The Chosen Ones

Up in the Air leads Golden Globes nominations with six nods, followed by musical Nine with five; Bullock, Streep and Damon each earn two nods

Film drama UP in the Air soared away with six Golden Globe nominations, more than any film, while Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep and Matt Damon each earned two nominations for the major awards show.

Up in the Air, starring George Clooney took home nominations for best film drama and for Clooney as best actor. Jason Reitman grabbed a nod for director and best screenplay with co-writer Sheldon Turner.

Close behind was Nine, about the life and loves of an Italian film director, with five nominations, including best musical or comedy. Its stars, Daniel Day-Lewis and Marion Cotillard, received nods for actor and actress in a musical or comedy, respectively. Penelope Cruz landed in the supporting actress group, and Nine received one nod for best song.

For her part, Streep will compete again

Bullock scored nominations for best dramatic actress for football film The Blind Side and actress in a musical or comedy with relationship movie The Proposal.

st herself for best actress in a musical or comedy with two movies, culinary movie Julie & Julia and relationship film It’s Complicated.

Matt Damon also received two nominations, one for best actor in a musical or comedy for The Informant! and a second for supporting actor with Invictus.

The Golden Globes, given out on January 17 by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, are among the most-watched awards and a key indicator of which movies will compete for the world’s top film honors, the Oscars, in March.

Among other movies to watch in the weeks ahead will be science-fiction adventure Avatar, which earned four Golden Globe nominations, including best drama, best director for James Cameron and original song and movie score.

Quentin Tarantino’s World War Two fantasy, Inglourious Basterds also earned four nods: drama, director, screenplay for Tarantino and supporting actor for Christoph Waltz.

Rounding out the best film drama nominees were Iraq war movie The Hurt Locker and urban drama Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, which each earned three nominations.

Precious landed newcomer Gabourey Sidibe in the category for best actress and Mo’Nique in the supporting actress group. The movie’s director, Lee Daniels, failed to earn a nod in that category, but was nonetheless excited. “We (initially) expected to go straight to DVD, so anything beyond that is great,” he said.

Joining Nine in the race for best movie musical or comedy were Julie & Julia, box office sensation The Hangover and indie hit (500) Days of Summer, which claimed a best actor in a comedy nod for its star, Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Competing against Clooney for best drama actor are Jeff Bridges playing a country singer in Crazy Heart, Colin Firth as a grieving man in A Single Man, Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in Invictus and Tobey Maguire in Brothers.

In the group for best actor in a comedy or musical, Gordon-Levitt and Day-Lewis will face competition from Matt Damon in The Informant!, Robert Downey Jr. for Sherlock Holmes, and Michael Stuhlberg for A Serious Man.

Along with Bullock and Sidibe, best dramatic actress nods went to Helen Mirren for The Last Station, Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria and Carey Mulligan with An Education. Rounding out the list of nominees for best actress in a musical or comedy was Julia Roberts in Duplicity.

Feast or famine for nominees

Not everyone was laughing as the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. tossed multiple nominations to a lucky few while other awards hopefuls went hungry.

The biggest beneficiary of the HFPA’s largesse was Sandra Bullock, who will have to brace herself for two envelope openings since she received two nominations — for drama actress for playing a benevolent suburban mom in The Blind Side and for comedy actress for her role as a hard-driving exec who finds herself in an engagement of convenience in The Proposal.

Perennial favourite Meryl Streep picked up two comedy actress noms, for Julie & Julia and It’s Complicated.

Saoirse Ronan, the 15-year-old actress who recounts her murder from a heavenly perch in The Lovely Bones, failed to win over the HFPA. Similarly, Abbie Cornish, who has been nominated for a British Independent Film Award for her performance as John Keats’ muse in Bright Star, also was among the missing.

And on the comedy side, all that love lavished on Streep and Bullock may have left Zooey Deschanel without a chair when the music stopped — even though her co-star in (500) Days of Summer, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, earned himself a nomination as best comedy actor.

Lee Daniels, the director of a best drama nominated film didn’t make it into the directing circle. None of the directors of the comedy/musical nominees made the grade, with the biggest omission Nine’s Rob Marshall, since his Italian-flavored musical sung its way to five nominations.

Clint Eastwood faced the opposite problem: A Globes golden boy, he was nominated for directing Invictus, for which Morgan Freeman and Damon got their acting mentions, but his politically minded sports drama wasn’t accorded a best drama slot.

And then there’s the case of Alec Baldwin. With two wins under his belt, he was widely expected to pick up a supporting film actor nomination for Complicated. Instead, he got yet another nomination for 30 Rock. Good thing he’s already lined up that gig as co-host of the Oscars.