Award Season is upon us!

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It is the start of the New Year, and with that, there are certain things we know happen around this time. The first one is shaving off those extra pounds gained during the holiday season, when we mashed our faces into mom’s homing cooking. The second one, at least for me, is the highly anticipated award season.

For the majority of people that like and follow movies in general, this is an exciting time and not just for the entertainment factor, but for reflections of what is happening in the world as well. See, studios like to bet on two different types of movies (generally speaking, of course). The first ones are tent-pole movies: these are the big blockbusters that bring in a lot of cash, like every movie Marvel does. The second type, are what people call Oscar-bait movies: these are the ones that premiere closer to the end of the year and are usually trying to compete for that gold statue everyone knows and loves, usually identifiable by an award-winning or award-nominated cast and director.

The second type of movies is the one filling up movie theaters currently. And I am so happy for it! This is another indication that award season is upon us. The first one was last Sunday, and it is the second highest achievement for the movies that compete in it. They are the Golden Globes. If you’ve watched them, you now know who are the strongest contenders for the Oscars, as the winners are usually a strong indication of what the Oscars may bring.  None of the nominations surprised me personally, although not all the winners reflected my personal opinions of who should’ve won. For example, Rosamond Pike was phenomenal in Gone Girl, better than any of her peers, and still the globe went to Julianne Moore for Still Alice. My other surprise was How to Train your Dragon 2 for animation, which should’ve gone to BigHero 6. Don’t get me wrong, the winner is a great movie, but not better than the first Disney/Marvel animation movie, that is current, fresh and extremely entertaining. Hopefully, the Oscars will correct that.  Check the full winners list here.

The other side of award season that makes me all happy and tingly inside, are the presenters and the somewhat controversial subjects they tackle. This year’s hosts, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, were extremely funny, although they did go a little overboard on the North Korea jokes. They were good, but a little overdone. Their jokes about Bill Cosby however, were hilarious.

Presenters and winners like Jared Leto and George Clooney (Cecil B. DeMille Award) are more serious and talked about what recently happened in Paris, France and the attack on Charlie Hebdo with the simple but powerful statement “Je suis Charlie.”

Let’s see what happens on the Oscars, Sunday February 22, when the show goes live on ABC. And stay tuned tomorrow, as nominations will be revealed during the day.

For now, thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for giving us the Golden Globes.