And the nominee isn't...

I'm pretty sure that the maker of The Golden Globes: Hollywood's Dirty Little Secret will not be getting a Best Documentary nomination from them.

The Golden Globe nominations will be announced Thursday.

But casual viewers of the annual awards show might be surprised to learn that a relatively small group of foreign journalists hand out the Golden Globes and that many are part-time entertainment reporters for obscure print or online outlets.

"It's an emperor-has-no-clothes story," said Vikram Jayanti, the documentary's director-narrator. "We all think it's like an august organization with hundreds of really reputable film journalists and critics."

In reality, the group behind the Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has about 90 members, and many have reputations more as star-struck fans and moochers than serious reporters, the documentary says.

Interviewed for the documentary, L.A. Weekly film critic John Powers said the group's members are "essentially just bottom-feeders around the industry, who have somehow been inflated to this point where their judgment is supposed to be very, very important."

Each year, studios arrange elaborate meals where HFPA members can hobnob with directors and actors on films angling for Academy Awards and other movie honors. If stars and filmmakers fail to turn up for a schmooze session with the HFPA, it generally kills a movie's chances for Golden Globe nominations, which draw attention that can boost a film's Oscar prospects.

I'll spare you all of the usual feigned-shock cliches. The best bit in the whole story is at the end:

"Even though the Golden Globe people are by and large idiots," critic Powers says in the documentary, "they often make better choices than the Oscars."

There's a marketing slogan in there somewhere, I just know it.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 16, 2003 to TV and movies | TrackBack