... and eat it too

Absorbing the Golden Globe nominations this morning, I noted a number of surprises (I've barely even heard of the movie Selma, which got three nominations, including best director), but the biggest was that Jennifer Aniston was getting a nomination for the movie Cake.

It's not that she's bad in Cake -- how would I know, as it won't be available even to most American audiences until late January. That means we won't get it here in Australia until April.

Rather, it's that Cake had its origins in a screenwriting organization where my wife used to work -- and she was there at the time it came through. So I'm feeling a little rush of pride for her right now. (Pride also being a movie represented among the 2014 Golden Globe nominations.)

The surprising thing is not that Aniston got a nomination, because one of the ways my wife mentioned Cake to me was in the context of learning it had garnered the actress some Oscar buzz. It's that at the time, I thought this movie was still off in the distance somewhere, and that the aforementioned buzz was speculative Oscar buzz for 2015. I didn't realize that Cake was descending so soon and was actually making Aniston a contender for this year's Oscars, since this was October or thereabouts and I hadn't heard of the movie other than from my wife.

But I happened to just watch the trailer last night, and indeed it does seem like an Oscar-buzzy type of performance, one where she fully eschews her former tightly controlled vanity. And as this year is not considered an astonishing year for women -- I suppose Reese Witherspoon and Julianne Moore are her primary competition, Moore for two different roles -- it's conceivable that Aniston could actually win.

I'm finding a little bit of personal validation in this nomination as well, as it's proving me to be a bit of a prognosticator.

When Sandra Bullock won her Oscar for The Blind Side back in 2009, I was suddenly possessed of the certainty that Jennifer Aniston had a post-prime Oscar win in her future as well. I don't know why I knew -- I don't even know why it occurred to me to link together these two events, one that might never happen with one that just had. Except that Aniston shared some things in common with Bullock. Both were America's sweetheart types who had legit acting chops, but both seemed mired in B-movie romantic comedy careers that threatened to consume them, and seemed to preclude any possibility of eventual award accolades. Simply put, they were both in ruts and had no clear way out.

But I knew as she got further into her 40s (she's closer now to 50, poor girl!), Jen would figure out how to leave behind the likes of The Bounty Hunter and Just Go With It and make something that gave her a shot at that little bald, golden man. And it looks like she's done it.

Funny -- Bullock was 45 (for a few more months) when she accepted her Oscar for The Blind Side, and Aniston will have just turned 46 if she accepts hers this March.

But now I'm getting waaaaay ahead of myself. I mean, I only just heard of Cake a few months ago, and now we're talking Oscars?

So today, I think I will just concentrate on being proud of my wife.