Golden Globe Reactions

No real surprises tonight (on the movie side, anyway) other than Clive Owen and Natalie Portman's wins, which keep them at the forefront after being surprisingly snubbed by the SAG Awards and put a temporary halt to the steamroller momentum of Thomas Hayden Church and Virginia Madsen (was her loss made more upsetting by seeing her ex-half-sister-in-law pick up a Globe instead?). Although the list of potential nominees in the Supporting categories this year is pretty short, the wins tonight keep the competition for the Academy winners interesting. Each of those categories look like three-person races at the moment

On the other hand, the competition for a Lead Actor nomination is intense, while the win is the closest thing to a sure bet this year. Jamie Foxx cemented his position as the season-long lock with his speech tonight - he hit all the right notes - he was funny, he was gracious, he was enthusiastic and he got choked up. The standing ovation didn't hurt. Leonardo DiCaprio got a slight boost, but this just isn't his year - at least in the Best Actor category. Javier Bardem and Liam Neeson could've really used the surprise win to offset their SAG snubs, while neither Don Cheadle nor Johnny Depp is a sure thing for a nod.

The Globes didn't make prognosticating the Best Actress winner any easier. As everyone's been noting, it looks like it'll come down to a rematch of 1999's title bout: Annette Bening vs. Hillary Swank, but more on that in another post.

Clint Eastwood's win doesn't mean too much for the Scorsese in '05 campaign since the Globes gave him his defacto-lifetime-achievement award just two years ago for Gangs of New York. It's still a two-man battle of the legends.

The Best Picture race didn't get any clearer either with the three-way split at the top. Finding Neverland, Hotel Rwanda, Eternal Sunshine and Kinsey all could've used wins tonight to give them an edge and keep them afloat in the race for the last two wide-open Best Picture slots (or one open slot, but more on that in another post).