Ross v Ross

This year’s Golden Globe gongs have been handed out and the winners can now look forward with confidence to the Academy Awards. Careful though: history tells us some great actors got shafted come Oscar night.

5. Gene Hackman (The Royal Tenenbaums), 2001 – beaten to Oscar by… Denzel Washington (Training Day)

Hackman picked up the Golden Globe for best actor in a musical or comedy as the head of the dysfunctional Tenenbaum family, but he wasn’t even nominated at Oscar time. Washington is absolutely fine as the crooked cop in Training Day, but you can’t help thinking it was a pity gong after being overlooked in previous years for much better displays (his Malcolm X loss to a blind Al Pacino must have been particularly hard to take). Hackman is fantastic in …Tenenbaums, carrying the film with a funny and emotional performance.

4. Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth), 1998 – beaten to Oscar by… Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare In Love)

One played someone dressing up as a boy with a dodgy tache in Elizabethan England. The other played, uh, Queen Elizabeth. On paper, it’s easy to see why Blanchett should have marched to Oscar glory following her win as best actress in a drama at the Globes. Shakepeare In Love takes a lot of flack from those who think Saving Private Ryan should have beaten it to Best Picture, but it still stands up as a fun, well-acted romp. Paltrow is excellent as Shakey’s love interest but does anyone really believe her performance is better than Blanchett’s powerhouse turn? No, didn’t think so.

3. Nicole Kidman (To Die For), 1995 – beaten to Oscar by… Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking)

Susan Sarandon is a good actress. That is not up for dispute. And Nicole Kidman is a pretty divisive figure – you either love watching her or hate watching her. That is also not up for dispute. However, in To Die For she defines her career. Forget the false nose in The Hours, it is her Suzanne Stone Maretto and not her Virginia Woolf that we will be recalling fondly in years to come. Quite rightly given the best actress in a musical or comedy Golden Globe, she wasn’t recognised for a nomination by the Academy. We won’t be recalling Sarandon in Dead Man Walking at all.

2. Tom Cruise (Magnolia), 1999 – beaten to Oscar by… Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules)

Now we start getting to the real awards crimes. Like his former wife, Mr Cruise also makes our list. Love or loathe The Cruiser, you must admit that he is nothing less than absolutely sensational in Magnolia, jumping right out of a film filled with fantastic performances. He quite rightly won Globe for best supporting actor, but Oscar voters decided to go with good old Michael Caine and his shocking American accent in The Cider House Rules, a film so sickly sweet that had it been given any more sugar it would have turned into Chocolat (and yes, Lasse Hallström, thanks for directing both those films). At any rate, the Oscars showed very little respect for the cocksure Frank TJ Mackey, arguably Cruise’s greatest role.

1. Jim Carrey (The Truman Show), 1998 – beaten to Oscar by… Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful)

If number 2 in the list was a cinematic crime, this is simply a catastrophe. Jim Carrey may be hit and miss at times, but there was no missing his stunning portrayal of a man realising his life is one big TV show. Unless you were an Oscar voter, of course. He won the Golden Globe for best male performance in a drama, so why didn’t he get nominated for best actor Oscar? Often the Oscars ignore the Globe winners in best musical or comedy categories, but here they had no excuse. Mind you, there were some good candidates that year. So who did they give it to – Ian McKellen for his measured work in Gods And Monsters? The solid-as-always Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan? Or maybe the voters went edgy and Edward Norton took the honour for American History X? No, no and no. The Oscar went to… some guy who tried to turn the Holocaust into a comedy, climbed all over the seats and whose next film was Asterix And Obelix Take On Caesar. Blimey.

WHAT GOLDEN GLOBE-WINNING PERFORMANCES DO YOU THINK SHOULD ALSO HAVE RECEIVED OSCARS?

TOP FIVES ARCHIVE

This entry was posted on January 20, 2010 at 9:19 am and is filed under TOP FIVES with tags Golden Globes, Movies, Nicole Kidman, Oscar, Oscars, Tom Cruise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.