But part of it is because of the Razzies. The nominations for this year’s Razzies have been announced, and Mike Myers’ woeful mishap The Love Guru has swept the board, earning nods for Worst Screenplay, Worst Director, Worst Actor, Worst Actress, Worst Supporting Actor and Worst Movie.

But it’s not all bad news for Mike Myers, because The Happening has also been nominated plenty of times, and if it doesn’t win everything then we promise to do a dirty protest somewhere.

For all your Wall-Es and Dark Knights, 2008 was an almost universally terrible year for movies. The Incredible Hulk managed to do the impossible and actually be worse than The Hulk, Quantum Of Solace couldn’t have been any more disappointing if it was about sand, Indiana Jones 4 made us wish that that little Indian kid killed him two films ago, Cloverfield turned out to be 90 minutes of a big testicle chasing some wankers around a city and 27 Dresses was released.

Oddy enough, though, most of these films have been completely ignored by the just-announced Razzies nominations. And that’s because of three things:

1) The Love Guru

2) The Happening

3) Paris Hilton’s bewildering belief in her own talents as a movie star.

All three are awful in their own special way. The Love Guru, as well as being monumentally unfunny, was promoted with a mixture of interviews where Mike Myers came off as a self-regarding prick and editorial features which all had the headline ‘Mike Myers Is A Self-Regarding Prick’. The Happening was essentially a film about Mark Wahlberg running away from pollen. And then there’s Paris Hilton, who is Paris Hilton.

But despite the ferocious craptitude of those three movies, they aren’t the only recipients of Razzie Award nominations this year. How could they be, when Jessica Alba starred in more than one movie and Al Pacino continued his transformation into the world’s angriest Good Luck Troll? Here are this year’s Razzie Award nominations in full, courtesy of E! Online:

WORST PICTURE

• Disaster Movie
• The Happening
• The Hottie and the Nottie
• In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
• The Love Guru
• Meet the Spartans

WORST ACTOR

• Larry the Cable Guy, Witless Protection
• Eddie Murphy, Meet Dave
• Mike Myers, The Love Guru
• Al Pacino, 88 Minutes and Righteous Kill
• Mark Wahlberg, The Happening and Max Payne

WORST ACTRESS

• Jessica Alba, The Eye and The Love Guru
• The cast of The Women (Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Meg Ryan)
• Cameron Diaz, What Happens in Vegas
• Paris Hilton, The Hottie and the Nottie
• Kate Hudson, Fools’ Gold and My Best Friend’s Girl

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Uwe Boll (as himself), Uwe Boll’s Postal
• Pierce Brosnan, Mamma Mia!
• Ben Kingsley, The Love Guru and The Wackness
• Burt Reynolds, Deal and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
• Verne Troyer, The Love Guru and Uwe Boll’s Postal

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Carmen Electra, Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans
• Paris Hilton, Repo: The Genetic Opera
• Kim Kardashian, Disaster Movie
• Jenny McCarthy, Witless Protection
• Leelee Sobieski, 88 Minutes and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

WORST SCREEN COUPLE

• Uwe Boll and Any Actor, Camera or Screenplay
• Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, What Happens in Vegas
• Paris Hilton and either Christin Lakin or Joel David Moore, The Hottie and the Nottie
• Larry the Cable Guy and Jenny McCarthy, Witless Protection
• Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy, Meet Dave

WORST PREQUEL, REMAKE, RIP-OFF OR SEQUEL

• The Day the Earth Blowed Up Real Good
• Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Speed Racer
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars

WORST DIRECTOR

• Uwe Boll, 1968: Tunnel Rats, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale and Uwe Boll’s Postal
• Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans
• Tom Putnam, The Hottie and the Nottie
• Marco Schnabel, The Love Guru
• M. Night Shyamalan, The Happening

WORST SCREENPLAY

• Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans
• The Happening
• The Hottie and the Nottie
• In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
• The Love Guru

WORST CAREER ACHIEVEMENT

• Uwe Boll

We’ve checked this list several times, and we can’t help but notice that Justin Timberlake didn’t get a nomination for The Love Guru. The Razzies aren’t for another month – is it too late to ask for a recount?

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Instead, Ulrika Jonsson, Tina Malone, Michelle Heaton and Mutya all gained the most amount of nominations from their fellow housemates. Who goes? You decide. Or rather a bunch of crosseyed numbskulls who think that voting for Celebrity Big Brother evictions is a constructive recreational activity will decide. Or something.

So for the rest of the week we’ll be looking at the prospective Celebrity Big Brother evictees, starting with Mutya and Ulrika…

Mutya – We’ll admit to being a teensy bit surprised that Mutya has been placed up for Celebrity Big Brother eviction when, say, Coolio hasn’t. Of course, the message here is perfectly clear – if you want to be a shrieking, attention-seeking bellend who routinely makes cracks about beating up women, that’s fine. But if you want to be a decent-seeming popstar whose only crime appears to be displaying a keen sense of personal dignity? Ugh! Get out! Get out you disgusting witch! But maybe Mutya’s self-assurance is to blame here – after all, in that song of hers she did say “I know ezzakly who I am.” Maybe that’s why she’s been nominated for eviction from the Celebrity Big Brother house – constant mispronunciation of the word ‘exactly’. The massive bitch.

Ulrika Jonsson – This has got to sting for Ulrika Jonsson. Two weeks in the Celebrity Big Brother house, and two weeks of eviction nomination. It’s almost like society frowns on obnoxious self-righteous former ladettes with four kids by four men, isn’t it? Weird. Anyway, judging by the smattering of halfhearted cheers that Ulrika got during last week’s eviction, we would bet against her leaving the Celebrity Big Brother house on Friday. Well, we wouldn’t if it wasn’t for our suspicion that Big Brother is still going to bring Nancy Dell’Olio in soon, which means we can expect three days of extremely positive Ulrika coverage so the plot isn’t blown. Then again, Tina Malone is also up for eviction, and Big Brother would have to make Ulrika look like a baby murderer for her to look less popular in comparison, surely.

Tomorrow: Tina Malone.

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Yeah, it’s not. We got that wrong. Sorry. Although WALL-E won Best Picture at a recent awards ceremony, the nominations for next year’s Golden Globes were announced yesterday, and they seem to indicate that it’ll be another good year for dreary films about troubled people who stare into the middle distance a lot.

Golden Globes front-runners include Doubt, Frost/Nixon and Revolutionary Road. So far so miserable. But Batman got a look-in too, with one nomination for, oh, the dead chap. Joy.

Hey, you there! Do you often find yourself getting annoyed because the Oscars don’t go on for as long as you want, what with the nominations, the luncheons, the six-hour red carpet specials and the actual ceremony itself, full of smug introductions and damp-eyed acceptance speeches and the obligatory 400-song performance by shitting Enya?

No, neither do we. Neither does anyone. But, anyway here are the Golden Globes nominations, which are significant because there’s a minuscule chance that they might influence the Oscars in some barely-noticeable way! Hooray!

And the Golden Globes are going to damn well make sure they don’t screw anything up this time – not like their last strike-crippled ceremony, which involved a man sitting at a table reading out names for half an hour. So forget the fact that WALL-E was recently named as the best film of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association – this year the Golden Globes are getting SERIOUS! Only the dreariest, most quietly depressing movies are being made this year. No fun allowed, you hear?

That’s why, as yesterday’s Golden Globes nominations revealed, The Dark Knight and WALL-E were effectively pushed out of contention in favour of lots of films that only drama teachers will pretend to like. The New York Times reports:

A gloomy Hollywood on Thursday put aside a dismal economy and the threat of an actors’ strike, focusing instead on Golden Globe nominations that thrust “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Frost/Nixon” to the award season’s center stage with five each, with both nominated for best dramatic picture. “Doubt” also received five nominations.

Although WALL-E was nominated for Best Animated Feature and The Dark Knight picked up a nod for Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger – a category that also bizarrely recognises Tom Cruise’s weird little turn in Tropic Thunder – that’s about it. The big films to be named in the Golden Globes nominations were:

Revolutionary Road (Kate Winslet sobs because she’s trapped in a suburban hell)

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt sobs because he ages backwards and is a bit like Forrest Gump)

The Reader (Kate Winslet sobs because of the Holocaust and whatever)

Doubt (Philip Seymour Hoffman sobs because Meryl Streep caught him bumming a boy or something, and probably sobs about it too, we expect)

Frost/Nixon (Nobody sobs, but there are lots of heavy pauses and meaningful looks, which are almost as good)

Slumdog Millionaire (An uplifting film about… hey, did we just say ‘uplifting’? How did this get on the list? Someone’s head will roll for this, you hear? ROLL!)

The Golden Globes will be held on January 11. Please let this information affect you however you choose.

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Some of the nominations for next year’s Grammys have been announced, and British names like Robert Plant, Adele, Duffy, MIA and Radiohead are all over them. Now we’re not saying that this is because 2008 was a bad year for music, but Coldplay did get seven nominations, so we suppose in retrospect we are a bit.

And this is just the start – next year the rest of the Grammy nominations are announced, including Best Native American Music Album. Come on Coldplay! Make it eight!

You don’t need to be told that winning a Grammy is a sure sign that you’ve made it in the music industry, a sign up there alongside being chased through Japan by screaming schoolgirls and being forced to orally pleasure a sweaty middle-aged record executive for a contract.

So the Grammy nominations are a big deal. And when we say big, we mean big – so big that the actual task of even reading out all the nominees for all 110 categories has to be split up over two calender years because listening to them all in one go would probably inspire some kind of Jonestown-style mass suicide.

That’s why, yesterday, the Grammy nominations were announced, but only for the handful of categories that anyone actually cares about. And, although Lil’ Wayne led the pack with eight nominations and Jay-Z, Kanye West and Ne-Yo all managed to get six nods each, the list was surprisingly Brit-heavy.

Coldplay managed to score seven Grammy nominations, Radiohead got five, while Robert Plant was recognised for his album with Alison Krauss and comparatively new girls like Duffy, Leona Lewis, Adele and MIA all got nods too. But why so many British artists? Reuters thinks it knows why:

“They’re doing great work,” said producer Jimmy Jam, a top Grammy official. He suggested this year’s crop of British newcomers benefited from a “trickle down” from the likes of trouble-prone London neo-soul singer Amy Winehouse, who won the record, song and best new artist Grammys this year.

He’s right. After her slightly unbelievable Grammy wins last year, Amy Winehouse is still big news – but because she’s too busy trying to complete her transformation into Feeble Mumm-Ra at the moment, she’s not eligible for any awards.

In fact, it’s not hard to see that the British acts that were nominated for Grammys yesterday were only chosen because together they make a kind of composite Amy Winehouse – Leona Lewis has the broad appeal of Amy, Adele has the voice, Duffy has the vintage sound, MIA shares Amy’s love of multiculturalism, Radiohead have Amy Winehouse’s funny-looking eyes and Robert Plant has her genuinely awful hair. And what do Coldplay share with Amy Winehouse? The fact that if we hear either of their names spoken again today we’re going to hurl ourselves out of the arseing window.

But let’s not get too excited, Britain – these are just the Grammy nominations. Nobody’s guaranteed to win anything. Fingers crossed that Coldplay pick up a couple of trophies at least, though – because if their next album is going to be the ‘boo hoo Gwyneth Paltrow left me‘ album that everyone’s expecting, they probably shouldn’t worry about saving any more shelf-space.

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And cowboy awards season has started in earnest now that the nominations for this year's Academy of Country Music awards have been announced.

It looks like it'll be a good year for Kenny Chesney, who's scored double the ACM nominations than any of his competitors. That's probably life-changing news if you follow things like this, so now you can go back to whistling through your teeth and standing on your porch shooting trespassers with your shotgun in peace again.

Remember when Kenny Chesney got married to Renee Zellweger a few years ago? Back then Renee Zellweger was one of the biggest actresses in the world and Kenny Chesney was just a mostly-unknown country artist who mainly wrote songs about bumming tractors.

But how things change. Now Kenny Chesney is on top of the world, singing his songs about trying to force his tongue into the mouth of intangible abstracts and trying to marry some booze to thousands of web-fingered country music aficionados, while Renee Zellweger stars in unfunny cartoons about bees.

It helps, of course, that Kenny Chesney hasn't fallen by the wayside like some of his other country contemporaries. While they get drunk and try to molest waitresses and shoot men in the face, Kenny Chesney has stayed on the straight and narrow – and he's won plenty of awards for doing so.

And that award tally looks set to grow even more come May at the Academy of Country Music awards, because Kenny Chesney has picked up more nominations than anyone else, as the Los Angeles Times reports:

Kenny Chesney roped a field-leading 11 nominations for the 43rd Academy of Country Music Awards on Tuesday, scoring in every major category in which he was eligible and landing nearly double the total for any other performer… Chesney got multiple nods in three categories — album, single and vocal event — because he is the performer and producer of those entries. He collected three nominations in the vocal event category: two for his double entendre-laced duet with George Strait on "Shiftwork," and a third because he joined Tim McGraw as a guest on Tracy Lawrence's single "Find Out Who Your Friends Are."

Among his ACM nominations, Kenny Chesney has picked up an Entertainer Of The Year nod. That's his category of choice – if he wins this year it'll be his fourth successive win. But what makes Kenny Chesney so entertaining? Is it his flamboyant wardrobe? His songs like Dancin' For The Groceries? The fact that he's the only country performer to have his marriage to a Hollywood star annulled on the grounds of fraud?

Or is it that country music is basically the least entertaining form of music ever created and Kenny Chesney just happens to be closest? Yes, it's probably that last one.

Read more:

Chesney leads country music award nominations - LA Times 

Because this year's Oscar nominations have just been announced – and, thanks to the writers' strike, nobody even knows whether there'll even be an Oscars this year. But if the Oscars do happen, then No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood should probably get their tuxedos pressed.

And so should Atonement. Even though it's bloody Atonement.

It's been a funny awards season, this one. Thanks to the neverending writers' strike, actors have been unwilling to cross picket lines to appear on televised awards shows like the People's Choice awards and the Golden Globes, leading to embarrassing clip shows and press conferences being hastily prepared instead of the glitz you'd usually expect.

And without anywhere to smarmily bluster about what an important job they do, several movie actors have been getting so bloated on their own trapped hot air that some of them might actually explode if the Oscars are cancelled as well.

That'll be a distinct possibility unless the writers and producers cut a deal before next month's ceremony, and even then it won't give Oscars host Jon Stewart much time to get a decent show going. But don't tell the Oscars that the Oscars might be cancelled, because the Oscar nominations have just been announced and as fas as the Academy is concerned it'll be business as usual right up until the bitter, face-losing last-minute cancellation.

So let's just assume that the Oscars are happening and see which films got nominated, shall we? As you'd expect, it's a big year for No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood, with Michael Clayton emerging as the dark horse of the year. Here are the nominations for the main categories at the 2008 Oscars:

BEST PICTURE
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST ACTOR
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Jason Reitman, Juno
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Notice there's a strong skewing towards really miserable, grim-looking films? Well don't be – because Norbit, the film that did so well in yesterday's Razzies nominations, has got an Oscar nomination too! Admittedly it's just for Best Make-Up – the Oscars equivalent of Best Kept Village – but it's another stone-cold reason why the Oscars shouldn't be cancelled this year.

After all, if Norbit loses and the Oscars are cancelled, what the hell is Eddie Murphy supposed to storm out of?

Read more:

Oscars 2008: And the Nominees Are… -

That's right, the BAFTAs. And because the BAFTAs are British, it's only right that it should focus on British films. And because the only British film made in the last year was Atonement, it stands to reason that Atonement should get so many BAFTA nominations that we actually feel a little bit embarrassed for it.

Even though it's sodding Atonement, for sod's sake.

The Golden Globes were a washout this year. A bit fat stink of a washout that we feel cheapened to even think about. Not because nobody famous turned up and it was over in half an hour, though – that bit was actually quite nice – but because Atonement won Best Drama. Best Drama. Not Best Drama About A Bunch of Uptight La-Di-Da Tarquins Mimbling To Each Other And Saying "Terribly" A Lot. Best Drama.

And that was even before the BAFTA nominations got involved. This year, the BAFTAs will be one of the most high-profile award shows around thanks to the Golden Globes going down the toilet and the Oscars looking mortally wounded. And, because there isn't any writers' strike over here, there'll be no picket line to cross, meaning that a bigger haul of stars than ever before will shimmy along the red carpet to watch Jonathan Ross earn nine billion pounds a second as the host, or whatever his going rate is these days.

But they needn't bother showing up, because Atonement's going to win everything anyway. All in all, Atonement has picked up BAFTA nominations for Best Film, Best British Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Music, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Sound and Best Make-Up. If only the BAFTAs hadn't omitted the Best Generic Period Keira Knightley Role Played By Keira Knightley In A Film That Only English Teachers Like And Even Then They're Probably Pretending category then Atonement would have got the quintuple hat-trick.

Of course, Atonement isn't the only film to be nominated for a BAFTA – it just feels like it. Also up for trophies are the films that everyone else has said they like, like No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, American Gangster, and The Bourne Ultimatum, which for some reason is in the running for Best British Film, possibly because about two minutes of it are set in Waterloo station.

You'll be able to see who wins the BAFTAs when the awards are handed out on… oh, who cares. You'd probably prefer to jam an electric meat carver under you kneecap than that the BAFTAs. 

Read more:

Atonement Leads BAFTA Noms – Hollywood Reporter 

In fact, all the acts that scooped the most Brit Award nominations are just sugar-free versions of older performers. The three biggest Brit nod-getters were Mika (Freddie Mercury lite), Leona Lewis (Whitney Houston lite) and Take That (Take That lite).

But don't worry – the Brits also had something for you indie kids too. The Eagles are up for Best International Album. That's The Eagles.

The Brit Awards are traditionally the jewel in the crown of the British music industry calendar, when everyone gathers together to celebrate the best music that this grey little island can produce and then goes home mumbling that it wasn't as good as last year.

And although they're wrong – the worst the Brits ever got were whenever Ben Elton was allowed to be the host – this year looks set to be the best ever because the Osbournes are hosting! Yeah! That means danger and excitement and rock and roll, even though the Osbournes are actually a shaking, forgetful old man, the star of a Saturday teatime singing contest, some girl from a musical and a part-time rock climber. Danger!

However, it doesn't matter how dangerous the Osbournes are because the Brits nominations have just been announced and the likely winners are all so doggedly personality-free that the evening promises to be less fun than a regional barometer convention.

Don't believe us? OK – let's look at the acts that got multiple Brits nominations. There's Take That, the greying reformed boyband up for Best Group, Best Album and Best Live Act. Thought Gary Barlow was a wildchild when he was a kid? Well you should see him now that he's in his mid-thirties! There's Mika (Best British Male, Best Album, Best Breakthrough, Best Single), whose biggest ambition seems to be to write songs for gruesome hen-night parties to screech at full volume on their way to Wetherspoons in a tatty white rented limo.

Then there's Kate Nash, up for Best British Female, Best Breakthrough and Best Single, which means that hopefully she'll be able to give up her day job as a monotone Claire's Accessories Saturday girl. And then there's Leona Lewis (Best British Female, best Album, Best Breakthrough, Best Single) who somehow managed to make the UK's fastest-selling debut album ever, even though no living human has ever heard her say more than three words in a row.

Still, there are a handful of decent acts with Brits nominations, like Arcade Fire and Jamie T and PJ Harvey, so maybe the Brits won't be as completely boring as we're expecting them to be. But, let's face it they won't win. It looks a lot like the 2008 Brits will go down in history as the most grimly professional Brits ever.

Joss Stone, we've never needed you more. Start drinking now.

Read more: 

The Brits – The Nominations - Sky

The Screen Actors Guild award nominations were announced today, and Sean Penn's wilderness epic Into The Wild has come out on top, scooping four nods. And frankly we're stumped – we just can't figure out why a bunch of actors have decided that a serious, unpopular film that was directed by a serial award-winning actor about a boy reacting to the majesty of nature is the best-acted film of the year. Come on – haven't any of these actors seen Good Luck Chuck?

So far this awards season, two films have stood out more than any other – No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood, with Atonement trotting alongside as the traditional film that gets a lot of nominations because it's British and serious-looking but doesn't actually stand a chance of winning anything.

However, there's a dark horse coming up on the outside, and because it's a horse directed by Sean Penn it's almost murderously intense and compulsively unable to laugh, smile or even look as if it's ever heard the concept of humour in its life. It's Into The Wild.

Into The Wild has already scored a bunch of Critics' Choice award nominations, but now Sean Penn has been recognised by his peers. The Directors Guild? No, although he directed Into The Wild, we're talking about the peers of his passion. The Association Of Grumbling Humourless Self-Important Bastards? No, that doesn't even exist. Play sensibly. We're talking about the Screen Actors Guild.

The Screen Actors Guild has just announced its award nominations ahead of its ceremony next month, and Into The Wild has landed more than anything else, with Emile Hirsch, Hal Holbrook, Catherine Keener and the whole ensemble getting nominated for one thing or another.

Other movies and actors that have left an impression on the Screen Actors Guild include Michael Clayton (George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton), No Country For Old Men (Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and ensemble) and Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There and Elizabeth: The Golden Age).

We'll discover the winners of the Screen Actors Guild awards when its overlong, backslapping, self-congratulatory ceremony is punctuated the occasional gong on January 27.

Read more:

"Into the Wild" leads SAG film nominees – Reuters 

And – out of nowhere considering the direction that awards season seems to be going in – Atonement has scored more Golden Globe nominations than anyone else. In all, Atonement has scored seven Golden Globe nominations – among them Best Actress for Keira Knightley, Best Actor for James McAvoy and Best Director for Joe Wright. Although the competition will be harder than ever at a big awards show like the Golden Globes, Atonement is expected to win at least one trophy – either the Best Annoyingly Twittish Film About People Who Speak With Accents Like Dentists Drills or the By Christ Love Put Them Away For Once award for excessive and repeated nudity, both of which we've just made up.

In an awards season packed with all kinds of minuscule organisations trying to hurl their tuppence worth to the top of the pile, the Golden Globes are one of the more reassuringly large awards to be handed out. And they don't just concentrate on serious movies, either – Golden Globes are also handed out to TV shows and comedies, too, which means that Hugh Laurie and Ricky Gervais can get all dressed up and temporarily feel slightly more important than they have any reason to be. 

And you probably think you know all about awards season by now, don't you? You've seen how There Will Be Blood has won one award and how No Country For Old Men has won a couple of others, so you think they'll have the Oscars sewn up, don't you? Well, you're wrong because the Golden Globe nominations have been announced and they show that the British are coming, albeit the small section of the British with voices that sound like yappy little dogs discussing foie gras and fox hunting.

Atonement - the rah-rah British movie about atoning and stuff – is leading the pack when it comes to Golden Globe nominations, with seven nods, for Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay and Best Score.

Charlie Wilson's War, which we've been led to believe is a version of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip but with Tom Hanks talking about war instead of Matthew Perry implausibly imagining friends that are really himself with the letters of his name all jumbled up, has come second with five nominations. And making up the rest of the pack are all the other films that you'd expect to be making up the rest of the pack if you've been paying attention.

The Golden Globes are highly important, because some bloke who works for a company that knows about this kind of thing told Bloomberg as much:

"The golden globes are a barometer for where the critical acclaim is going, the films that are ultimately going to be considered by the academy."

See? You want a full list of Golden Globe nominations now, don't you. Can't you just wait until January 13 when the bloody things are handed out? What are you, David Duchovny or something?

Read more:

Golden Globe Nominations – Golden Globes 

But so far this awards season, something has been up. The Sean Penn-directed Into The Wild hasn't been winning any awards, with all the gongs instead either going to There Will Be Blood or No Country For Old Men. Worried that Sean Penn is losing his magical touch? Don't be – the annual Critics' Choice award nominations have been revealed and Into The Wild has smashed itself into contention, getting nods for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director, along with four others. However, it should be noted that the Critics' Choice awards also gave five nominations to Hairspray, so there's every chance that the voting panel is made up of buck-toothed idiots.

When it comes to awards, there's nothing that voters like more than performances so intense that you the think the actor is going to throw up or get a nosebleed or poo themselves at the climax of each scene they're in.

And nobody does that better that Sean Penn, a man so award-friendly that he may as well be suspended above the stage for the duration of the next Oscars while audience-members pelt him relentlessly with golden statuettes until he passes out from all the glory.

But Sean Penn hasn't starred in any films this year, so what are award voters supposed to do? Simple, they'll find whatever he has done and throw awards at that instead. That could be the reason why the French animation Persepolis – featuring the voice talents of one S. Penn – has been routinely beating the likes of Ratatouille in the awards announced so far, and it could also explain all the Critics' Choice award nominations for Into The Wild.

Up until now, awards season has been dominated by two films – There Will Be Blood, which won big at the LA Film Critics association awards, and No Country For Old Men, which has won a raft of New York Film Critics Circle and National Board Of Review awards.

That left no room for Into The Wild – a intense, soul-searching film about, um, the wild and shit – until now. The Critics' Choice awards have nominated Into The Wild for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Writer and Best Song, for a song by Pearl Jam which makes us wonder if we should perhaps ask for a recount.

Into The Wild has edged out its closest competitor teenage pregnancy comedy Juno, which received six Critics' Choice nominations. Other highly nominated movies included Atonement, Michael Clayton, No Country For Old Men and Hairspray, with five nominations apiece.

This would normally be the point where we listed all the Critics' Choice award nominations in full but if, like us, all this punishing onslaught of movie awards and nominations is making you wish that film had never been invented and that we should all just waggle coloured rags tied to sticks around for entertainment in the future, you'd probably prefer it if we just linked to them instead.

Read more:

Critics' Choice Award Nominations 

The nominations for next year's Grammy awards have just been announced and, while Kanye West just edges her for the top spot with eight nods, Amy Winehouse has score a very respectable six Grammy nominations. And what must be heartening for Amy Winehouse is that the competition is extraordinarily weak this year, especially in the Most Toothless, Most Bleary, Most Witchlike and Most Supposedly Aggressive Husband categories.

The Grammys are the highlight of every musician's calender. That's partly because there are roughly six trillion Grammy categories – so even Scooch will probably end up scoring one somewhere down the line – and partly because, well, who doesn't love five-hour smugathons made up of several toe-curl 'supergroup' jam sessions between two of Velvet Revolver and that whiny bloke from Creed?

And the nominations for next year's Grammy awards have just been announced. It's an important year for the Grammys, because it will be the 50th anniversary of the Grammys and therefore the 50th anniversary of a noticeably old millionaire plodding out on stage, launching into a burbling hour-long explanation about why home taping is killing music and then introducing Aerosmith.

So the organisers of the Grammys need to make sure that next year's show is the best yet. And Amy Winehouse is one of the leading nominees. Amy Winehouse. Best. Amy Winehouse. Best. We don't get it. Anyway, Amy Winehouse has been nominated for the album of the year, song of the year, record of the year and best new artist, along with two other nominations that won't count because they're probably for Best Dressed Assistant Sound Engineer or something.

It marks the end of an unusual year for Amy Winehouse, who's had to face near-death overdoses, fights, rehab, cancelled tours, jailed husbands and – perhaps most worryingly of all – friendships with Pete Doherty. We'd make a pithy comment about how awful it'd be to see Amy Winehouse perform at the Grammys, but actually we'd quite like to see her offer to punch in Eric Clapton's face. And so would you if you have any sense about you.

True, Amy Winehouse's tally of Grammy nominations was just topped by Kanye West, who got eight, but we all know what'll happen there anyway – Kanye West won't win anything and he'll spend the rest of his life bitching about it like a baby complaining that he got a yellow balloon and everyone else got a blue one. And plenty of other acts got Grammy nominations, too, but if we publish a list of all the nominations we'd be here until the Earth stops spinning. We're doing you a favour, really.

Actually, we'd like to retract that bit about Amy Winehouse being the new Mary J Blige if we can. It'd only take a couple of months of cold turkey for Amy Winehouse to become full of Blige's insufferable recovering-addict emotional diarrhoea. And, if anything, that'd make her worse than she is now.

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West, Winehouse Top Grammy Nominations - CNN