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Golden Globes Nominations: ‘Shape of Water,’ ‘Big Little Lies’ Score Big

December 12, 2017 by  
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Guillermo Del Toro’s “The Shape of Water,” Steven Spielberg’s “The Post,” and Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” were among the big winners as nominations for the 75th Golden Globe Awards were unveiled in the wee hours on Monday morning.

“Three Billboards,” a revenge drama, “The Post,” a dramatic re-telling of the Pentagon Papers saga, and “The Shape of Water,” an off-beat story about the romance between a mute janitor and fish-like creature, earned best film and director nods, in addition to picking up nominations for the performances of several of its actors. “The Shape of Water” nabbed a leading seven nominations, while “Three Billboards” and “The Post” picked up six a piece. The other best drama nominees were Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic “Dunkirk” and Luca Guadagnino’s lyrical romance “Call Me by Your Name.”

Unlike other awards shows, the Globes separates its film honors into best drama and best musical or comedy categories. It also hands out hardware to television shows. That’s not the only distinction. The Globes are a looser, boozier affair than the more staid Oscars, with A-list stars downing flutes of Moet between victory speeches, and occasionally taking the stage in a visibly intoxicated state. Beyond slurred words, the organization has attracted attention for some head-turning choices over the years, nominating films such as “The Tourist” or “Burlesque,” that fall far short of Criterion Collection inclusion, and honoring the likes of Pia Zadora.

They are also the subject of some controversy for their insular voting body of roughly 90 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which in the past has shown an appetite for accepting lavish junkets and meals from contending films and studios. The group is comprised of international journalists, and has made efforts to clean up its ethical guidelines in recent years.

“The Disaster Artist,” a celebration of the making-of “The Room,” a famously awful exercise in moviemaking, was celebrated for its artistry. The behind-the-scenes film is one of the best comedy or musical nominees, joining “The Greatest Showman” and “I, Tonya,” biopics about P.T. Barnum and Tonya Harding, as well as “Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig’s semi-autobiographical look at growing up in Sacramento. “Get Out,” a horror hit, some what improbably rounds out the category — it was more notable for its scares than its laughs, but Universal, the studio behind the film opted to run it in the comedy category, raising some eyebrows.

On the television front, HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” a water-cooler hit about a murder in a tony Monterey enclave, was also dominant, picking up six nominations. It finds itself facing off against FX’s “Fargo” and “Feud: Bette and Joan,” as well as USA’s “The Sinner” and IFC’s “Top of the Lake: China Girl” in the best TV limited series or movie category.

Netflix’s “The Crown” and “Stranger Things” will duke it out with Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” HBO”s “Game of Thrones,” and NBC’s “This is Us” for the best TV drama Golden Globe. In the best comedy category, ABC’s “Black-ish,” Showtime’s “SMILF,” and NBC’s “Will Grace” will square off against two buzzy programs from the world of streaming — Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and Netflix’s “Master of None.”

This year’s awards are being unveiled at a tumultuous time in Hollywood history. Bombshell reports about Harvey Weinstein’s decades of alleged sexual harassment and abuse have widened to ensnare other industry figures. Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner, Dustin Hoffman, and Matt Lauer are just a few of the major media and entertainment personalities who are now facing accusations of misconduct. The results of the fallout were evident on Monday. The Weinstein Company, which used to dominate awards shows with its stable of tony dramas and comedies, was completely shut out of the Globes, with “Wind River,” its well-received crime drama, failing to pick up any nominations. Jeffrey Tambor, who previously was honored for his work as a transgender professor in “Transparent,” also failed to pick up a nomination after he was accused of harassment. Tambor’s future with the series is unclear.

Globes voters didn’t entirely shut out industry figures who have become embroiled in the ever-widening scandal. Despite facing allegations of inappropriate behavior towards a female co-star in an Australian stage production, on the set of King Lear two years ago, Rush picked up a nomination for best actor in a TV limited series for “Genius.” He has denied the claims and sued an Australian tabloid for defamation.

Christopher Plummer wasn’t accused of any misdeeds, but the celebrated thespian owes his nod to the harassment scandal. Plummer was a last-minute stand-in for Kevin Spacey, re-shooting his scenes as J. Paul Getty in “All the Money in the World.” He earned a best supporting actor nod.

Ridley Scott, who made the decision to scrub Spacey from the film after allegations accusing the actor of unwanted groping of several men surfaced, was honored with a best director nomination. It was unclear if the film, which is still undergoing final editing, would be able to be screened for Globes voters. Scott’s competition includes Spielberg, Del Toro, Nolan, and McDonagh. Guadagnino was snubbed for his work on “Call Me By Your Name.” It was also a bad morning for female directors with Gerwig and Dee Rees (“Mudbound”) failing to make the cut despite earning sterling reviews for their latest films.

Other notable omissions include Amazon’s “The Big Sick,” a surprise indie hit, and HBO’s “Veep,” the scathing political satire. Both were shut out by Globes voters.

Daniel Day-Lewis made headlines last summer by announcing his retirement from acting. Globes voters were able to honor the mercurial performer for his last star turn, handing him a best actor in a drama nomination for his work as a brooding designer in “The Phantom Thread.” Day-Lewis’ competition includes veterans Tom Hanks (“The Post”), Gary Oldman (“Darkest Hour”), and Denzel Washington (“Roman J. Israel, Esq.”), as well as Timothée Chalamet, a 21-year old newcomer who earned raves as a love-sick teen in “Call Me by Your Name.”

Meryl Streep picked up her 31st nomination playing Katharine Graham, the Washington Post publisher who risked the future of her company by publishing classified documents about the history of the Vietnam War. Last year, Streep was honored with a lifetime achievement statue by the Globes, and used her speech to issue a blistering condemnation of President Trump and a call to arms for a free press. This year, she is nominated alongside Jessica Chastain (“Molly’s Game”), Sally Hawkins, (“The Shape of Water”), Frances McDormand (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), and Michelle Williams (“All the Money in the World”).

Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, who starred in “Big Little Lies,” picked up best actress in a TV limited series or movie nominations, along with Jessica Biel (“The Sinner”),Jessica Lange, (“Feud: Bette and Joan”), and Susan Sarandon (“Feud: Bette and Joan”). It’s a sign of the blurring of boundaries between the big and small screen. All five actresses are best known for the work in movies, but television has been offering meatier parts of late.

The same kind of prestige was evident in the best actor in a TV limited series or movie category. Two time Oscar winner Robert De Niro scored a nod for playing disgraced financier Bernie Madoff in HBO’s “The Wizard of Lies,” Academy Award winner Rush was recognized for playing Albert Einstein in the National Geographic Channel’s “Genius,” and two-time Oscar nominee Jude Law picked up a nomination for playing a radical pontiff in HBO’s “The Young Pope.” Kyle MacLachlan (“Twin Peaks”) and Ewan McGregor (“Fargo”) were also nominated.

Hugh Jackman scored a best actor in a musical or comedy nod for his singing and dancing work as circus impresario P.T. Barnum in “The Greatest Showman.” He faces off against tween heartthrob Ansel Elgort as a getaway driver in “Baby Driver,” Steve Carell’s turn as sexist tennis champ Bobby Riggs in “Battle of the Sexes,” James Franco’s work as a delusional director in “The Disaster Artist,” and Daniel Kaluuya’s performance as a houseguest in for a world of hurt in “Get Out.”

The actress in a movie comedy awards will be a battle between Judi Dench (“Victoria Abdul”), Margot Robbie (“I, Tonya”), Saoirse Ronan (“Lady Bird”), Emma Stone (“Battle of the Sexes”), and Helen Mirren (“The Leisure Seeker”).

Family film hits “The Boss Baby” and “Coco” scored best animated film Golden Globes nominations. They will face off against “Ferdinand,” a yet-to-be released animated film, and two adult skewing films “The Breadwinner” and “Loving Vincent.” “The LEGO Batman Movie” and “Despicable Me 3,” two of the year’s biggest animated hits, were shut out.

Plummer will face off in the supporting actor category against Willem Dafoe (“The Florida Project”), Armie Hammer (“Call Me by Your Name”), Richard Jenkins (“The Shape of Water”), and Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”). The supporting actress category consists of Mary J. Blige (“Mudbound”), Hong Chau (“Downsizing”), Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”), Laurie Metcalf (“Lady Bird”), and Octavia Spencer (“The Shape of Water”).

With Tambor sitting out this edition, the best TV comedy acting contenders consists of Aziz Ansari (“Master of None”), Anthony Anderson (“Blackish”), Eric McCormack (“Will Grace”), Kevin Bacon (“I Love Dick”), and William H. Macy (“Shameless”). The actress in a best TV comedy category leaned in on newcomers. Alison Brie (“Glow”), Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), and Frankie Shaw (“SMILF”) were all recognized for their work in their shows’ inaugural seasons. Issa Rae (“Insecure”) and Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”) are the relative veterans with two seasons of their programs under their belts.

Prestige television has largely migrated to streaming platforms and cable, but broadcast did score some important awards real estate. Sterling K. Brown was nominated for best actor in a TV drama for “This Is Us,” the sudsy NBC hit, and Freddie Highmore, earned a nod for his work as a medical genius in “The Good Doctor,” the ABC ratings breakout. They were recognized alongside Bob Odenkirk (“Better Call Saul”) and Liev Schreiber (“Ray Donovan”), as well as Jason Bateman who shook up his comedic image as a money launderer in “Ozark.”

Best actress in a TV series, drama contenders include Claire Foy for her turn as Queen Elizabeth in “The Crown,” Elizabeth Moss for her work as a member of a dystopian society in “The Handmaid’s Tale,’ Caitriona Balfe for her performance as a time traveler in “Outlander,” and Maggie Gyllenhaal for headlining “The Deuce” as a prostitute with bigger ambitions. Katherine Langford, the star of the controversial teen suicide drama “13 Reasons Why,” rounded out the category.

Globe winners aren’t always predictive of future Oscars glory. Last year, the organization gave its top musical/comedy prize to “La La Land” and its best drama statue to “Moonlight,” which went on to pick up the Academy Award for Best Picture. However, it failed to recognize the two previous Best Picture Oscar winners, “Spotlight” and “Birdman.”

The Globes will be televised by NBC on Sunday, January 7, 2018. Seth Meyers will host the broadcast, taking the reins from his fellow late night TV staple Jimmy Fallon, who emceed last year.

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Why North Korea’s nuclear test is still producing aftershocks

December 12, 2017 by  
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North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed a picture of Kim Jong-Un inspecting the purported nuclear warheadImage copyright
Rodong Sinmun

Image caption

North Korea insists on its right to pursue nuclear tests

North Korea’s nuclear test in September didn’t just generate diplomatic shockwaves but also a 6.3 magnitude earthquake.

Aftershocks have continued ever since, and on Saturday the US Geological Survey said it had detected two more, sparking significant debate about what might be going on underground.

What happened during the nuclear test?

On 3 September, North Korea tested its most powerful nuclear bomb to date at its Punggye-ri test site in the mountains in its northwest.

Pyongyang claimed it was a hydrogen bomb, which would have made it a device many times more powerful than an atomic bomb.

Experts have expressed concerns the explosion might have been so powerful it could destabilise the surrounding mountains.

Image copyright
Reuters

Image caption

All of the tests have been conducted underground at the Punggye-ri site in the north-east

  • What did N Korea’s nuclear tests achieve?
  • What missiles does North Korea have?

Why are aftershocks still happening?

According to the USGS, last weekend’s tremors were “relaxation events”. They measured a magnitude of 2.9 and 2.4.

“When you have a large nuclear test, it moves the earth’s crust around the area, and it takes a while for it to fully subside. We’ve had a few of them since the sixth nuclear test,” an official told Reuters.

The “movement of the earth’s crust” is akin to the very definition of an earthquake and scientists say it is only to be expected in the weeks and months after an explosion of that magnitude.

“These aftershocks for a 6.3 magnitude nuclear test are not very surprising,” Dr Jascha Polet, seismologist and professor of geophysics at California State Polytechnic University, told the BBC.

After any tremor of that size, aftershocks with declining magnitude are common, as the rock moves around and releases stress.

The area around the quake site “experiences deformation, and this creates areas of increased and decreased stress, which affects the distribution of aftershocks,” Ms Polet said.

“The fact that the source of the earthquake is an explosion doesn’t change how we expect the energy to redistribute,” geophysicist and disaster researcher Mika McKinnon, told the BBC.

But research on explosions of a similar magnitude as the North Korea nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site in the US where over decades nuclear tests were carried out, has found that the aftershocks of these events were fewer in number and lower in magnitude.

So each location is unique.

Can tremors destroy the test site?

One of the speculations after the September test was that it would damage the tunnel system North Korea has dug into the mountains at its test site.

“The more energy you put into an area, the more unstable it’s going to get,” Mika McKinnon explained.

“The more tests are happening, the more energy there is, the more redistribution of stress and the more rocks will be breaking.”

There have been some indications of individual tunnel collapses, she explained. “Seismic signals that look more like rock fall than anything else. That will happen more and more.”

But, she adds, there is no way of really knowing whether the entire tunnel system will collapse as this is an engineering problem far more than a scientific one.

It is unclear whether this process already has rendered the current test site unusable but North Korea has hinted its next nuclear test could be above ground.

Could the tremors cause a volcanic eruption?

Near the Punggye-ri test site is the active volcano of Mount Paektu, a mountain considered holy in North Korea.

Image copyright
AFP

Image caption

A cheerful Kim Jong-un at the top of Mount Paektu

“The seismic waves are hitting the volcano and hitting the magma beneath the volcano,” Ms McKinnon explained. But she says it is “unlikely that any of this seismic energy would be sufficient to trigger an eruption”.

The volcano last erupted in 1903, but the latest underground nuclear test sparked concern the tremors might trigger another eruption. This has been a point of debate, but there is little data to support this.

A study published in Nature last year predicted that the seismic waves of a hypothetical nuclear test at magnitude 7.0 would produce “stress changes” that were not insignificant.

But, as Ms Polet points out, “little is known about what processes can and cannot trigger volcanic eruptions” and there appears to be no documented correlation between the Nevada explosions and activity in nearby volcanic areas, such as Timber Mountain and Long Valley Caldera.

There has also been no activity recorded as a result of nuclear tests conducted near the seismically active Aleutian Islands.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un still seems to trust the holy mountain.

According to Reuters, official North Korean media have reported he scaled the volcano on Saturday together with several senior officials to “emphasise his military vision”.

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