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When it comes to the Oscar race, it's dangerous to put much stock in Golden Globe nominations. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which bestows the latter, is a group that bears almost zero resemblance to the pool of industry players that vote on the Academy Awards. Moreover, the Globes's subdivision between drama and comedy/musical categories guarantees an abundance of nominees that will all fight to break into the tighter Oscar brackets. That said, perception is everything, and yesterday's Globe nominations could serve to solidify the Oscar field during these final weeks of campaigning. With this in mind (and please take the following as a bit of salt-grain-shaped conjecture), here are five takeaways from the news:
Jennifer Aniston is looking increasingly comfortable as a Best Actress nominee
For months, the Best Actress race has been stuck in a groove of four likely nominees, the fifth slot being a wild card. The front-runners include Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl, Felicity Jones in The Theory of Everything, Julianne Moore (amazingly, still not an Oscar winner) for Still Alice and Reese Witherspoon for Wild. But with Aniston's success at breaking into the bracket for her noncomedic work in the forthcoming Cake—and, more tellingly, with her SAG nomination on Wednesday—it's looking likely that she'll crash the Oscar party.
Interstellar is almost certainly not a Best Picture nominee
The news wasn't entirely gloomy for Christopher Nolan's space epic; it scored a Globe nomination for Hans Zimmer's organ-droning score. But for a film to go all the way to Oscar's podium for Best Picture, it needs broader support, and without a single acting, directing or writing nomination to date (apart from making the AFI's year-end top-10 list), Interstellar is looking lost in space. Granted, its main actors were competing against themselves: Matthew McConaughey was a Globe nominee for TV's True Detective, while Jessica Chastain made the Supporting Actress bracket for A Most Violent Year.
Selma's Ava DuVernay is about to make Oscar history
Yesterday, DuVernay became the first black woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe directing award—a deserving honor for her amazing achievement with Selma's sprawling ensemble, uniformly excellent. And while the DGA is historically the best predictor of the eventual Oscar bracket of five, it's looking likely that she'll make that cut too. Meanwhile, there's absolutely no reason why Angelina Jolie couldn't sneak into the bracket as well for her direction of Unbroken. But, cynically speaking, she's the Globes's biggest loser: Her film got zero noms, Sony's email leaks are incinerating her, and any Oscar voters hoping to make a corrective statement could, at this point, swing their support to DuVernay.
Maybe it's Jake Gyllenhaal's slot after all, for Nightcrawler
As with Jennifer Aniston, Gyllenhaal's back-to-back nominations from SAG and the Globes bode well for him breaking into the Best Actor Oscar race. While other actors on the bubble also received good news in the comedy/musical category—particularly Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel—none of them received SAG's attention as well, as did Jake. The performance is a creepy one: Nightcrawler isn't an easy watch. But an Oscar nomination for Gyllenhaal would be richly earned and a win in itself, in keeping with Robert De Niro's nomination for Taxi Driver.
Don't rule out Gone Girl, even though it feels like it came out years ago
A healthy four nominations—for David Fincher's direction, Pike's leading performance, the original score (by past Oscar winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) and Gillian Flynn's adapted screenplay—speak to the movie's legs in the discussion. While it's somewhat mystifying that those nods didn't translate into a Best Picture nomination, Gone Girl is almost certainly a major player come Oscar time. It's the kind of rare film Hollywood loves to flaunt: provocative, adult, widely discussed and (most importantly) a massive commercial success, the biggest U.S. box-office hit of Fincher's career.
Here's a complete list of yesterday's movie-related Golden Globe nominees:
Best Motion Picture, Drama
Boyhood
Selma
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
Foxcatcher
Best Actress, Motion Picture, Drama
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Jennifer Aniston, Cake
Best Actor, Motion Picture, Drama
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
David Oyelowo, Selma
Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler
Best Director
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Birdman
Ava DuVernay, Selma
David Fincher, Gone Girl
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
Birdman
Into the Woods
St. Vincent
Pride
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Actress, Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
Emily Blunt, Into the Woods
Amy Adams, Big Eyes
Julianne Moore, Maps to the Stars
Helen Mirren, The Hundred-Foot Journey
Quvenzhané Wallis, Annie
Best Actor, Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
Michael Keaton, Birdman
Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Bill Murray, St. Vincent
Joaquin Phoenix, Inherent Vice
Christoph Waltz, Big Eyes
Best Screenplay, Motion Picture
Birdman
Boyhood
Gone Girl
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Best Foreign-Language Film
Ida
Tangerine Mandarin
Leviathan
Force Majeure
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
Best Supporting Actor, Motion Picture
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Edward Norton, Birdman
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Best Supporting Actress, Motion Picture
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Emma Stone, Birdman
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Jessica Chastain, A Most Violent Year
Best Animated Feature Film
The Lego Movie
Big Hero 6
How to Train Your Dragon 2
The Boxtrolls
The Book of Life
Best Original Song
John Legend and Common, “Glory" (Selma)
Lana Del Rey, “Big Eyes” (Big Eyes)
Patti Smith, "Mercy Is" (Noah)
Sia, "Opportunity" (Annie)
Lorde, "Yellow Flicker Beat" (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1)
Best Original Score
Johann Johannsson, The Theory of Everything
Alexandre Desplat, The Imitation Game
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Gone Girl
Antonio Sanchez, Birdman
Hans Zimmer, Interstellar