In a year when the Golden Globes has lost its main raison d’être — a glossy TV show with lots of glamorous celebrities hitting the champagne — trying to guess the actual winners almost seems like an afterthought. But for those who breathlessly read the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s goat entrails in the hopes of predicting how the Oscars will go next month, the Golden Globes remains a major event. So let’s break down the film categories, shall we?
Best motion picture, drama
And the nominees are: “American Gangster,” “Atonement,” “Eastern Promises,” “The Great Debaters,” “Michael Clayton,” “No Country for Old Men,” “There Will Be Blood”Who should win: The powerful “Blood,” which promises to be a movie that will be analyzed, argued over, picked at and defended for years to come.What will win: The Globes seem to be leaning towards the tony, overstuffed “Atonement” this year, although “No Country” could always be a dark horse.What’s missing: The gorgeous and riveting “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.”
Best motion picture, musical or comedy
And the nominees are: “Across the Universe,” “Charlie Wilson’s War,” “Hairspray,” “Juno,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”Who should win: Either “Hairspray” or “Sweeney Todd,” both of which brought the modern screen musical to new highs.Who will win: The recent hubbub over “Juno” may result in a win for the scrappy indie.Who’s missing: The deliriously romantic and tune-filled “Once.”
Best director
And the nominees are: Tim Burton, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”; Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, “No Country for Old Men”; Julian Schnabel, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”; Ridley Scott, “American Gangster”; Joe Wright, “Atonement”Who should win: Coming off a pair of misguided remakes, Burton reminded us what he’s capable of creating as a filmmaker with the sublimely horrifying “Sweeney Todd.”Who will win: The Coens have gotten more buzz than ever for “No Country,” but since “Atonement” scored the most nominees from the Globes, Wright is probably the favorite.Who’s missing: Paul Thomas Anderson and Sarah Polley, whose respective work on “There Will Be Blood” and “Away from Her” was gut-wrenching in very different ways.
Best screenplay
And the nominees are: Diablo Cody, “Juno”; Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, “No Country for Old Men”; Christopher Hampton, “Atonement”; Ronald Harwood, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”; Aaron Sorkin, “Charlie Wilson’s War”Who should win: It’s tempting to give props to Cody for her witty wordplay — and the fact that hers is the one non-adapted screenplay in the running this year — but the Coens brilliantly translated Cormac McCarthy’s bleak prose into a riveting screenplay.Who will win: “Atonement” has that plummy air of seriousness that the HFPA should find irresistible.Who’s missing: Kelly Masterson, whose “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” featured some of the year’s most bravura writing.
Best foreign language filmAnd the nominees are: “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” “The Kite Runner,” “Lust/Caution,” “Persepolis”Who should win: The gripping “4 Months,” which takes the story of two women trying to negotiate an illegal abortion in Ceausescu-era Romania and turns into a masterpiece of suspense and tragedy.Who will win: The Globes often lean toward the on-the-nose, so look for “Diving Bell” or “Kite Runner” to triumph.What’s missing: Acclaimed Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s lyrical love story “Syndromes and a Century,” in which he imagines how his parents met.
Best animated filmAnd the nominees are: “Bee Movie,” “Ratatouille,” “The Simpsons Movie”Who should win: It’s damning with faint praise to say that “Ratatouille” is unquestionably the finest of these three.Who will win: “Ratatouille.”What’s missing: Leaving out “Persepolis,” since it got a nod in the foreign film category, the hilarious, moving and woefully underrated “Meet the Robinsons.”
Best original scoreAnd the nominees are: Michael Brook, Kaki King and Eddie Vedder, “Into the Wild”; Clint Eastwood, “Grace is Gone”; Alberto Iglesias, “The Kite Runner”; Dario Marianelli, “Atonement”; Howard Shore, “Eastern Promises”Who should win: The only one of these scores I remember is “Into the Wild,” and that’s because the Vedder songs made me want to plunge knitting needles into my ears. But based on his past collaborations with director David Cronenberg, I’ll go with Shore.Who will win: The Globes love them some Clint, so don’t be shocked if Eastwood’s honored for his irrelevant contributions to “Grace is Gone.”Who’s missing: Either Jonny Greenwood’s appropriately jarring music for “There Will Be Blood” or any of the fine work done this year by the great Alexandre Desplat (“Lust, Caution,” “The Golden Compass,” “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium”).
Best original song
And the nominees are: “Despedida” from “Love in the Time of Cholera”; “Grace is Gone” from “Grace is Gone”; “Guaranteed” from “Into the Wild”; “That’s How You Know” from “Enchanted”; “Walk Hard” from “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”Who should win: Another undistinguished set of musical choices, but “That’s How You Know” is pleasant enough.Who will win: “That’s How You Know” benefits from its Disney pedigree (songwriters Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz previously collaborated on “Pocahontas” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”), not to mention the ubiquitous Carrie Underwood radio-friendly version, so it’s probably a lock.What’s missing: Any of the lovely songs from “Once.”
Duralde is the author of “101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men” (Advocate Books); find him at