Golden Globe Nominations Due Thursday

This is the season when small films have big hopes. Many filmgoers probably haven’t heard of movies like “Before Night Falls,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Chocolat,” “You Can Count on Me,” “Nurse Betty” or “Quills,” but that could all change Thursday. On that morning, even before the rooster crows, Kelsey Grammer and other stars will step before the microphones at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills to announce this year’s list of Golden Globe award nominees. In a year where there are no clear front-runners for the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes could provide a boost for any number of smaller movies. The nominations, which are conferred by members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., will be telecast live on all three major network morning shows as well as CNN, E! Entertainment and various Los Angeles-area TV stations. As for bigger-budget movies, the favorites this year include “Erin Brockovich,” “Cast Away,” “Gladiator,” “All the Pretty Horses,” “Finding Forrester” and “Thirteen Days.” As for individual performances, the general consensus is that megastar Julia Roberts will grab a nomination for her performance as a smart-mouthed, single mom who takes on a huge conglomerate that’s polluting a small town’s water supply in “Erin Brockovich.” And one can never rule out Tom Hanks, who this year plays a businessman who becomes stranded on a deserted island in “Cast Away,” or Russell Crowe, who dominates the screen in the Roman spectacle “Gladiator.” Perhaps the sentimental favorite this year is Sean Connery in “Finding Forrester,” and Ellen Burstyn’s performance in “Requiem for a Dream” has been receiving high praise for weeks. But there could be some relative unknowns mixed in with this year’s nominees. Will it be Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who received the National Board of Review’s best actor award for his mesmerizing performance as Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas in Julian Schnabel’s “Before Night Falls”? Or could it be the dynamic tandem performances by Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo as sister and brother who reunite, only to face life’s struggles, in Kenneth Lonergan’s “You Can Count on Me”? Then again, it might be teenage newcomer Jamie Bell, who lifted spirits everywhere as a youthful ballet dancer in Stephen Daldry’s “Billy Elliot.” Unlike the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes confer statuettes on comedy and musicals as well as drama, so don’t be surprised if Mel Gibson gets a nod for “What Women Want” or Jim Carrey (again!) grabs the spotlight for “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

N.W.A Reunion on Hold, but Concert Hits DVD

Watch this week to see the members of N.W.A together again--but only on television screens. Surviving members of the seminal rap group that created much of the lexicon of gangsta rap with their “Straight Outta Compton” in 1989 had tantalized fans earlier this year with talk of reuniting for a studio album and subsequent tour. That buzz continued to build when N.W.A alumni Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and MC Ren (along with Snoop Dogg, filling in for the late Eazy-E) performed in March on the “Farmclub.com” television show on the USA network and then assembled for brief sets during Dre’s all-star Up in Smoke tour. On Tuesday, “Up in Smoke: The Concert Film” hits stores on DVD and VHS, but the talk of a new album and tour is now on rewind. Dre told MTV that some studio sessions have gone for naught. “We got a couple things down, nothing that I’m happy with, so they don’t mean anything. . . . The status of N.W.A right now remains in limbo, because everybody that’s supposed to be a part of this record has their own careers.” Indeed, Snoop has a new album, “Tha Last Meal,” that also arrives in stores on Tuesday, and promotion efforts will gobble up his upcoming schedule, while film star Cube is back at work in Hollywood. Inertia may do more than just stall the project. Earlier this year, an enthusiastic Cube told The Times that an N.W.A reunion tour aimed at stadium-sized audiences would be “unbelievable,” and now, according to Dre, he may have been right. “I have no idea when that record’s gonna happen, or if it’s gonna happen,” says Dre, who will now instead refocus on projects with Rakim and Shari Watson, a.k.a. Truth Hurts.

Stossel Back With Little ‘Hype’

Given the headaches he endured in 2000, ABC News’ John Stossel might be forgiven had he chosen to ring out the year quietly. Stossel, after all, wound up being compelled to apologize on the air in August for various errors in a report he did on the safety of organic food, after being reprimanded by ABC News (his producer was suspended). Yet Stossel will be back at it again in “Hype With John Stossel,” a news program that will preempt ABC’s “20/20” on Friday. In the special, the iconoclastic correspondent again seeks to take on various sacred cows, among them hype in TV news promotions (including his own reports) and Super Bowl advertising, noting that nine of 12 dot-com companies featured during last year’s game, which was broadcast on ABC, have either fired their advertising agency or gone out of business. Stossel also examines hype in movie-industry marketing, using the Cannes Film Festival as a backdrop. Though Stossel survived the organic foods story, the fact that his latest effort is being broadcast the Friday before Christmas--traditionally a fallow period ratings-wise--doesn’t come across as a major vote of confidence from the news division. Or would looking at it that way just be the opposite of hype?

--Compiled by Times Staff Writers