SCOTT SIMON, host:
Tomorrow night, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association hands out Golden Globes for the best TV shows, movies, and actors. Then the handicapping for the Oscars really begins. The Golden Globes are considered the best predictor for who will win an Academy Award, but there could also still be some surprises next month. Our film critic, Desson Thomson, joins us in our studios. Desson, thanks so much for being with us.
Mr. DESSON THOMSON (Film Critic): Great to be here.
SIMON: What do you look to happen at the awards?
Mr. THOMSON: I tell you what I enjoy at the Globes is the speeches because somehow they are - they seem to be a lot of giddier than the ones at the Oscars. The Oscars, everyone has to be a bit more on their P's and Q's.
SIMON: Is that because they're considered warm up, as opposed to the Oscars?
Mr. THOMSON: Yeah, they're considered warm up. And it's much more of a love-in(ph) because all of the critics who vote, they sort of wine and dine the people that are nominated. So, it's a much more strange and incestuous kind of gathering, in a good way.
SIMON: I gather from reading the reviews, I don't know as how anybody is going to knock off "Slumdog Millionaire".
Mr. THOMSON: I tell you. I really feel there's a groundswell there.
SIMON: Which is a film set in India made by a Scottish director?
Mr. THOMSON: Yeah. Well, how else would we have it?
SIMON: And that's the story of America.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. THOMSON: It's a very good film, and it's a very globally good film, and it's the one to beat.
(Soundbite of movie "Slumdog Millionaire")
Mr. ANIL KAPOOR: (As Prem Kumar) In Alexander Dumas book, "The Three Musketeers," two of the musketeers are called Athos and Porthos. What was the name of the third musketeer?
SIMON: It is the Foreign Press Association that votes for it, right?
Mr. THOMSON: Yeah.
SIMON: Does this mean people like you, God forbid?
Mr. THOMSON: No, worse than me.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: Oh, well. OK. Please...
Mr. THOMSON: No, no. There's people...
SIMON: What kind of lowlifes you have.
Mr. THOMSON: They're foreign critics from all over the world. So you might get a Hungarian critic who covers Hollywood, living in L.A., who suddenly decides that "Slumdog Millionaire" is the best picture of the year, and he actually will indirectly influence Hollywood. There are members of this sort of strange boardroom.
SIMON: In the Golden Globes, nominated films and actors get funneled into some categories that I think, it's safe to say, are peculiar to the Golden Globes.
Mr. THOMSON: Correct.
SIMON: I mean, for many critics, "Wall-E" was a surpassingly good film that happened to be done as an animation.
(Soundbite of movie "Wall-E")
Mr. THOMSON: And so therefore transcendent. And now it's nominated only as a best animated feature film for the Globes. It's a good question. It's good and it's bad, isn't it? Because if you get all these people who are nominated for a comic role, let's say, or a good animation film, it's brings more attention to them, but does it put them in a category elsewhere when they should have been considered best picture? I think that we, as humans, think that comedy, musicals, and animation is not as important and prestigious as straight drama. And why is that? It shouldn't really be that way.
SIMON: What actors, do you think, are going to walk away with Golden Globes?
Mr. THOMSON: I think they're going to give Sean Penn the award for "Milk."
(Soundbite of movie "Milk")
Mr. SEAN PENN: (As Harvey Milk) First order of business to come out of this office is a citywide gay rights ordinance just like the one that Anita shut down in Dayton County. What do you think, Lotus Blossom?
Mr. THOMSON: Unfortunately, for a very good film, that's the only nomination that is in the Globes - for best actor. It should have been for best picture. So I think on that strength alone, they'd give it to him. It's also that and Mickey Rourke's performance as "The Wrestler" - those are the two ones to beat.
SIMON: But doesn't Hollywood find it irresistible to take someone who is considered to be washed up and forgotten about, if I may put it that way, Mickey Rourke. Because after all, a lot of people in Hollywood think that could be them someday.
Mr. THOMSON: And also the redemption story is about the hottest ticket in town in terms of plotlines.
SIMON: Yeah.
Mr. THOMSON: So - and he deserves it. It's a really great performance.
(Soundbite of movie "The Wrestler")
Mr. MICKEY ROURKE: (As Randy "The Ram" Robinson) I'm the one who is supposed to make everything OK for everybody. It just didn't work out like that. And I left.
Mr. THOMSON: And it really is a story about someone who was washed up professionally and coming back, just like the way John Travolta came back with "Pulp Fiction." People love comebacks. Who doesn't? You know, we all hope to get one of those at the end of our lives if nothing else works out.
SIMON: Our film critic, Desson Thomson, thanks so much for being with us.
Mr. THOMSON: And thank you.