Oh, Hollywood Foreign Press…

Nominees announced this morning for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globe awards (to be hosted by Ricky Gervais on January 16th)…and hoo boy. Faced with one of the weakest Comedy/Musical fields in recent memory, the HFPA decided to live up to its reputation as a bunch of star-struck, studio-ass-kissing quasi-journalists. Apparently no one in the HFPA bothered to go see “Nowhere Boy.” Or “Made in Dagenham.” Or “Four Lions.” Or “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” Or even “Greenberg,” which I’m sure would qualify as a comedy under the HFPA’s sketchy rules.

So, instead we ended up with two, count ’em two, nominations for Johnny Depp (I like Depp as much as the next person but c’mon, this was not the year for that), along with Angelina Jolie and a pity nod for Michael Douglas in “Wall Street 2.” Not to mention the most gag-inducing Best Picture – Comedy field EVER. “Red!” “Alice in Wonderland!” “Burlesque!” Wooooooo. Can’t wait until January.

On the dramatic front, the big talk of course surrounds “Black Swan” continuing to rack up more mainstream success than anticipated. Meanwhile, “127 Hours” was snubbed for Best Picture and Director nominations, but still popped up in the Actor, Score and Screenplay categories (not entirely sure how you recognize that film for its writing and not its directing, but whatever). Not entirely unexpected, since Boyle’s energetic and emotional but still grisly piece wasn’t entirely in their wheelhouse, as opposed to “The Fighter,” “The King’s Speech,” “Inception” and “The Social Network,” which were all slam dunk nominees. The bigger snub went to “True Grit,” which went completely ignored. But again, that wasn’t as shocking as it may seem; the HFPA has not embraced the Coen brothers as the Academy has. Recall that these are the people that gave “Atonement” Best Pic over “No Country,” shut out “A Serious Man” last year, and, most crucially, gave “Evita” the Best Comedy/Musical award over “Fargo” back in the day (never mind the category fraud of calling “Fargo” a comedy). “Evita.” Let me say it one more time: “Evita.” Even the Academy, for all its faults, has always had better taste than these folks.

As for my favorite nominations…there’s not much here to get excited about, but Emma Stone’s nod for “Easy A” is well deserved from everything I’ve heard. Cool to see the “Blue Valentine” duo finding room. Intriguing that Mila Kunis is appearing in the Supporting Actress category again. Ummmm…Jeremy Renner seems like a nice guy? I got nothing. Check out the full list of nominees (on the film side, anyway; go elsewhere for your TV fix):

Best Picture – Drama

• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Inception
• The King’s Speech
• The Social Network

Best Picture – Comedy/Musical

• Alice in Wonderland
• Burlesque
• The Kids Are All Right
• Red
• The Tourist

Best Director

• Darren Aronofsky, “Black Swan”
• David O. Russell, “The Fighter”
• Christopher Nolan, “Inception”
• Tom Hooper, “The King’s Speech”
• David Fincher, “The Social Network”

Best Actor – Drama

• Jesse Eisenberg, “The Social Network”
• Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
• James Franco, “127 Hours”
• Ryan Gosling, “Blue Valentine”
• Mark Wahlberg, “The Fighter”

Best Actor – Comedy/Musical

• Johnny Depp, “Alice in Wonderland”
• Johnny Depp, “The Tourist”
• Paul Giamatti, “Barney’s Version”
• Jake Gyllenhaal, “Love and Other Drugs”
• Kevin Spacey, “Casino Jack”

Best Actress – Drama

• Halle Berry, “Frankie and Alice”
• Nicole Kidman, “Rabbit Hole”
• Jennifer Lawrence, “Winter’s Bone”
• Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”
• Michelle Williams, “Blue Valentine”

Best Actress – Comedy/Musical

• Annette Bening, “The Kids Are All Right”
• Anne Hathaway, “Love and Other Drugs”
• Angelina Jolie, “The Tourist”
• Julianne Moore, “The Kids Are All Right”
• Emma Stone, “Easy A”

Best Supporting Actor

• Christian Bale, “The Fighter”
• Michael Douglas, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”
• Andrew Garfield, “The Social Network”
• Jeremy Renner, “The Town”
• Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech”

Best Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams, “The Fighter”
• Helena Bonham Carter, “The King’s Speech”
• Mila Kunis, “Black Swan”
• Melissa Leo, “The Fighter”
• Jacki Weaver, “Animal Kingdom”

Best Screenplay

• Christopher Nolan, “Inception”
• Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg, “The Kids Are All Right”
• David Seidler, “The King’s Speech”
• Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy, “127 Hours”
• Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network”

Best Foreign Language Film

• Biutiful
• The Concert
• The Edge
• I Am Love
• In a Better World

Best Animated Feature

• Despicable Me
• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Illusionist
• Tangled
• Toy Story 3

Best Original Score

• Danny Elfman, “Alice in Wonderland”
• Hans Zimmer, “Inception”
• Alexandre Desplat, “The King’s Speech”
• A.R. Rahman, “127 Hours”
• Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, “The Social Network”

Best Original Song

• “Bound to You,” from “Burlesque”
• “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me,” from “Burlesque”
• “There’s a Place for Us,” from “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”
• “Coming Home,” from “Country Strong”
• “I See the Light,” from “Tangled”