Perhaps it was the stripping down that made it so noticeable, but the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (composed of journalists from other countries who cover Hollywood) seemed to skew especially foreign in awarding its movie Golden Globes Sunday night.
"Atonement" and "Sweeney Todd", winners for best drama and musical/comedy, respectively, take place in London. Best dramatic actor Daniel Day-Lewis and actress Julie Christie both are British, and best musical/comedy actress Marion Cotillard, who completely embodied Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose," couldn't be more French.
Javier Bardem and Cate Blanchett, winners for supporting acting, hail from Spain and Australia, respectively. Best director Julian Schnabel is American, but his film, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," is French-language.
So, what does it all mean? Is there some sort of anti-American sentiment going on here? Hardly. Much of "our" greatest talent comes from elsewhere, and has for a long time, partly because actors from other countries tend to go to drama school.
Now post-Globes, the most exciting race for an Oscar (the nominations for which will be announced Jan. 22) is shaping up in the supporting-actress category - between Blanchett, for her gender-bending performance as Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There," and Amy Ryan, for her daring turn as the borderline-unsympathetic mother of a missing girl in "Gone Baby Gone."
The academy, like the HFPA, likes Blanchett a lot, and for good reason. But it should be noted that Broadway veteran and early awards-season favorite Ryan is an Anerican who went to drama school. Or at least to New York City's famed High School of the Performing Arts, which is close enough.
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