The 2014 Golden Globes have finally been awarded. Usually, they are a precursor to what films and performers will receive Oscar nominations. Other times, they’re completely out of left field. (Bonus: Take a look back at our list of headscratching Golden Globe TV nominations.)
• While the Oscars may nominate up to 10 movies for Best Picture, the Golden Globes nominate five films for Best Picture, Drama, and Best Picture, Comedy or Musical. That categorization is sometimes confusing, because musicals aren’t always comedies. For example, in 2012, the tragic, incredibly serious Les Miserables won the Globe for Best Picture, Comedy or Musical. Also, Hollywood releases so few musicals these days that they’re almost assured a nomination in that category. In 2010, the critical and commercial bomb Burlesque, starring Cher and Christina Aguilera as singing strippers, earned a nomination. (It lost to the comedy-drama The Kids are All Right.)
• Woody Allen (this year’s Cecil B. DeMille Award winner) was at his commercial and critical peak in the 1970s, directing classic comedies such as Annie Hall, Sleeper, Bananas, and Manhattan. In 1979, Manhattan received a Golden Globe nomination for, curiously, Best Drama.
• At least Salmon Fishing in the Yemen was actually a comedy. However, very few people in the United States saw the movie—which is about fishing—and it was not on the “awards season” radar when it earned a Best Picture, Comedy or Musical nomination last year. It earned $9 million, appeared in about one-sixth as many theaters as a typical mainstream movie, and earned no other awards.
• In 1996, Disney released a live-action remake of the classic 1961 animated movie, 101 Dalmatians. Glenn Close had a supporting role and gave a campy, incredibly over-the-top performance as dog-hunting villain Cruella de Vil. And she received a Best Actress in a Comedy nomination for her trouble.
• Hollywood insiders predicted in both 1998 and 1999 that comic star Jim Carrey would receive Oscar nominations for acclaimed performances in the dramatic movies The Truman Show and Man on the Moon, respectively. Carrey failed to receive a nomination. In fact, he’s one of the few major movie stars never to have been nominated for an Academy Award. But the Golden Globes love him. Carrey has been nominated for a Globe six times, and he’s won twice…for The Truman Show and Man on the Moon. Some of his other nominations are a little more puzzling, because they were for movies that weren’t particularly critically loved: The Mask, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Liar, Liar.