Seven nominees for Best Drama?! Lunatics!

(Have your say: are the members of the HFPA morons or saints?)

1. This is a tight race. In order to get seven (seven!) films into five slots the 90-some members of the Hollywood Foreign Press must’ve had at least three films tied. Last year they had seven nominees for BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION. This means the nomination voting process just plain sucks (or corrupt, as Scott Feinberg says).
With 90 voters it’s inevitable you get tied votes. The margin is just too small.

2. The HFPA as a group were never held in very high esteem by the American entertainment media. But The Golden Globes had a role on the calender: it helped narrow the list of Oscar hopefuls, and it’s winners were immediately considered Oscar front-runners. But having seven nominees for Best Drama is a credibility shattering move. They should have had a re-vote. Now the Golden Globes look like the laughing stock of the awards season - they are now both grovelers and a band of washed-up journos who can’t really make a clear-cut decision. What’s next? A tie for winner? That’ll be a fiasco.

3. Almost all of those I predict to be Oscar nominees are represented somewhere in the Golden Globes list (glaringly missing is Once). But The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a sure Best Picture nominee in my opinion - is banished to the Foreign Language category.

4. I’ve seen The Savages. This ain’t no comedy, people. Really, the division between the comedy/musical is becoming more and more ridiculous as the years go by.

Here’s the list:

Nominations for the 65th Annual Golden Globes:

MOTION PICTURE

DRAMA
“American Gangster”
“Atonement”
“Eastern Promises”
“The Great Debaters”
“Michael Clayton”
“No Country For Old Men”
“There Will Be Blood”

COMEDY
“Across the Universe”
“Charlie Wilson’s War”
“Hairspray”
“Juno”
“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”

ACTOR (DRAMA)
George Clooney - “Michael Clayton”
Daniel Day-Lewis - “There Will Be Blood”
James McAvoy - “Atonement”
Viggo Mortensen - “Eastern Promises”
Denzel Washington - “American Gangster

ACTRESS (DRAMA)
Cate Blanchett - “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
Julie Christie - “Away From Her”
Jodie Foster - “The Brave One”
Angelina Jolie - “A Mighty Heart”
Keira Knightley - “Atonement”

ACTOR (MUSICAL OR COMEDY)
Johnny Depp - “Sweeney Todd”
Ryan Gosling - “Lars and the Real Girl”
Tom Hanks - “Charlie Wilson’s War”
Philip Seymour Hoffman - “The Savages”
John C. Reilly - “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”

ACTRESS (MUSICAL OR COMEDY)
Best Actress, Comedy/Musical
Amy Adams - “Enchanted”
Nikki Blonsky - “Hairspray”
Helena Bonham Carter - “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Marion Cotillard - “La Vie en rose”
Ellen Page - “Juno”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James)
Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson’s War)
John Travolta (Hairspray)
Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett (I’m Not There)
Julia Roberts (Charlie Wilson’s War)
Saoirse Ronan (Atonement)
Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone)
Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)

DIRECTOR
Tim Burton - “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen - “No Country for Old Men”
Julian Schnabel - “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
Ridley Scott - “American Gangster”
Joe Wright - “Atonement”

SCREENPLAY
Diablo Cody - “Juno”
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen - “No Country for Old Men”
Christopher Hampton - “Atonement”
Ronald Hardwood - “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
Aaron Sorkin - “Charlie Wilson’s War”

ANIMATION

“The Bee Movie”
“Ratatouille”
“The Simpsons Movie”

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
“4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”
“The Kite Runner”
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
“Lust, Caution”
“Persepolis”

ORIGINAL SCORE
“Into the Wild”
“Grace is Gone”
“The Kite Runner”
“Atonement”
“Eastern Promises”