73rd Golden Globes: Biggest wins, losses and surprises

Photo courtesy of the Golden Globes via Facebook

“Always expect the unexpected” — that should be the slogan for the Golden Globe Awards.

Every year they manage to surprise, disappoint and thrill us with the decisions of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, this time a group of ninety-three individuals. It’s often very hard to predict what films they will snub and what films they will honor. However, you can be rest assured that once they know the kind of films and actors they like, the HFPA will pass around Globes like M&Ms. We’re looking at you Kate Winslet, Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio — this could be a very long list so we’ll stop now.

Despite its nature as the least serious award show, the Golden Globes pave the way for the rest of the awards season and the decisions made Sunday night will surely affect the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Oscars.

In case you missed it, here’s a recap of wins and “upsets” on the crazy night of the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards.

Wins and Losses for Film

One of the biggest surprises of the night is that The Revenant and The Martian completely dominated the categories, leaving critically acclaimed films Spotlight and The Big Short choking in the dust with zero Globes.

Matt Damon, or as Ricky Gervais would call him, “the only one Ben Affleck hasn’t been unfaithful to,” finally won his first Golden Globe for Best Actor in The Martian, which was mocked as a comedy by nearly everyone. Ridley Scott missed out on Best Director and Best Screenplay, but he accepted the award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy with a curiously apathetic speech, in which he said “screw you” to the producers wanting him to wrap up and mentioned how his film managed to stand up to the juggernaut of Star Wars.

Survival film The Revenant, whose only major snub is Tom Hardy’s missing nomination, swept every category it was in and resulted in Leonardo DiCaprio’s fourth win as Best Actor. It was truly a special moment when the entire room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel stood on its feet, giving him a surprising but much deserved standing ovation. Clearly his peers respect and admire him for his many contributions.

The HFPA loves Leo too, but they’ve really cultured affection for his director, Alejandro González Iñárritu. He and Richard Linklater traded on the awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay last year, with Linklater winning the sentimental vote for his direction in Boyhood and Iñárritu being the more deserving choice for the witty Birdman. And not only did the Mexico-born filmmaker finally win Best Director for The Revenant, an interesting but understandable choice, but he also won the grand prze for Best Motion Picture – Drama, another award he lost to Boyhood in 2015.

A few curveballs came our way with the Best Actress and Best Supporting awards. We were pleased to see Brie Larson accept the award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, and the room was overjoyed and on their feet for Sly Stallone when he accepted his award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture — he famously forgot to thank his director and co-star in his speech but corrected that in a commercial break.

However, Kate Winslet winning Best Supporting Actress for Steve Jobs was a complete surprise to us and to her, and it was the first big win for that film before Aaron Sorkin won the award for Best Screenplay. Likewise, Jennifer Lawrence aka J. Law beat her bestie Amy Schumer for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Joy. “She’ll be fine,” Lawrence said backstage to a reporter, speaking of Schumer.

To cap it off, Inside Out unsurprisingly nabbed Best Animated Film; Sam Smith came out on top of a weak list of nominees for Best Original Song; Son of Saul won Best Foreign-language Film and made Helen Mirren happy and Ennio Morricone deservingly won Best Score before Quentin Tarantino ruined his moment by calling film composers a “ghetto,” which Jamie Foxx later deadpanned into the mic. But Foxx was pretty funny in that mock Steve Harvey gaff bit when announcing the winner.

Unfortunately, losing Best Picture and Best Screenplay awards left Spotlight and The Big Short with zero wins, and that was just the beginning of the weirdness.

Wins and Losses for TV

All of the shakeups and curveballs for film were all still pleasing and acceptable. The same cannot be said for what happened to TV. Let’s start with the bad and end with the good, shall we?

To get it out of the way, Lady Gaga won Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Series, Limited Series, etc. We love her work in American Horror Story: Hotel because even though she’s a little wooden, she’s still fun and sexy. But there’s almost no words for this win besides that it shows how hollow these awards can sometimes be, and not every ‘winner’ really is one.

The next big upset was Mozart in the Jungle sweeping every category. The Amazon show was pit against Transparent, but it stole both the Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor for Gael García Bernal. All we can say is kudos to Aziz Ansari — Master of None wasn’t even nominated for best show by the way — for holding up a book with the cover “How to Lose to Jeffrey Tambor with Dignity” during the cutaway.

Some minor upsets included the BBC/PBS show Wolf Hall winning Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television and Jon Hamm snatching Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama. Not really an upset, but we wish the awards weren’t always so sentimental.

But some of our predictions actually matched, starting with Mr. Robot winning Best Television Series – Drama. This was a bold move by the HFPA, and we’re glad the USA show about hacking won not only this award but also the Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series, etc., for Christian Slater’s mysterious character. In the past he’s been a “show killer,” and we’re glad to see that those days are behind him because he’s an incredible actor.

One of the best moments of the night was when Taraji P. Henson won Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama for Empire, passing out cookies, her character’s namesake, on the way to the stage. This has been twenty years in the making, and she made sure they didn’t try to cut her off before she was done speaking. Now that’s how you accept an award.

To cap it off, Maura Tierney won Best Actress in a Supporting Role for The Affair; Oscar Isaac won Best Actor in a Leading Role for Show Me a Hero; and Rachel Bloom was awarded Best Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy for her work on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, giving one of the funniest and touching speeches when she spoke to the room “like real people.”

Follow Sara Snoddy on Twitter at @Sara_Snoddy.

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To contact Lifestyles editor Tanner Dedmon email [email protected]