The Hollywood Foreign Press Association's 64th annual Golden Globe Awards will air at 8 p.m., Sunday on NBC. The Post's associate editor and television columnist Justin Thompson breaks down the best, worst and undeserving for the TV nominations, while assistant managing editor and movie columnist Matt Burns takes on the movie nominations.
UNDERDOG CAUSE CELEBRE
TV: Heroes, Dexter and 30 Rock have little in common. The first features a diverse ensemble cast with a range of superhuman powers. In Dexter, actor Michael C. Hall ' who starred as the emotionally constricted gay brother in Six Feet Under ' comes back as a Miami forensics expert who murders the criminals he believes escaped justice. 30 Rock is a hilariously neurotic Tina Fey, a self-important Alec Baldwin and genius writing that underscores the subtle comedy. But all three shows are nearly perfect, though in vastly different arenas, and merit more awards than they will receive from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
MOVIES: Babel is drawing praise for Brad Pitt and Rinko Kikuchi, but the standout is nominee Adriana Barazza, whose breakdown in the Mexican desert is one of the most harrowing movie moments of 2006. Barazza, quite surprisingly, got nomination love from the Screen Actors Guild last week, so by the time the Globes are over, she might not be such an underdog anymore. Additional underdog praise belongs to Clint Mansell's score for the beautiful but misunderstood The Fountain.
UNAVOIDABLE BUT UNLIKABLE
TV: This show is not exactly unlikable, but 24 deserves more praise as counterinsurgency training than as an admirable piece of acting. Kiefer Sutherland scowls his way through episodes with a moral ambiguity and a practical attitude that mixes MacGyver and John Wayne into Jack Bauer, the American superhero. The latest season already grabbed an Emmy and plenty of fringe awards, so its inevitable triumph at the Golden Globes is disheartening but unstoppable.
MOVIES: Dreamgirls and its stars had their Golden Globe and Oscar nominations in the bag before anyone even saw the film, thanks to one of the most vicious and obnoxious awards campaigns in recent Hollywood history. And Sunday's the first chance to watch Bill Condon's dull, over-hyped musical (see tomorrow's Post for a review) take the statuettes home in what can only be described as hollow victories.
WHAT WAS THE HFPA THINKING
TV: When HBO first aired its polygamous program Big Love{/I], reactions were mixed. Some thought Bill Paxton was acting for the first time since Twister and others thought the convoluted plot was designed to showcase as many unnecessary sex scenes as possible. Really, it's both and it's neither. A show featuring three wives, a running tale of economic woe and plenty of tearful toddlers shows an eccentric family as boring and tedious as those regular one-wife setups. It succeeds, which actually disappoints. Television is not about the outlandish becoming normal, it's about the normal becoming outlandish ' or at least it should be.
MOVIES: Globe Best Picture nods are divided into Drama and Musical/Comedy, so a few oddballs always slip in. But there's no excuse for the nomination of Bobby, Emilio Estevez's parade of sanctimonious Hollywood rich-boy liberalism, or The Devil Wears Prada, a scatterbrained comedy that's riding Meryl Streep's Midas touch to the top.
BEST IN SHOW
TV: Maybe it's just the catchy theme music or the witty voiced-over narration, but Grey's Anatomy seems to succeed on every level. Garnering nominations for the leading stars and supporting actress Katherine Heigl, Grey's continues to slam its opponents in the Thursday time slot and even tops iTunes' most downloaded.
MOVIES: I can't thump for the nomination-less A Prairie Home Companion, so best in show Sunday is The Departed. Against Martin Scorsese's gloriously ultra-violent crime thriller, the rest of the pack shouldn't have a chance. Same goes for The Queen's Helen Mirren, who will be mopping the floor with fellow nominees for months to come.
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Justin Thompson
