Globe wins make cowboys, Cash favorites for Oscar
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – With “Brokeback Mountain” and “Walk the Line” taking the top feature prizes at the Golden Globes Awards, their Oscar prospects are greatly enhanced in this last week of Academy voting.
While no one knows how many Academy members held off returning their nomination ballots until after Monday’s Globes telecast, it’s a good bet that some did since the deadline is not until January 21 — 10 days before Oscar nominations are announced.
The four Globe wins for “Brokeback Mountain” — best picture (drama), director ( Ang Lee), screenplay (Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana) and original song (“A Love That Will Never Grow Old,” music by Gustavo Santaolalla, lyrics by Bernie Taupin) — pretty much assures that Focus Features’ gay cowboy romance will wind up being nominated in Oscar’s prime races.
Not only is “Brokeback” a likely Oscar nominee in all the categories in which it won Globes, but it also stands to get into Oscar races where it did not win Globes — including best actor ( Heath Ledger), supporting actress ( Michelle Williams) and original score (Santaolalla). “Brokeback’s” Globes success could also rub off on Jake Gyllenhaal, who didn’t get a Globe nomination for supporting actor, but could now springboard into the Oscar supporting actor race.
Clearly, Focus Features has not lost its awards marketing touch, which in the past has generated great success for such films as Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” and Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist.”
Monday’s other great Globes success story was 20th Century Fox’s “Walk the Line,” which delivered three key wins — best picture (musical/comedy), best actor ( Joaquin Phoenix) and best actress ( Reese Witherspoon). Here, too, there should be a definite correlation between Globe wins and Oscar nominations.
With box office sales of $98.3 million through Monday, the Johnny Cash biopic has another advantage in that it’s one of the few serious Oscar contenders with mainstream appeal. The Academy needs such films to be nominated if it wants to generate blockbuster ratings on March 5. (By contrast, “Brokeback Mountain” has earned $32.1 million.)
Another film that should also benefit in the Oscar race from its reception at the Globes is Sony Pictures Classics’ “Capote,” which took home the best actor (drama) Globe for Philip Seymour Hoffman. That should not only catapult Hoffman into the best actor Oscar race, but could also give “Capote” a shot at additional nominations. (Unfortunately for the Academy, “Capote” has earned just $13.2 million at the box office.)
“Capote,” “Brokeback Mountain,” and “Walk the Line” are among the five feature contenders at the Producers Guild of America Awards, which take place Sunday night. The winner usually goes on to take the best picture Oscar. (The other nominees are “Crash” and “Good Night, and Good Luck.”)
Felicity Huffman’s best actress (drama) win for playing a preoperative transsexual in The Weinstein Co.’s “Transamerica” is also likely to put her in Oscar’s best actress sweepstakes, and it should propel the film past its current box office haul of $511,000. And George Clooney’s best supporting actor win for “Syriana” seems a good bet to translate into an Oscar nod for him.
On the other hand, Clooney’s loss with Warner Independent Pictures’ “Good Night, and Good Luck” in the Globes’ directing, screenplay and picture categories, and David Strathairn’s loss in the best actor (drama) race, suggests that film could have a tougher time now on the Oscar nominations front.
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