Seeing Double

At an unholy time of around 5:30 AM PST on this very morning, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced nominations for the 64th annual Golden Globe Awards:

Brian Lowry of Variety has the details:

Double vision overtook this year's Golden Globe nominations, with Clint Eastwood drawing dual director nods for his matched World War II epics "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima," while Leonardo DiCaprio pulled off an equally rare pair for his starring roles in "The Departed" and "Blood Diamond."

Major studios also engineered something of a modest comeback in nominations for the 64th annual Globe Awards announced Thursday morning.

In addition to Warner Bros.' "The Departed" in the drama category, 20th Century Fox's "Borat" and "The Devil Wears Prada" snagged bids in the comedy/musical balloting, as did the Paramount/Dreamworks collaboration "Dreamgirls."

Throw in Fox Searchlight's "Little Miss Sunshine " and "Thank You for Smoking," and the News Corp. units amassed four of five nominees in the comedy field. Fleshing out the drama voting were "Babel" – the most-nominated film overall, with seven – the historical piece "Bobby," "Little Children" and "The Queen," whose star, Helen Mirren, equaled Jamie Foxx's record for three nominations in a single year.."

This year is also notable for an anomaly in the foreign-language film category, where two U.S.-produced movies – Eastwood's "Iwo Jima," in Japanese; and Mel Gibson's violent epic "Apocalypto" – received nominations, edging out international projects.

As a result, that category might be the least significant in terms of serving as a bellwether for the Oscars, where only non-U.S. productions are eligible. Although the Globes are historically considered a strong predictor for the Oscars -- having matched the best picture winner all but once from 1993 to 2004 -- the two have diverged the last two years, when "Crash" and "Million Dollar Baby" were anointed best picture by the motion picture academy. The HFPA honored "Brokeback Mountain" and "The Aviator," respectively, as outstanding drama those years. Eastwood's nominations set up a sort of rematch with Scorsese, up for "The Departed," after Eastwood took the prize two years ago. After "Babel," "Departed" tallied six nominations and "Dreamgirls" five.

"Nashville" remains the most-nominated film in Globe history, earning nine bids (but just one award) in 1976...

Warren Beatty will receive the Cecil B. DeMille award.

And the [motion picture] nominees are...

DRAMA
"Babel" "Bobby" "The Departed" "Little Children" "The Queen"

ACTRESS (DRAMA)
Penelope Cruz - "Volver" Judi Dench - "Notes on a Scandal" Maggie Gyllenhall - "Sherrybaby" Helen Mirren - "The Queen" Kate Winslet - "Little Children"

ACTOR (DRAMA)
Leonardo DiCaprio - "Blood Diamond" Leonardo DiCaprio - "The Departed" Peter O'Toole - "Venus" Will Smith - "The Pursuit of Happyness" Forest Whitaker - "The Last King of Scotland"
MUSICAL OR COMEDY
"Borat" "The Devil Wears Prada" "Dreamgirls" "Little Miss SUnshine" "Thank You For Smoking"

ACTRESS (MUSICAL OR COMEDY)
Annette Bening - "Running with Scissors" Toni Collette - "Little Miss Sunshine" Beyonce Knowles - "Dreamgirls" Meryl Streep - "The Devil Wears Prada" Rene Zellweger - "Miss Potter"

ACTOR (MUSICAL OR COMEDY)
Sasha Baron Cohen - "Borat" Johnny Depp - "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" Aaron Eckhart - "Thank You for Smoking" Chiwetel Ejiofor - "Kinky Boots" Will Farrell - "Stranger Than Fiction"

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
"Apocalypto'" "Letters from Iwo Jima" "The Lives of Others" "Pan's Labyrinth" "Volver"

ANIMATED FILM
"Cars" "Happy Feet" "Monster House"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Adriana Barraza - "Babel" Kate Blanchett - "Notes on a Scandal" Emily Blunt - "The Devil Wears Prada" Jennifer Hudson - "Dreamgirls" Rinko Kikuchi - "Babel"

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Ben Affleck - "Hollywoodland" Jack Nicholson - "The Departed" Eddie Murphy - "Dreamgirls" Brad Pitt - "Babel" Mark Wahlberg - "The Departed"

DIRECTOR
Clint Eastwood - "Flags of Our Fathers" Clint Eastwood - "Letters from Iwo Jima" Stephen Freers - "The Queen" Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - "Babel" Martin Scorcese - "The Departed"

SCREENPLAY
"Babel" "Little Children" "Notes on a Scandal" "The Departed" "The Queen"

ORIGINAL SCORE
"The Painted Veil" "The Fountain" "Babel" "Nomad" "The Da Vinci Code"

ORIGINAL SONG
- "Pursuit of Happyness" "Listen" - "Dreamgirls" "Never Gonna Break My Faith" - "Bobby" - "Happy Feet"

The Complete List Of Nominees--including those from out there in TV Land--are righr here

I'm sure that Sacha Baron Cohen got a much needed lift from the noms for his Borat film--what with all of his legal woes...Kudos to Clint Eastwood on his pair of nods; That said I'm rooting for Scorsese and The Departed How about Leonardo DiCaprio going for two--while shutting out co-star Matt Damon... At least Damon's best pal Ben Affleck gives him someone to root for.

The 64th annual Golden Globe Awards will take place on Monday January 15, 2007, in a live telecast on NBC