Random Fuzzy


Ever since Angelina was nominated for The Tourist (2010), Awards bloggers have assumed Golden Globes voters are so enamored with her that they'll eagerly hand her a prize given the chance.

They had two previous chances.  She was nominated for In the Land of Blood and Honey (2012) and First They Killed My Father (2018).

Neither won even though FTKMF was critically acclaimed and the competition for non-English language film wasn't anywhere near as stiff as the Best Actress race this year.

FTKMF's loss should have shattered the myth that she was heavily favored by Globes members.  Perhaps still trying to live down the embarrassment from The Tourist, they compensated in the opposite direction.


The composition of Globes voters has since changed dramatically and the HFPA no longer exists.

Members of the original HFPA now make up only 71 of the current 334 voters or 21%. There is even less basis to anoint Angelina as a frontrunner with this group.

Latin voters are the second-largest bloc in the new Globes, but the largest that could vote as a bloc: 40% white, 26.3% Latino, 13.3% Asian, 11% black and 9% Middle Eastern.

Fernanda Torres' win shows the strength of a large Globes bloc voting as one.  Torres was good but their vote was not about performance. It was a hometown vote. The Latin bloc also helped Emilia Perez.

Angelina wanted this. She wanted to acknowledge Pablo on national TV. But even if she received the vote of all the original HFPA members that would still be less than the Latin vote.

Other than in races with a similar % of Brazilian / Latin voters, Torres' win is not indicative of her relative strength vis a vis the other nominees or, conversely, the other nominees' weakness.

I am happy Torres got the Globe and a chance to acknowledge her mother. 

It's unlikely that she will get into SAG or that there are enough Brazilians in the actors branch of AMPAS to nominate her.


The NYT noted

"If the Globes, at which the biggest awards of the evening went to the indie and the edgy — “Emilia Pérez” and “The Brutalist,” as well as the come-from-behind best actress and actor wins of Demi Moore for “The Substance” and Sebastian Stan for “A Different Man” — reflected anything, it was the power and value that comes from daring to be different and to pursue a singular vision.

Experts got many of the winners wrong. They based their predictions on the Globe's historical partiality towards big stars which no longer has any foundation.  They failed to take into consideration the new, expanded voting membership.  They should have considered how foreign journalists would vote when candidates include some of their own.  If they had, Torres and Emilia Perez would have been the frontrunners.

Awards bloggers view everything through the prism of Oscar prediction, but the Globes shows that they are happy to chart a different path.


I'm not sure that Maria qualified for the Bafta.

Films must be theatrically exhibited publicly for the first time on at least 50 commercial screens in the UK for at least seven days – the equivalent of at least 350 screenings.

As Variety noted:

Beyond appearing in the U.K. for the London Film Festival in October, there hasn’t been much of a presence for Jolie or “Maria” across the Atlantic.

Maria's LFF screenings would not come any where near the required no. of public screens or screenings. It had one or two private screenings for AMPAS / Bafta members. In what was a critical decision, it opens in the UK on Jan 10. If Maria didn't qualify this year, it can qualify for next year.  But the release date deprived Angelina of momentum.


SAG

SAG-AFTRA is an American labor union that represents around 160,000 media professionals, including actors, announcers, dancers, DJs, news writers, and more. It was formed in 2012 by the merger of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

While the majority of its members are actors, it's difficult to pinpoint the exact percentage:

“SAG Award nominations are determined by the vote of a nominating committee comprising of 2,500 randomly selected members of the roughly 160,000-member guild, which, since the 2012 merger of SAG and AFTRA, includes not just actors but also TV weathermen, radio hosts and TikTokers.”

AMPAS

As of 2024, the Academy has 9,905 voting members. The Academy's membership is divided into branches, each representing a different film production discipline. Actors make up the largest branch, with 1,324 members.

Although nominations are largely determined by members of the corresponding branch – i.e. actors nominate actors, film editors nominate film editors, so on and so forth – when it comes to choosing the winners, all active members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science can vote in all categories, including Best Picture.

SAG and AMPAS member reactions can be gauged during private studio screenings. On that basis, I feel more sanguine about Angelina's prospects with SAG and AMPAS than I ever did with the Globes.  However, the greatly expanded membership of SAG-Aftra makes it less reliable as an indicator of sentiment from fellow actors.


Scott Feinberg bases his predictions at least in part on the screenings he has moderated so I feel he should have a good feel for support. Or I hope he does.


THR

Post-Globe rankings

RT

My goal for Maria on RT was just for it to be certified fresh.