The State of Oscar. 120819. ('Twas The Night Before "Christ, Who Are These People?")

This is what is so tricky about this business of writing about the status of awards races, all of which lead to Oscar, which is ultimately the only thing that truly matters. I promise, no one whose intro graph includes “Golden Globe Winner” would not prefer it say “Oscar Winner.” Not one. Not even a little.

Yes, they are happy to have something and not nothing. But Oscar is, in fact, an award given to you by 9,000 or so people out of the 40,000 who work in your field of endeavor. And The Golden Globes are given out by 80something people, the vast majority of whom are low-profile or semi-retired journalists for international outlets and are based in Los Angeles. Oscar tries – and sometimes fails – to maintain decorum. The Globes tries to maintain their per diem and first-class travel and singular access to movie stars and filmmakers.

But insulting the iffy group that makes up the HFPA is not the challenging part.

It is that the pool of talent being in any way considered for awards – all n…