Indeed, Hollywood spent so much of the past week fixated on the embarrassing revelations of the purloined e-mails that it seemed to pay little attention to the first big round of awards nominations -- Wednesday's announcement of the potential Screen Actors Guild honorees and Thursday's list of the Globe nominations.
It's worth remembering that there are vast differences between the two nominating organizations in terms of both prestige and Oscar handicapping. The Screen Actors Guild has a nominating committee of 2100 members of the actors' union, with the full membership of about 165,000 eligible to vote for the winners. So it's actors voting for their peers, and since actors make up the biggest branch of the Academy, the SAG selections are considered a significant precursor of Academy members' votes.
The Globes are selected by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of just 90 part-time and full-time entertainment reporters who live in Los Angeles but write for publications abroad. Sample size alone ought to make handicappers consider their prognostications with skepticism. Nonetheless, their January awards ceremony is one of Hollywood's biggest annual blowouts (famously or infamously, it's an opportunity for TV viewers to watch their favorite stars drink and be merry), and by sheer prominence and longevity, the HFPA has made its idiosyncratic taste a powerful shaper of the awards-season conversation about which movies and performers deserve Academy consideration.
In fact, the Guild and the HFPA were largely in agreement about many of this year's candidates. Both of them really liked "Boyhood," "Birdman," "The Theory of Everything," "The Imitation Game," "The Grand Budapest Hotel," and "Foxcatcher." Both gave somewhat unexpected nods to Jennifer Aniston for "Cake" and Jake Gyllenhaal for "Nightcrawler." Both had identical picks for Supporting Actor (Robert Duvalle in"The Judge," Ethan Hawke in "Boyhood," Edward Norton in "Birdman," Mark Ruffalo in "Foxcatcher," and J.K. Simmons in "Whiplash"). The SAG picks for Best Actor (Steve Carell in "Foxcatcher," Benedict Cumberbatch in "The Imitation Game," Gyllenhaal, Michael Keaton in "Birdman," and Eddie Redmayne in "The Theory of Everything") all made the HFPA list as well, though the HFPA had five additional names, since it splits dramas from comedies and musicals in some movie categories. The HFPA's list of Best Actress in a Drama contenders was the same as the SAGs' Best Actress list: Aniston, Felicity Jones ("The Theory of Everything"), Julianne Moore ("Still Alice"), Rosamund Pike ("Gone Girl") and Reese Witherspoon ("Wild"). The only significant difference on the acting lists came in the Supporting Actress category: the SAGs picked Patricia Arquette ("Boyhood"), Keira Knightley ("The Imitation Game"), Emma Stone ("Birdman"), Meryl Streep ("Into the Woods"), and Naomi Watts ("St. Vincent,") , while the HFPA omitted Watts but included Jessica Chastain ("A Most Violent Year").
Similarly notable was who was left off both lists. No Timothy Spall for Best Actor for "Mr. Turner," no Marion Cotillard for Best Actress (for either "The Immigrant" or "Two Days, One Night," the double-whammy that's won her a number of critics' awards). No "American Sniper" recognition for either director Clint Eastwood or star Bradley Cooper. And nothing for Jolie's "Unbroken," save a SAG nomination for the work of its stunt actors.
Some of the nominations could be a function of the quirks of the year-end screening process. While the studios encourage voters and critics to see all the eligible films and performances in theaters, they also cover their bases by sending out DVD screeners for all the movies they consider awards-worthy. SAG members, however, didn't receive Paramount's screeners for "Selma" until it was too late, though Globe voters recognized it for Best Drama, Best Director (Ava DuVernay) and Best Actor in a Drama (David Oyelowo). Similarly, Universal may have waited too long to court the Globe voters for "Unbroken." And while Julianne Moore earned Globe nods for her performances in both "Still Alice" and "Maps to the Stars," she's guaranteed not to earn Oscar consideration for the latter because it's ineligible, since it won't have enjoyed a publicly advertised run in a Los Angeles theater before the end of the year. (Globe rules are different, and the film's brief, unpublicized run on one screen in Hollywood last week was good enough for the HFPA; meanwhile, distributor Focus World is planning a nationwide release for the film in February.)
It's also worth remembering that the Oscars may emulate the Globes and choose up to 10 Best Picture candidates. That said, it's hard to imagine the Academy going for "Pride" (a little-seen British comedy) or "Into the Woods" (the Academy doesn't much care for musicals).
One final note: The Globes and SAGs do seem to be anticipating likely Academy tastes by skipping over well-reviewed, widely-seen blockbusters ("Guardians of the Galaxy," "The LEGO Movie," "Interstellar") in favor of indie hits that are only modestly successful by the standards of mainstream Hollywood. At this writing, such top candidates as "Boyhood," "Birdman," "The Theory of Everything," "Foxcatcher," "Whiplash," "Wild," and "The Imitation Game" all have yet to earn more than $25 million in North American theaters. The only outliers are "St. Vincent" (about $42 million to date), "The Grand Budapest Hotel" (it earned $59 million during its springtime theatrical run) and "Gone Girl"($164 million and counting). Sure, this week's nominations gave modest box office boosts to all these films (most incredibly, to "Boyhood," which has remained in theaters for nearly six months), but come Oscar time, it's possible that the only nominee most viewers will have seen will be "Gone Girl." That's not to slight any of the potential nominees, but rather, to note that, if the Oscars are trying to become more populist and draw a bigger audience on awards night, they're not succeeding.
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