Golden Globes surprises

Woody Harrelson said it himself. As one of the stars reading the nominations for the Golden Globes yesterday morning, the actor jokingly added his own film, Rampart, to the list of best dramatic films.

"There's a lot of things left off today, I just want to say," shrugged Harrelson.

The year in movies has shaped up to be one without many clear heavyweight favourites, but rather a large spectrum of fine, worthy films. That means more deserving movies than normal went unheralded by the Globes.

Thus far, the awards season has played out unpredictably, with critics groups and the Screen Actors Guild (the best early indication of how the industry is voting) generally spreading honours around. Among the few that seemed assured of Globe nominations - and received them - were the French ode to silent films The Artist, with a leading six nominations, and the 1960s tale The Help and Alexander Payne's Hawaiian family story, The Descendants, each with five nominations.

The silence for the much-anticipated Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was deafening. Stephen Daldry's adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel has been the biggest question mark of the awards season, having held its screenings later than any other movie did. The film boasts all of the trappings of awards bait, with top-of-the-line talent in director Stephen Daldry (The Hours), screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), cast (Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Max Von Sydow) and producer Scott Rudin (The Social Network). But it failed to land any nominations, not even for the score by Alexandre Desplat, who has previously been nominated by the Globes five times.

Few might have noticed had George Clooney's political thriller not received any nominations. Instead, The Ides of March landed four big ones - Best Picture (Drama), Best Director for Clooney, Best Actor (Drama) for Ryan Gosling; and Best Screenplay for the script by Clooney, Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon. Ides received respectful but tepid reviews on release and is not considered an Oscar favourite.

Clooney was nominated for best director over more likely candidates, including Daldry, Steven Spielberg (War Horse), David Fincher (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) and Terrence Malick (Tree of Life). Also, many would have chosen Gosling's performance in Drive over his in Ides.

As Harrelson suggested, the most striking thing about the Globes' picks were how many good films were left out. The exceptional family drama/apocalyptic nightmare Take Shelter didn't receive anything, including the riveting performance by Michael Shannon. Nor did the sleek and stylish Cold War espionage film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which some suspected would land an acting nomination for its star, Gary Oldman.

Malick's cosmic-tinged family drama Tree of Life, considered a masterpiece by some, failed to gain any notice. Its stars, Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, were nominated for other movies. Neither was there anything for Tom McCarthy's charming Win Win, the financial-industry thriller Margin Call, Lars von Trier's operatic Melancholia or Ralph Fiennes' Shakespeare adaptation Coriolanus.

Even Harry Potter's swansong, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, was ignored.

The most predictable 'surprise' was the nomination for Angelina Jolie's directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey. The film, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, earned a Best Foreign Language Film nomination. The Globes are well known for odd nominations that will attract stars to their prime-time broadcast awards. To that end, Madonna's period romance W.E. received two music nominations.

The largely acclaimed reboot of The Muppets failed to win a nomination.