Critics comment on Globe nominations

Opinions on key award contenders

By VARIETY STAFF

'The Reader'

'Happy-Go-Lucky'

'True Blood'

'The Office'

BEST MOTION PICTURE
DRAMA

'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'
"Lyrical, original, misshapen and deeply felt, this is one flawed beauty of a movie."
-- David Ansen, Newsweek

'Frost/Nixon'
"Director Ron Howard has turned Peter Morgan's stage success into a grabber of a movie laced with tension, stinging wit and potent human drama."
-- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

'The Reader'
"... Notable for its nice performances, its handsome photography, and its very active music. If the preceding praise sounds generic, so is the movie."
-- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

'Revolutionary Road'
"There's a sourness, a relentlessness about the movie which borders on misanthropy. In both the social and personal scenes, the conversational tone veers between idiotic pleasantries and fathomless bile, with nothing in between."
-- David Denby, the New Yorker

'Slumdog Millionaire'
"... The film world's first globalized masterpiece."
-- Joe Morgenstern, the Wall Street Journal

BEST MOTION PICTURE
MUSICAL OR COMEDY

'Burn After Reading'
"The characters are zany, the plot coils upon itself with dizzy zeal , and the roles seem like the perfect fit for the actors -- yes, even Brad Pitt, as Chad, a gum-chewing, fuzzy-headed physical fitness instructor."
-- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

'In Bruges'
"... At its best, works like 'Pulp Fiction' with Irish (and Belgian) accents, digressing into weird discourse and giving a bunch of actors the occasion to shine."
-- Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

'Happy-Go-Lucky'
"... A real pleasure, and besides being (Mike) Leigh's most buoyantly comic feature it's a marvelous showcase for Sally Hawkins."
-- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

'Mamma Mia!'
"You can have a perfectly nice time watching this spirited adaptation of the popular stage musical and, once the hangover wears off, acknowledge just how bad it is."
-- A. O. Scott, The New York Times

'Vicky Cristina Barcelona'
"(Woody) Allen does craft a fairly observant account of human behavior, so that the solemn aspects don't put a damper on the humor, or vice versa."
-- Eric Kohn, Premiere

BEST TV SERIES
DRAMA

'Dexter'
"You can feel the crackling creative current running through the new, third season."
-- Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly

'House'
"The show pays more attention to relationships we care about, hints at a sensible number of new ones that show some promise, and thus doesn't rely on obscure medical mysteries to carry the whole
dramatic burden."
-- David Hinckley, New York Daily News

'In Treatment'
"Some half-hour segments work spectacularly well and some don't. Like real life, I guess. But even the ones that don't work so well are very interesting."
-- Linda Stasi, New York Post

'Mad Men'
"This period piece about life in a midsized Madison Avenue ad agency during the early 1960s returns tonight looking and feeling even stronger, smarter and more focused than it was."
-- David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun

'True Blood'
"Gothic atmosphere, cliffhanger endings (and) Anna Paquin's knockout performance reel viewers in."
-- Brian Lowry, Variety

BEST TV SERIES
MUSICAL OR COMEDY

'30 Rock'
"Seldom has a show returned for a new season with more momentum."
-- Robert Bianco, USA Today

'Californication'
"The cast is too appealing to make 'Californication' as genuinely distasteful as it tries to be. And at the same time the writing is too broad to make it
genuinely good."
-- Ginia Bellafante, the New York Times

'Entourage'
"... As amusing as ever; and as the show matures so, ever so slightly, do the characters."
-- Nancy DeWolf Smith, the Wall Street Journal

'The Office'
"What NBC has managed to do with 'The Office' is make something true to the original while expanding on the vision and completely avoiding the dour stupidity of the current American sitcom."
-- Tim Goodman, San Francisco Chronicle

'Weeds'
"Even as the show deals with serious issues --
immigration, euthanasia -- 'Weeds' feels lighter and funnier in the new season."
-- Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette