& "The Globes are just like the Oscars, except without all that...esteem," Ricky Gervais quipped while hosting the Globes with typical-Gervais dryness.

& No matter its prestige, the Golden Globes kick-off each year's award season, bring insight into Oscar speculation and are significantly easier to sit through than the stilted Academy Awards. Where else will censors scramble against Meryl Streep or George Clooney thanking Michael Fassbender for his full-frontal nudity?

& The list of the 2012 Academy Award nominees, announced Tuesday, did little to shake the premise that the Golden Globes are accurate predictors of Oscar contenders. True, neither of the past two years' Best Picture Oscars ("The King's Speech" and "The Hurt Locker") won their Golden Globe counterpart, but Best Actor and Best Actress winners have lined up over the last five years, and the Golden Globes generally narrow the field.

& Barring a major upset, then, it's safe to say that the "winner" and conversational centerpiece of the Feb. 26 ceremony will be either "The Artist," "The Decendants" or "Hugo."

& "The Artist" won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy and received 10 Oscar nominations, and "The Descendants" won the Golden Globe for Best Drama and garnered a respectable five Oscar nominations. Martin Scorsese won the Golden Globe Best Director for "Hugo," which swept the Oscar nominations with 11 nods.

& Compared to the uncertainty of the last few years, this is a win-win-win situation for movie lovers: Two artistic and ambitious tributes to cinema and a skillfully eloquent film from Nebraska native Alexander Payne (with a stunning Hawaiian soundtrack unfortunately unqualified for any awards). Those still bitter that the spectacle-laden "Avatar" was even a contender two years ago should take note that it's a black-and-white, silent French film that appears to lead the pack this year. Co-star Berenice Bejo has said that she and writer-director, Michel Hazanavicius, were so convinced "The Artist" wouldn't even see a United States release that they planned to send DVDs to the American cast and crew so they'd have a chance to see it.

& Gripers need not fear, however, because there were a surprising number of snubs and perplexing decisions. "Melancholia," a beautiful film that won The National Society of Film Critic's Best Film prize and Best Actress for Kristen Dunst, was completely overlooked. Elizabeth Olsen, with a pitch-perfect debut in the creepy "Martha Marcy May Marlene" is missing as well, leaving us with a frustratingly out-of-touch Best Actress list. "Drive," deservingly one of the most talked about films of 2011, only received a nod for "Best Sound Editing." Its Best Picture prospects were shaky at best, but Ryan Gosling no doubt earned a place on the Best Actor list for his role as the quietest psychopath in cinema.

& The Academy can't please everyone, of course, but this year's sub-par additions add insult to oversight. "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," with a mere 47 percent rating on RottonTomatoes.com, received a completely unsuspected Best Picture nomination, as well as a Best Supporting Actor nod for Max von Sydow. Albert Brooks, excellent in his supporting role in "Drive," tweeted in response: "I got ROBBED. I don't mean the Oscars, I mean literally. My pants and shoes have been stolen." It's a relatively gracious concession, given that even Jonah Hill made the Supporting Actor cut.

& Previous years have made us accustomed to divisive showdowns, like big budget "Avatar" versus the controversial realism of "The Hurt Locker" or whether "The Social Network" merits cultural significance.

& This year the popular upset pick seems to be "The Tree of Life" to win Best Picture, a challenging but undoubtedly ambitious film that's received high praise, along with its share of confusion. The most undeserving Best Director win would be Woody Allen, and even then "Midnight in Paris" is charming and often fantastic, even as it fails to reach Allen's full potential.

& Although the omission of Golden Globe winner "The Adventures of Tintin" on the Oscar list is surprising, the Academy is right to hint that its CGI "realism" hasn't quite caught up with cinematic standards.

& Without a Pixar contender for the first time in recent memory, we're left with an unexciting battle between "Rango" and "Puss in Boots" in the category Best Animated Feature.

& Viewers are left with few chances at surprise this time around, but in this case it's due to an admirably uncontroversial lineup: 2011 was simply a good year for movies. If anything, it supports the idea that the Golden Globes may be rising in relevance and entertainment standards. Gervais may be overstaying his sardonic appeal by hosting three years in a row, but he's a welcome counterpart to the Oscar's predictable formalities.

& cameronmount@dailynebraskan.com

&