Golden Globes' most baffling picks

Jim Carrey stars in the film ' Dr Seuss' How the Grinch stole Christmas.' Photo / Supplied

If Hollywood's various awards shows made up a family, the Golden Globes would be that cousin who shows up drunk to the annual reunion, the one that the Oscars and the Emmys refer to in hushed tones as the group's "black sheep". Yeah, their opinion is a bit skewed, but darn it if they're not fun.

So, to prepare for the ceremony today, here is a look at the strangest projects to earn nominations (and sometimes even win) during this young millennium.

Nip/Tuck (2004, nominated for best TV drama; 2005, won for best TV drama)
Ryan Murphy's campy plastic surgery-centric series Nip/Tuck was perfectly good, but the fact that it beat Golden Age of TV powerhouses Deadwood, The Sopranos, 24 and Lost certainly hasn't aged well.

Atonement (2008, won best drama)
Atonement is a fine movie. It has probably the best recreation of the miracle at Dunkirk outside of, well, Dunkirk. There's a nice twist. Keira Knightly and Saoirse Ronan give soulful performances, and James McAvoy was considered by some to be at his hottest. But when was the last time you thought about it, much less watched it?

Kelsey Grammer in Boss (2012, won for best actor in a TV drama)
Boss — a show in which Frasier, erm, Kelsey Grammer plays the mayor of Chicago who is secretly suffering from a type of dementia — is one heck of a deep cut. This win certainly stands out as a head-scratcher, especially since it came during the height of Breaking Bad.

Jim Carrey in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2001, nominated for best actor in a musical/comedy)
The Hollywood Foreign Press has a particular talent for nominating its favourite actors for ... well, anything. Case in point: Jim Carrey has been nominated for his work in The Mask, Liar, Liar, The Truman Show, Man on the Moon, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Kidding. We applaud all of these. What we don't applaud is nominating him for Ron Howard's shrill, frantic, live-action adaptation of the Dr Seuss classic, which one reviewer simply called "an ugly piece of work". Anything to get the funny guy to the show, we suppose.

Mozart in the Jungle / Gael Garcia Bernal in Mozart in the Jungle (2016, won for best TV comedy/musical and best actor in a TV comedy/musical; 2017, nominated for both)
It's important to note that although these are the most baffling wins and nominations, that doesn't mean the recipients are undeserving. The show was relatively unknown to common television viewers when it and its lead actor won Globes in 2016. Unlike some on this list, however, it was actually a good show.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012, nominated for best musical/comedy)
Do you remember Salmon Fishing in the Yemen?

Mel Gibson in What Women Want (2001, nominated for best actor in a musical/comedy)
A movie in which Gibson's womanising character suddenly gets the ability to read women's minds and uses that to continuously harass a woman into dating him after she's firmly told him "no" several times.

Nine (2010, nominated for best musical/comedy)
The notoriously discerning Daniel Day-Lewis generally chooses successful projects — until Nine. Critics hated it, giving it a 39 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest of Day-Lewis' career. Audiences weren't enamoured either.