10/12/2025

LYFE WEDNESDAY | DEC 10, 2025

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Hollywood awards race heats up with Golden Globes nominations

HOLLYWOOD’S awards season shifted into high gear Monday when nominations for the Golden Globes were unveiled, with hit musical Wicked: For Good , Shakespeare family tragedy Hamnet and period horror movie Sinners leading the charge. Paul Thomas Anderson’s politically charged One Battle After Another , starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and mid-century sports dramedy Marty Supreme , starring Timothee Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow, are also top contenders. The Globes, set for Jan 11, are widely seen as a bellwether for the Academy Awards, and the top Globes hopefuls are already on many insider short lists for the Oscars. The Golden Globes offer separate awards for dramas and comedies, musicals – widening the field of stars who could walk the red carpet and fuelling the suspense. “The headline of this year is: Comedy is where the drama is,” Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis said. One Battle After Another will battle for top comedy-musical honours with Marty Supreme . Also in the comedy mix is apocalyptic satire Bugonia , the latest quirky effort from Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos, featuring his frequent collaborator Emma Stone, who was nominated along with co-star Jesse Plemons. For Davis, Wicked – the blockbuster conclusion of the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical – is “still probably the populist choice” with wide appeal. Ariana Grande, as the bubbly pink-clad Glinda, and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo, as the green skinned Elphaba, are awards hopefuls again this year, even though Erivo was surprisingly cut from the Critics Choice Awards short list. For Davis, the best actress category for the Globes, and looking ahead to the Oscars, will be a “Murderers’ Row”, with a glut of worthy candidates. Each main category has six nominees, not five as in past years. Hamnet and Sinners lead dramas On the drama side, the top contenders all delve into the past. Hamnet , from Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao, stars Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare, who tries to forge a career as a playwright while his wife Agnes – played by Jessie Buckley – contends with the perils of plague and childbirth in Elizabethan England. The film, based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, draws on evidence that the couple had a son named Hamnet – a name that scholars say would have sounded indistinguishable from “Hamlet” at the time. Sinners , from Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, stars

Avatar 3 aims to become end-of-year blockbuster The inhabitants of Pandora must once again resist the humans of the RDA.

o James Cameron returns with another environmental epic T HE third film in the Avatar series, which will hit cinemas this month, is hoping to extend the success of one of the highest-grossing franchises in history with another environment-themed visual thriller. Avatar: Fire and Ash , directed by James Cameron 16 years after he first enthralled fans with his blue-coloured Na’vi people, will release in major markets from Dec 17 ahead of the holiday season. The first Avatar made a record US$2.9 billion (RM11.9 billion) at the global box office, while 2022’s follow up The Way of Water scored around US$2.3 billion despite the post-Covid slump in cinemas, according to figures from The Hollywood Reporter . Here is what you need to know about the new film which premiered in Hollywood and Paris recently: Family, immigration Viewers find the hero Jake (Sam Worthington), who has since become Toruk Makto, a warrior with legendary status, and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), mourning the death of their eldest son Neteyam on their planet Pandora. They are attempting to rebuild with their three children, including Kiri, an adopted Na’vi teenager played by Sigourney Weaver, and a human, Spider (Jack Champion), considered part of the family by all except Neytiri. “We’re seeing the children coming up and trying to find their place in a world when they’re mixed-race children – mum is 100% Na’vi, dyed-in-the-wool, traditionalist. Dad is from another star system,” Cameron recently told a Paris press conference.

The original Avatar story was written by Cameron in 1995 and “was very environmental in its messaging, much more nakedly so than the more subsequent stories,” said the director. Cameron “really rips off the veil of any mystery about the way this corporation is going about killing” the Tulkuns, Weaver told the press conference. She draws a parallel with our own world, where we “feel the emergency rising in our world because the ocean is really suffering, and we won’t be able to live without the ocean,” she added. Artificial intelligence Filming for the second and third Avatar films took place between 2017 and 2018 over 18 months, well before the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Another two instalments are in production to be released later this decade. “I’m not negative about generative AI. I just wanted to point out we don’t use it on the Avatar films. We don’t replace actors,” Cameron told US website ComicBook.com. The director has defended his “performance capture” technique, which he devised and which sees actors movements captured and then transferred on to the features of the Na’vi on screen. Critical reaction Reaction has been limited but broadly positive so far, with critics unable to publish full reviews until closer to the release. Some US reviewers have been allowed to publish short opinions on social media, with most of them agreeing Cameron had delivered another gut-wrenching visual feast. The main criticism has been about the script and reprising of familiar themes from the first two films. “I’ve only ever had about five good ideas in my life. I just keep repackaging them,” Cameron joked. – AFP

“We’re dealing with a refugee family, essentially immigrants displaced. People can relate to that,” the 71-year-old Canadian added. New antagonist On their travels, the heroes encounter the Mangkwan, the Ash People, a Na’vi community whose territory was destroyed by a volcano and who now survive through pillaging. The Mangkwan are led by Varang, played by Oona Chaplin, granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin. She reveals a darker side of the Na’vi, until now portrayed as virtuous and living in total harmony with nature, in contrast to money-obsessed humans who are intent on looting their resources. Ecological fable Once again, the inhabitants of Pandora must resist the “sky people”, the humans of the Resources Development Administration (RDA), who are preparing a new offensive. The RDA wants to hunt the Tulkuns, gigantic and sentient marine creatures, to extract amrita from their brains – a substance of immense commercial value.

Mexican filmmaker del Toro, who directed Frankenstein , a top contender for awards. – AFPPIC Michael B. Jordan as twins in the criminal underworld who encounter a sinister force as they return home to racially segregated Mississippi in the 1930s. The film was a runaway box office success, and Jordan secured a nomination. It led the nods for the Critics Choice Awards on Friday with 17. “It has so much going for it – it’s a big moneymaker, it was a culturally significant hit,” explained Davis, who added he “will not sleep a wink” until Coogler gets an Oscar nomination for directing. Also in the running is Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein , starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi. Oscar nominations are due on Jan 22, so the picks for the Globes should begin to more clearly sketch out the road to the Academy Awards. The Globes also honour the best in television, with the top Emmy nominees – Severance and The Pitt for the dramas, The Studio and Hacks for the comedies, and searing limited series Adolescence – receiving nominations. Actors Marlon Wayans and Skye Marshall announced the main nominees for the 83rd Golden Globes on Monday. The Globes are in year three of a revamp, and last year’s gala hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser was a hit with audiences, with more than 10 million tuning in. Glaser will return as host of the Jan 11 gala in Beverly Hills. – AFP

Reaction to the film has been limited, but broadly positive so far. – PICS FROM AVATAR