‘Boyhood,’ ‘Birdman’ receive nods for Golden Globes

NEW YORK - Revelers in Hollywood’s quickening awards season will be pushed to two sides of the dance floor in Thursday’s Golden Globes nominations: drama and comedy

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s way of dividing the movie world in half should result in some extra love for funnier films often edged out by their more serious brethren.

Expect the likes of Wes Anderson’s “Grand Budapest Hotel,” the Disney musical “Into the Woods” and Bill Murray’s “St. Vincent” to find room among this season’s favorites such as “Boyhood,” “Birdman,” “Selma” and “The Imitation Game.”

The drama-comedy separation isn’t always clean (the black-and-white yuckfest “Nebraska” somehow squeaked into comedy last year), but the Globes’s embrace of comedy (along with hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler) has often made for a livelier mix.

The 72nd annual Golden Globe Awards will be announced Thursday morning at approximately 8:20 a.m. EST. The nominations will be streamed live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on GoldenGlobes.com, with top categories also carried live by NBC’s “Today.” Kate Beckinsale, Jeremy Piven, Paula Patton and Peter Krause will be on hand to read the nominees.

For the third time in a row, the Globes telecast will be hosted by Fey and Poehler. The show will air live from the Beverly Hilton on Sunday, Jan. 11. Last year’s awards drew 20.9 million viewers, marking it the most-watched Globes since 2004.

The Hollywood Foreign Press, a collection of about 85 largely freelance journalists, is known for their occasionally curious picks and their penchant for finding reason to honor big-name celebrities. So some curveballs will likely be tossed Thursday, though their influence on the larger Oscar race will be less certain.

Thus far, Richard Linklater’s long-in-the-making coming-of-age drama “Boyhood” has emerged as the awards season favorite, taking top honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. But support is also strong for the Michael Keaton-led “Birdman” (which topped the Gotham Independent Awards), the civil rights drama “Selma,” the World War II code-breaker tale “The Imitation Game” and the Stephen Hawking biopic “The Theory of Everything.”

On Wednesday, the Screen Actors Guild - a strong predictor of the Academy Awards since its memberships overlap a lot - nominated the ensemble casts of “Birdman,” “Boyhood,” “The Imitation Game,” “The Theory of Everything” and “Grand Budapest Hotel.”

Last year, the Globes chose the eventual Academy Awards best-picture winner, “12 Years a Slave,” as its best drama. Best comedy or musical went to “American Hustle.”

AP