Roeper on the Golden Globes: Stallone a worthy contender, but not Pacino

Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!

Nearly 40 years after Sylvester Stallone received a Golden Globe nomination for best actor for his portrayal of the title character in “Rocky,” he was nominated for best supporting actor for once again reprising the Italian Stallion for “Creed.”

Well done, Hollywood Foreign Press.

Kudos also the HFPA for recognizing “Room” and Brie Larson’s transcendent lead performance; “The Big Short” and actors Steve Carell and Christian Bale; “Mad Max: Fury Road” as a best picture nominee; and on the TV side, Bob Odenkirk and Aziz Ansari getting nods for “Better Call Saul” and “Master of None,” respectively.

As for the head-scratchers: Nobody loves Al Pacino more than this guy, but a best actor nomination for the entertaining but lightweight and schmaltzy “Danny Collins”? That’s a stretch.

Then there were the nominees for best motion picture, comedy or musical:

“The Big Short,” “Joy,” “The Martian,” “Spy” and “Trainwreck.”

Ah, who can forget that amazing musical number in “Spy”? I’m still humming that tune.

All right, all right: it does say comedy OR musical. It just so happens all five Golden Globe nominees this year are comedies.

Well. Not really.

The mindset of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is skewed enough that the sci-fi drama “The Martian” was considered a comedy, which isn’t just incorrect — it’s stupid.

To be sure, “The Martian” contained moments of levity, especially within Matt Damon’s serio-comic monologues as he tried to survive on Mars while trying to communicate with NASA back home. But calling “The Martian” a comedy makes about as much sense as saying “Trainwreck” is a drama because Amy Schumer’s character experiences some heartbreak and a family tragedy.

In the meantime, two terrific dramatic films that could conceivably qualify as musicals — “Love and Mercy” and “Straight Outta Compton” — got no love.

So it goes with the Golden Globes, the bridesmaid to the Oscars and the now firmly established Second Most Important award an actor or filmmaker can receive — even though this stuff is decided by about 90 entertainment journalists, some with more impressive credentials than others.

In the best drama category, “Carol,” “Room,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “The Revenant” and “Spotlight” were nominated, but that meant there was no room for “Bridge of Spies” or “Sicario,” two four-star dramas (in this critic’s opinion).

In the best actress in a drama category, the nominees included Cate Blanchett for “Carol,” Brie Larson for “Room,” Rooney Mara for “Carol,” Saoirse Ronan for “Brooklyn” and Alicia Vikander for “The Danish Girl.” I know. You’ve seen maybe one of those movies. Here’s hoping you get to the others.

The actors nominated in the Drama category:

• Bryan Cranston, “Trumbo”• Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Revenant”

• Michael Fassbender, “Steve Jobs”

• Eddie Redmayne, “The Danish Girl”

• Will Smith, “Concussion”

A strong list, but I’m a little surprised the HFPA didn’t make room for Michael Caine in “Youth.”For best actress in a motion picture, comedy, the nominees were Jennifer Lawrence, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer, Maggie Smith and Lily Tomlin.This is where I’m in favor of the split categories. McCarthy and Schumer have virtually no chance of winning an Oscar nomination for best actress, but at least they’ll always have the Globes.In addition to the aforementioned Mr. Pacino, Christian Bale (“The Big Short”), Steve Carell (“The Big Short”), Mark Ruffalo (“Infinitely Polar Bear”) and Matt Damon (“The Martian”) received nods for best actor in a motion picture, comedy.I suppose one could call the 1970s period piece “Infinitely Polar Bear” a dark comedy, but Ruffalo plays a deeply troubled manic-depressive father who is institutionalized when he’s incapable of taking care of his family or himself. Let the laughs abound.And as much as I like Matt Damon, if he wins here, it’ll be quite an acting feat for him to keep a straight face during his acceptance speech.