Are Golden Globes the new Oscar?

It used to be whenever a film was coming out, the trailers would say of the actors and director (when applicable): "Oscar winning actor - ", "Academy Award winning Director - ". But apparently, no more.

I first noticed this strange phenomenon whilst watching the Sherlock Holmes trailers back in December, in which Robert Downey, jr is credited as "Golden Globe nominated", as opposed to "Academy Award Nominated" (Downey, jr was nominated for Chaplin back in 1992). At the time, I assumed that this was because Mr. Downey has had somewhat of a resurgence in recent years, and has built up an entirely new image of himself, fairly devoid of his persona from when he starred in Chaplin. Indeed, the majority of Rob Downey, jr fans I know weren't even aware of his existence until Iron Man and Tropic Thunder - although a few did watch Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. I would therefore class myself as being an old-school Downey, jr fan - having followed him since I first saw him in US Marshals, and then again in Natural Born Killers (which actually came out before US Marshals, but I was too young to watch it at the time) - but even I did not see Chaplin, and was only aware he had been nominated for it through the magnificence that is the Internet Movie Database. So, in short, I could forgive them for billing Robert Downey, jr as they did.

But today I saw a trailer for Invictus, Clint Eastwood's newest movie (as director), and it was billed as such: "Golden Globe winning Director Clint Eastwood", "Golden Globe winning Actor Morgan Freeman", and "Golden Globe winning actor Matt Damon". This led me to the conclusion that Academy Awards have fallen out of favour, and the Golden Globes are now in. Why? Because ALL 3 of these guys have won Oscars! Now, Damon's was for writing (Good Will Hunting, 1997), so I'll forgive them for not mentioning that - but Morgan Freeman won Best Actor for Million Dollar Baby (I had to look that one up, thought it might have been Driving Miss Daisy he won for), and Clint Eastwood won Best Director AND Best Picture for both Million Dollar Baby AND Unforgiven (knew both of those). So, as mentioned above - Academy Awards are out of fashion.

Now, those of you who have read my previous reviews (specifically, I think this may have been mentioned in The Dark Knight), you will remember I was discussing Boycotting the Oscars, since they awarded one to Roman Polanski after he fled the US on rape charges (and hey, I wrote that review before it became this media sensation last year when he was caught - first on the bandwagon!) - but he was nominated for a Golden Globe after that too, so clearly the guy who is in charge of making trailers didn't just read my blog and decide it was a good idea to boycott the oscars till Polanski was stripped of his. I was also going to suggest that maybe they weren't crediting Oscars so highly because the greatest actor ever (in terms of attractiveness and general suave-ness, not necessarily acting talent) George Clooney had never received one, but damn it - whilst checking on IMDB to see (in case he had won one for Best Director on Good Night and Good Luck or something), I discovered that Mr Clooney was awarded an Oscar for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role" for Syriana (so here's to hoping Jeff Bridges wins this year - no need to be greedy, George - one will do). So, that's all my theories shot to bits. If you want to post your theory on why the Oscars are now "out", whilst the Golden Globes are "in", feel free to leave a comment (seriously - it makes the Blog look more popular, and I don't feel so much like i'm just wasting my life on here (forgive the life evaluation, but I just got another year older less than 3 hours ago)).

So, until next time - strip Polanski of his Oscar! (and if you're on his side, try sitting through the entire video of that Dutch guy I posted a couple of weeks ago, then tell me paedophilia's ok).