Golden Globes: Actor in a Supporting Role, Movie

The second in the series of Golden Globes picks (here's the first), today I'll look at Actor in a Supporting Role.

The nominees are David Carradine for Kill Bill Vol. 2, Thomas Haden Church for Sideways, Jamie Foxx for Collateral, Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby and Clive Owen in Closer.

David Carradine? Really? Kwai Chang? Interesting choice - and a fun film, I don't deny - but I didn't see this as an award winning performance. We'll get to Uma later.

Jamie Foxx had an incredible year, but he's a stronger candidate for Best Actor in Ray. Anyway, as Entertainment Weekly said, "though what, exactly, makes [his role in Collateral] anything but a lead performace is a question that only the movie gods and Tom Cruise's publicist know the answer to."

Freeman goes in the third slot for two rather superficial reasons: 1) Million Dollar Baby is still only in limited release (we won't get it here for another two weeks) and thus isn't generating the press that Closer et al. get and 2) the last two on the list are just that good. And I like Morgan even in stinkers like Dreamcatcher. OK, maybe not Dreamcatcher - how about Outbreak?

Once again, we're down to the last two: Thomas Haden Church and Clive Owen. Personally (since that's all this is, really), I want Church to win it. I loved his Jack. As the wife pointed out, the only time he's straight up with Miles is in the restaurant towards the end of the movie when he tells him (paraphrasing here) "Miles, you know literature, books, wine.... But you don't know my plight."

On the other hand, Owen is an accomplished stage actor who played Jude Law's character in the stage version of Closer. He was supposed to break out with Croupier, but it didn't turn into that mid-range blockbuster as expected. All the Oscar buzz around the film and the weight costars of Julia Roberts and Jude Law should carry Owen to the win.