So it begins

Some of the smaller critic circles have already been handing out awards, but, for me, the real start of the awards season is the Golden Globe nominations which came out Thursday.

The first point of interest: Eastwood claims two of the five directing nominations without either of his movies (Flags of our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima) getting best pic noms. That leads me to believe that the races were really tight in both categories.

Here is my prediction for the eventual Oscar best pic noms, in order of certainty: Dreamgirls, Babel, The Queen, The Departed... after that it's hard to say, but I'll go with Little Miss Sunshine. I do see that fifth spot as a definite opportunity for the rare occurrence of a non GG nominee getting an Oscar best pic nom. Unless I'm mistaken, that has not happened since The Shawshank Redemption in 1994. Based on the directing noms, Letters From Iwo Jima would be a likely candidate if that happens.

I have currently seen four the ten GG nominees and The Departed is by far my favorite. Babel grabbed the most nominations. It will be interesting to see how well it does this season since it's probably the 3rd best movie by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (behind Amores Perros and 21 Grams). I hope this is Scorsese's year. I rooted for him with Gangs of New York and The Aviator even though I had seen better movies those years. As of right now (and I do still need to see a lot), The Departed is the best movie I've seen this year.

And how about DiCaprio's two best actor noms. I'm not a big fan, but way to go. But in that category, I'm going for my second straight - called the Oscar win after watching the preview for the movie. After seeing the preview for Capote last year (before the awards buzz), I said, "he's going to win the Oscar for this." After seeing the preview for The Last King of Scotland two months ago, I said the same thing.

Anyway, with the GG nominations out I now have my awards season road map and can figure out what I need to see before the Oscars.

Fun stuff.