5 Takeaways from the Golden Globes Heading into Oscar Season

On Sunday night, the 72nd Golden Globe Awards helped us usher in Oscar season. Technically, the Oscar ballots are closed but the Golden Globes tend to give us a hint at things to come. Below are five quick takeaways from Sunday that could impact what we see at this year’s Academy Awards.

Check out a full list of the winners here (including on the TV side of things) and make sure to come back next week after the Oscar nominations to see my thoughts.

Here we go:

This could be the most obvious takeaway from last night but I still have to say it: Richard Linklater’s Boyhood – despite being a summertime release – is not only the frontrunner but an outright betting favorite to take home some serious hardware. It’s relatively rare to have a Best Director that’s different from Best Picture but we’ve had it two years in a row. I thought we might make it three in a row but Sunday’s Golden Globes kiboshed that notion. Boyhood will take those two prizes and possibly a writing and acting award at this year’s Oscars.

I already mentioned how surprised I was at Boyhood’s lasting power simply because of its release date. Months before that – way back in March – came Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. It ended up being a critical success but I figured it’d get passed up by months of releases (kind of like Moonrise Kingdom). At the Golden Globes, I wasn’t surprised to see it nominated since Best Picture is split into two categories. However, I was shocked when Birdman lost out to The Grand Budapest Hotel even after winning the Best Screenplay. Add in Boyhood, and the Original Screenplay category could be the tightest race, even if it’s not the flashiest race (people tend to like actors more than screenplays).

Coming into this year, who would’ve thought we’d have the revered Michael Keaton facing off against…that guy from Les Miserables for Best Actor? And while it’s still far from a lock (nominations aren’t even out yet), all signs point to these two as our favorites for Best Actor. Personally, I would take Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance but he may be lucky to get a nomination at this point. My gut says Keaton will win even though I’m pulling for Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.

On the flip side, the Actress category doesn’t look as exciting. This one is kind of weird but hear me out. There’s no way around it: women just don’t get the roles men do (and yes it’s very unfair). This year, the actresses being thrown around for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress are at least known. There’s names like Meryl Streep, Emma Stone, Keira Knightly, Reese Witherspoon, Amy Adams, Jessica Chastain, and Juliane Moore. All of these suffice on the surface until you start to think about who will likely win. It’ll likely be Julianne Moore. I’m sure she does a good job in Still Alice but I don’t think it’ll help get people excited for a category that has been one of the more entertaining categories in the past couple of years.

I’m not going to hide it: I absolutely love The LEGO Movie. To me, it’s more than just a good animated or children’s movie. It’s got a sharp (and side-achingly funny) script that is essentially an amalgamation of pop culture references and subtle digs at our obsession with utopian and dystopian societies. Going into the Golden Globes, I figured it’d only have one legitimate shot – Best Animated Feature. Now that it lost, I’m afraid it’ll get shut out at the Oscars despite what I consider weaker competition.

Any more takeaways I missed? Sound off below!

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