2014 Awards Season: Golden Globes: All American Night

January 13, 2014

Hollywood Foreign Press Association handed out the Golden Globe awards last night, and there were a few surprises in the mix. American Hustle led the way with three wins, which isn't a real surprise, but I think many thought another film would lead with three or more wins. The only other film to earn more than one award was Dallas Buyers Club at just two. That might give you a hint at what the big surprise was.

The categories and winners are...

BEST FEATURE - DRAMA

• 12 Years a Slave

• American Hustle

• Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity

• Spike Jonze for Her

• Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine

• Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club

• Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street

• Amy Adams for American Hustle

• Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle

• Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club

• Frozen

• The Great Beauty (Italy)

• Alex Ebert for All is Lost

• "Ordinary Love" from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

• American Hustle won three awards, but two of them were in Comedy / Musical categories, and those don't translate well with Oscar voters. On the other hand, I think it is safe to call Jennifer Lawrence the overwhelming favorite. Her win for Best Supporting Actress was one of the least surprising wins of the year.
• Frozen's win for Best Animated Feature was the least surprising win of the night.
• Dallas Buyers Club won twice and in categories it wasn't expected to win. This might be a fluke, or it might be reason to rethink who is and who is not an Oscar favorite.
• 12 Years a Slave underperformed last night. It did win Best Drama, which is the most prestigious award of the night, but it lost out on all of the individual categories. The biggest shock is Chiwetel Ejiofor losing out to Matthew McConaughey for Best Actor in a Drama.
• Both Alfonso Cuaron's win for Best Director and Spike Jonze's win for Best Screenplay could be seen as small upsets. In both cases I thought 12 Years a Slave was a small favorite.
• Jared Leto's win for Best Supporting Actor is also a bit of an upset, as a lot of people thought Michael Fassbender would win in a 12 Years a Slave wave.
• For me, The Wind Rises was the sentimental favorite to win for Best Foreign Language Film, (It's Hayao Miyazaki's final film before retiring.) That said, I don't know if The Great Beauty winning is an upset or not. It's a really hard category to judge.

- C.S.Strowbridge

Filed under: Awards Season, Dallas Buyers Club, The Wolf of Wall Street, Gravity, Frozen, All is Lost, Blue Jasmine, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave, Her, The Wind Rises (風立ちぬ), La grande bellezza, Cate Blanchett, Amy Adams, Alfonso Cuarón, Leonardo DiCaprio, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Spike Jonze, Jennifer Lawrence, Jared Leto, Matthew McConaughey, Hayao Miyazaki, Alex Ebert