2015 Golden Globe Predictions

With the booze-friendly and less tense Golden Globe Awards airing tomorrow evening, Greg Rouleau and I are once again throwing our hats into the prediction ring. Although the awards show doesn't carry the same clout as the Oscars, the Globes are always a good time thanks to their proven hosts, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and their free flowing endless supply of alcohol that's guaranteed to lighten the mood. For a full list of Golden Globe Nominees, click here.

Smaller Categories

Best Animated Film: Dave & Greg - The Lego Movie

Best Foreign Film: Dave & Greg - Ida

Best Original Score: Dave - Antonio Sanchez - Birdman & Greg - Trent Reznor/ Atticus Ross - Gone Girl

Best Original Song: Dave & Greg - "Glory" - Selma

Best Motion Picture - Drama

The Civil Rights drama Selma and the Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game are both serious players in this category as well, but Richard Linklater's beloved hit, Boyhood, will separate from the pack and set up a big-time Oscar showdown with the "Comedy" winner.

Predictions: Dave & Greg - Boyhood

Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical

A strange occurrence happened on the Golden Globes website the other day. Images appeared on the 2014 winners list for 2015 nominees Selma (drama) and Into the Woods. Many are wondering if this was the Globes mistakenly leaking the pair of Best Picture winners. I'd be surprised, however, as Birdman feels like one of the evening's safest bets here.

Predictions: Dave & Greg - Birdman

Best Actor - Drama

Similar to the Best Picture - Drama race, minus the final winner, Selma star David Oyelowo and The Imitation Game's Benedict Cumberbatch become the most likely to upset Eddie Redmayne's transformational role in The Theory of Everything. 

Predictions: Dave & Greg - Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything

Best Actor - Comedy/Musical

The Grand Budapest Hotel's Ralph Fiennes is the longest of long shots to take down the widely assumed winner, Michael Keaton.

Predictions: Dave & Greg - Michael Keaton - Birdman

Best Actress - Drama

Rumor has it the Hollywood Foreign Press mailed the statue out to Julianne Moore months ago ... or at least they could have. There's zero chance of an upset here,

Predictions: Dave & Greg - Julianne Moore - Still Alice

Best Actress - Comedy/Musical

Amy Adams has a long documented history with the Golden Globes making her an intriguing selection here. However, Tim Burton's Big Eyes hasn't made anywhere near as big a splash in the early going of awards season as Into the Woods, giving Emily Blunt the slight edge.

Predictions: Dave & Greg - Emily Blunt - Into the Woods

Best Director

The Best Director race is an interesting one for a multitude of reasons. David Fincher (Gone Girl) and Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel) were huge surprises in the final cut, making them feel like sneaky selections. Yet, the three headed race between Ava DuVernay (Selma), Alejandro G. Inarritu (Birdman) and Richard Linklater (Boyhood) is most likely to produce the winner. We would be surprised by any of the three.

Predictions: Dave - Richard Linklater - Boyhood
& Greg - Alejandro G. Inarritu - Birdman

Best Supporting Actor

Someone should tell the other four nominees that there's no need to prepare a speech. Quite possibly the most deserved winner in any category is J.K. Simmons' unbelievable supporting work in the critically acclaimed Sundance hit, Whiplash.

Predictions: Dave & Greg - J.K. Simmons - Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress

Another race that feels pretty locked up is the Best Supporting Actress competition, where Patricia Arquette should keep the momentum building for Boyhood's Oscar push. However, if a lot of categories start going to Birdman, there's a remote possibility of an upset here at the hands of Emma Stone.

Predictions: Dave & Greg - Patricia Arquette - Boyhood

Best Screenplay

The Grand Budapest Hotel has been a rare early-year release that has held firmly through the barrage of November and December Oscar hopefuls. Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness offer up a delightfully funny screenplay and one that could very well come away victorious. Yet, it's never safe to count out Birdman or Boyhood in any race.

Predictions: Dave - Inarritu, Giacobone, Dinelaris and Bo - Birdman
& Greg - Anderson and Guinness - The Grand Budapest Hotel

*** Be sure to tune in Sunday night to the Golden Globes for all of the laughs and tom-foolery that are guaranteed to transpire!

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Spiderman 3

The Spiderman movies have definitely changed the story from the comic book. Watching the first of the film , I wasn't happy with the depiction of Peter Parker as more self-centred and vain, which is unusually in the context of the comic books. At this moment, Peter Park goes through so much crap that it's a wonder he doesn't commit suicide (it's kind of like Jack Bauer in 24).

Some factual points that were changed, which I'll agree was necessary to make a decent movie, are as follows: The Venom costume is an alien being acquired during the Secret Wars battle with the Beyonder (which was one of the best "cosmic" series Marvel has put out). Spiderman doesn't want to kill villains; even when he is beaten and pulverised, he holds back from taking the ultimate step (in fact, it is rare to show people dying in the comic books). Harry Osborn is more like the depiction of Normie Osborn (the son of Harry and Liz Allan) who is friends with the daughter of Spiderman (Spidergirl). Gwen Stacy is killed by the first Green Goblin (Norman Osborn). The people of New York have rarely been on the side of Spiderman. J. Jonah Jameson has always had a point in saying that it is people like Spiderman who create the villains. And so on.

It's difficult for me to reconcile what I know of Spiderman's history with a movie story that does its best and I admire that. A problem with the movies is that they can't intersect with the other characters from the Marvel Universe. It would be great to have movies like the Secret Wars or the Infinity Gauntlet, War, and Crusade series where a bunch of the Marvel superheroes get together and the stories make more sense (for example, explaining the origin of the Venom symbiote), but I guess that would be a logistic and budgetary nightmare.

Halfway through the movie, the story gets in line with what you'd expect from the book. The rejected symbiote bonds with a humiliated Eddie Brock to become Venom, one of the coolest villains to be introduced in the later years. The Sandman is a villain who is ambiguous. And Spiderman has a run of bad luck and is pummeled constantly but triumphs in the end against all odds.

I once wrote a review of the Batman series where I connected them to a lot of the comic books (I own a huge number of Spiderman comic books) and some other reviewer criticised my review. The perspective I offer is fairly unique: it is based on an experience I can't ignore or negative, and I think it helps place the movie in context of a long history of the books. So if you're interested in the saga of Spiderman beyond what you see in the three movies, I recommend buying some of the great story arcs of Spiderman just to see how complicated and mythological the creations are.

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