Golden Globes 2021: Biggest snubs and surprises from nominations list
Some of the past year’s most acclaimed performances have been snubbed at the Golden Globes – and there are some even weirder nominations.
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Who said Zoom awards-show season has to be boring? In fact, it’s already off to a gloriously snarky start.
The 2021 nominees for the Golden Globe awards were announced today, and online buzz is already brewing about what many perceive to be egregious oversights – and, in some cases, downright boring retreads.
Netflix cleaned up, with drama film Mank picking up six nominations, while The Crown, The Queen’s Gambit and Ratched also picked up nods.
Former SNL stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are back to host the broadcast, which will air locally on Foxtel on Monday, March 1.
Typically the award ceremony is held on the first Sunday of the year but the broadcast was pushed back amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year also marks a first – the broadcast is going bicoastal. Fey will host her segments from Rockefeller Centre’s Rainbow Room in New York while Poehler will take the helm at the traditional venue, the Beverly Hilton.
Until then, check out the list of this year’s biggest snubs and surprises in the top film and television categories:
MOVIES
Spike Lee
Lee and his Netflix film Da 5 Bloods have been an award-season favourite since it was released back in June. Receiving acclaim were Lee’s direction, the screenplay and his cast, especially the brilliant British actor Delroy Lindo. But the film got zero recognition by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on Wednesday. That came as a surprise, because the HFPA has backed Lee from the early days – Do the Right Thing was nominated for Best Drama Motion Picture in 1989 – whereas the Oscars took their sweet time.
Delroy Lindo
This one stung. And while Tahar Rahim and Riz Ahmed are deserving of their Best Actor — Drama noms, Lindo, 68, is a journeyman actor whose skill has only brightened, never dimmed. His ferocious one-shot speech in Da 5 Bloods as he thrashes through the jungle of Vietnam was the acting highlight of 2020.
Sophia Loren
A beautiful European legend snubbed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association? Shocking. But it’s true – 86-year-old Sophia Loren’s wonderful turn in The Life Ahead as a Holocaust survivor who watches over the children of local prostitutes was left out in the cold.
James Corden
Late Late Show host James Corden was nominated for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy for his role as a flamboyantly gay Broadway actor in The Prom – but why? He took a part that was knockdown, drag-out hilarious when Brooks Ashmanskas played it onstage in the musical, and turned it into a sappy, humourless “poor me” routine with a questionable American accent.
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks – who has a reserved front-row seat at most award shows – was left off the Best Actor in a Drama list for his gritty performance as a newsreader in Paul Greengrass’ well-received Western, News Of The World. His young co-star, Helena Zengel, scored a surprise Supporting Actress nod.
Yuh-Jung Youn
A wave of deja vu is coming on! A Korean-language film (Minari) is praised from the rooftops by critics and nominated for all sorts of awards for best picture, writing, directing, but its cast is nowhere to be found on any lists. It happened last year with Parasite, and history is repeating itself with Yuh-Jung Youn’s exclusion from Best Actress in a Drama for her surprising turn as a grandmother who comes to her daughter’s Arkansas farm from Korea.
And now, on to the biggest snubs and surprises on the small screen:
TELEVISION
Lovecraft Country
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HBO’s creepy historical/fantasy drama about literal monsters in the Jim-Crow South got a deserved nomination in the Best Television Drama Series category. But none of the cast (Jurnee Smollett, Jonathan Majors, Courtney B. Vance) got recognised. Instead, the Globes focused on the tired usual suspects in the drama acting categories. Did Lovecraft Country not have any actors? How can a show be worthy of a nod, but none of the stars are?
The networks – period
Yes, the major US networks were the big snub of 2021. Broadcast television was, once again, invisible in the Golden Globe noms – with Jane Levy, star of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, the lone contender in any major category.
Wednesday’s Golden Globe TV nominations were all about streaming series and their top cast members, both of whom snared the lion’s share of nominations. Somehow, Ryan Murphy’s overblown Netflix series Ratched – which is nearly unwatchable – garnered nominations for Best Drama and Best Actress (Sarah Paulson). Perhaps it was a knee-jerk reaction to those two names who appear on these lists year after year.
Lily Collins
For some inexplicable reason, Collins got a surprise nod for Netflix’s insipid Emily In Paris, about an American working at a French marketing firm. It’s a show that exists solely for memes and social-media mocking and possesses no real quality, but now Collins could conceivably walk away with a Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy trophy. It rankles more that there’s no shortage of other actresses who could have occupied this spot. What about Ted Lasso co-stars Juno Temple and Hannah Waddingham? Those layered performances were full of humour and depth, and they got passed over for an obnoxious second-rate Sex And The City wannabe.
Ted Lasso
On the plus side, it was great to see Ted Lasso get surprise nominations for Best Comedy TV Series and for star Jason Sudeikis. Both the series and Sudeikis were outstanding and should win big. Schitt’s Creek, heavily rewarded last year with a total of nine Emmys, was also cited in this category (as was star Eugene Levy). Both are great but might have exhausted the industry’s enthusiasm by now.
Al Pacino
Pacino for Hunters? Really? Both Pacino and the series itself barely registered. (The Nazi hunters in New York plot line looked good on paper but, again, was nearly unwatchable.)
Paul Mescal
Mescal, 25, is the Irish breakout star of Hulu’s romantic drama Normal People, based on the 2018 Sally Rooney bestseller. His vulnerable performance is the highlight of the show – which the Emmys recognised, since he got a nod then. But now? The show itself got a Golden Globes nod, as did his co-star Daisy Edgar-Jones, but there’s crickets for Mescal. And while Edgar-Jones delivered a good performance as the spiky Marianne, Mescal’s turn as Connell was quite frankly better. Ouch.
Boring repeats
In the surprising – albeit inevitable – “enough already” nominee category there was Emmy winner Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) for Best Actress in a Drama. But it was nice to see Laura Linney (Ozark) get recognised in that category, along with her co-star Jason Bateman (Best Actor, Drama). They were both riveting last season.
I think the most interesting race will be Best Actor in a Limited Series, which includes three performances that are all worthy of a Golden Globe statuette: Bryan Cranston in Your Honor, Mark Ruffalo in I Know This Much Is True and Jeff Daniels in The Comey Rule.
This story originally appeared on the New York Post and is republished here with permission
Originally published as Golden Globes 2021: Biggest snubs and surprises from nominations list
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