but without the ceremony and the public not having seen the stars get on the red carpet and do their thing, it seems like nobody is too excited." Experts are almost unanimous in predicting that "No Country for Old Men" is likely to earn the Globes' best drama film accolade, which will be announced at an hour-long press conference in Beverly Hills on Sunday. Joel and Ethan Coen's masterful thriller about a drug deal on the Mexican border that goes wrong and the murderous forces it unleashes has been nominated for four top awards. While British romantic drama "Atonement" leads the field with seven nominations, Hammond says the Coen brothers' grim adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel is the Globes favorite. "Even though 'Atonement' is the number one with all the nominations, I think the Globes will go the way of a lot of the other awards shows and go for 'No Country' in the drama category," Hammond said. "That's what I'm hearing from the voters." Tom O'Neil, a pundit with the Los Angeles Times' theenvelope.com, said the Globes best picture prize could hinge on whether voters embrace the Coens' bleak modern noir over the epic sweep of "Atonement." "'No Country' has been sweeping all the early awards among the critics, so it seems to be the industry favorite but it's not typical of the kind of films the Golden Globes have honored in the past," O'Neil said. Other nominees in the best drama picture race include Ridley Scott's gritty cop drama "American Gangster," David Cronenberg's Russian mafia thriller "Eastern Promises," legal drama "Michael Clayton" and Denzel Washington's uplifting "The Great Debaters." The violent themes of this year's drama field could also be mirrored in the Globes best musical/comedy category, where Tim Burton's blood-spattered "Sweeney Todd," featuring Johnny Depp as the cut-throat barber of Fleet Street, is favored to mop up. Lew Harris of the Movies.com website said however that the film's awards aspirations could be threatened by quirky comedy "Juno," about a pregnant teenager's attempts to find adoptive parents for her baby. "'Juno' could be the sleeper hit of the Globes," Harris said. "It's done very well at the box-office and it's been building momentum slowly but surely. Everyone seems to like it." The film's star, 20-year-old Canadian actress Ellen Page, could also upset France's Marion Cotillard for the best actress in a musical/comedy award, experts said. Cotillard is the favorite to take the prize for her portrayal of tragic French chanteuse Edith Piaf in "La Vie En Rose." Although the Globes are viewed as a form guide for the Oscars, with 24 of 44 drama picture winners going on to scoop the best picture, in recent years the awards have thrown up false leads. For the past three years, none of the Golden Globes' best movie drama winners have gone on to win the best picture Oscar.
| 
