Period romance ‘Carol’ tops Golden Globes nominations

The folks at TV’s Big Four networks might as well have slept in Thursday morning and skipped the announcement of the Golden Globes nominations. He will compete against Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant; Michael Fassbender in Steve Jobs; Eddie Redmayne, in The Danish Girl; and Will Smith who diagnoses brain injuries in the National Football League in Concussion.

Uzo Aduba and Regina King saw nominations for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries, or Motion Picture Made for Television.

Lady Gaga: The flashy, sassy “Poker Face” singer came up with a winning hand for her work on the gory “American Horror Story: Hotel”, earning her a surprise actress nod in a limited TV series. Ruffalo, however, was nominated for best actor in a comedy for his performance as a bipolar father in “Infinitely Polar Bear”.

One notable Golden Globes snub was for Johnny Depp’s performance as Boston criminal Whitey Bulger in “Black Mass”, which earned him a best actor SAG nomination.

The 2015 Golden Globe nominations have been announced, and the list of nominees provides irrefutable proof of the growing status of digital-only content within the world of television and film. Surging was Adam McKay’s finance farce “The Big Short”, which earned four nominations, including best picture, comedy.

In other film news of geeky interest, The Martian received a nominee for best motion picture in a comedy/musical. It was refreshing, therefore, to see the HFPA this year nominate actual comedies “Trainwreck” and “Spy”.

One more thing: This year also saw a virtual whiteout among the Globe’s film acting contenders.

But Starz, which had two nominations past year, enjoyed a happy uptick to six, spread across its series “Flesh & Bone”, “Blunt Talk” and time-travel romance “Outlander”, which got three nominations, including best drama, best actress (Caitriona Balfe) and best supporting actor (Tobias Menzies). And lead actors Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron have also had some attention.

The Golden Globe nominations showed it’s anyone’s game this year. Cable networks and streaming services are increasingly known as a place to find quality television, with some of the most acclaimed programs of the last several years coming from places like cable network AMC (“Mad Men”, “Breaking Bad”) or Netflix (“House of Cards”, “Orange Is the New Black”).

The nominees for best motion picture musical or comedy: “The Big Short, ” “Joy, ” “Cinderella, ” “The Martian, ” “Spy, ” and “Trainwreck”.

Steve Jobs did well by its actors and screenwriter Sorkin, but the film itself was left out of the best drama category.

The nominees for best actress in a drama are Cate Blanchett (Carol), Brie Larson (Room), Rooney Mara (Carol), Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn), and Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl).

“The Golden Globes are encompassing a lot of what’s going on in film”.

Adds “Inside Out” director Pete Docter, whose movie made the Golden Globes animated feature cut: “There’s no clear front-runner and that makes it interesting”. You can predict all 11 TV categories (comedy, drama, movie/limited, supporting) for this event.

And, Aziz Ansari of Master of None was nominated for Best Actor in a TV series, Comedy!

The January 10 ceremony will be hosted by British comedian Ricky Gervais and will honor actor Denzel Washington for his contribution to cinema.