2009 Golden Globe Nominees

Barring any last-minute drama by the fractured Screen Actors Guild — who just announced that they are presenting a strike authorization vote to their membership on January 2nd — this year’s Golden Globe Awards should play out a little better than last year’s lame, strike-addled affair.

Seriously, ask anyone who sat through last year’s Golden Globe “press conference” and they’ll you that that thing was a total disaster. If I never have to sit through Mary Hart and the rest of those old leathery gasbags reading names off a list again, I’ll die a very happy man indeed. Yikes…

But…I digress. This year’s crop of nominees are a pretty cool bunch. Sure, there are way too many nods for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Burn After Reading” (which we both kinda loathed), but I was seriously stoked to see “Slumdog Millionaire”, “Frost/Nixon” and “Milk” sneak in there in some pretty major categories. Those movies rocked hard, so, congrats to everyone involved.

Was really bummed to see Rosemarie DeWitt overlooked for her heartbreaking turn as Globe-nominee Anne Hathaway’s sister in “Rachel Getting Married”. Sure, Hathaway had all the big, “crazy girl makes a scene” moments in the movie, but DeWitt, playing the good, normal sister, stole every scene she was in. So, this is a huge oversight in my book.

I was stoked to see James Franco nominated for “Pineapple Express”. We haven’t seen the movie yet, but he kicked ass in “Milk”, so I’m rooting for him! And to have practically the entire cast of “Vicki Cristina Barcelona” score acting nominations is kind of awesome too. Especially that dreamy Rebecca Hall, who is almost supernaturally hot in both “Vicki Cristina” and “Frost/Nixon”. Yowza!

But I think the thing I’m most upset about today is Anna Faris being totally shut out for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for  “The House Bunny”. Laugh if you must, but Faris was hilarious in the kind of role that category was made for! For shame, Hollywood Foreign Press, for shame…

And finally, speaking of “The House Bunny”, I’m also very glad to know that poor, beleaguered Rumer Willis will finally get to fulfill her long-delayed role as Miss Golden Globes at this year’s show. You go, Rumer!

To see a complete list of all this year’s nominees click here.

Golden Globes Update…

Wow…this week just keeps getting worse and worse for NBC. Not only are they not televising an award show — crews are actually tearing down the set for the show as I type — but they have also lost exclusive rights to their fake-ass “news conference” they were going to hold on Sunday! And that means, no picketing for us…yeah!

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It seems the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the entity behind the Golden Globes, has re-assumed complete control of the press conference and decided that rather than give exclusive rights to the show to NBC, they’d open the event to all media outlets!

Wow…I guess NBC’s plan to reclassify their fizzy awards show as “news” actually worked. The show has become news and as such, is open to all. In the words of “The Simpsons” Nelson Muntz: “Ha, ha!” And while I think NBC can only blame themselves for the enormity of this clusterfuck, I gotta say I feel a little bad for this year’s Miss Golden Globes, Rumer Willis (pictured in the bizarre dunce cap get-up above and a more normal pic below).

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For those of you not familiar with the tradition, Miss Golden Globes is the pretty young thing chosen each year to hand out awards onstage. The HFPA usually choses daughters (and sometimes, sons) of Hollywood celebrities. For instance, last year’s Miss Golden Globes was the daughter of Jack Nicholson, the year before that, it was the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith.

Sadly, this year’s pick, Rumer Willis (daughter of Bruce and Demi) will now go down in the Hollywood history books as the Miss Golden Globes that wasn’t…

Sorry, Rumer. But who knows, maybe if you’re lucky they’ll let you hold some of the awards at the news conference!