Movie Breakdown: Sandra Bullock Does Double Duty at Globes

Actress rates two noms, just like Meryl Streep and Matt Damon; plus, in-depth look at other motion picture races

Sandra Bullock is no Meryl Streep? Says who?

Bullock scored a Streepian two Golden Globe nominations today, rating a dramatic actress nod for her surprise football hit, The Blind Side, and a comedic actress nod for her romantic-comedy hit, The Proposal.

Streep herself scored a Bullock-esque two nods, one for cooking up Julia Child in Julie & Julia, and one for bedding Alec Baldwin in the upcoming It's Complicated. Both are in the comedy-actress category.

Matt Damon was another double nominee, rating nods for putting himself out there as a pudgy guy in The Informant!, and as a short-shorts wearer in Invictus.

Drilling down into the film nominations:

• Bullock is the only bona fide Hollywood star in the drama-actress race. Her competition: Oscar queen Helen Mirren (The Last Station); Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria); and newcomers Carey Mulligan (An Education) and Gabourey Sidibe (Precious).

• As a comedy-musical actress, Bullock will face Streep, Streep and, for a change of pace, onetime Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard (Nine) and Julia Roberts, who was welcomed back for Duplicity.

• Damon's Informant! turn has him up for comedy-musical actor, opposite: Nine's Daniel Day-Lewis; Sherlock Holmes' Robert Downey Jr.; A Serious Man's Michael Stuhlbarg; and, to the delight of fans of art-house films and/or adorable young men, (500) Days of Summer's Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 

• The Invictus version of Damon is up for Best Supporting Actor. His competition: presumed Oscar lock Christoph Waltz, the hated "Jew Hunter" of Inglourious Basterds; Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones); Woody Harrelson, more than a decade past his last Globe nod, up for The Messenger, but sorry, not Zombieland; and Christopher Plummer, 80 years old as of Sunday, and a first-time film nominee for The Last Station. (Plummer previously was up in a TV category.) 

• Tobey Maguire is not (only) Spider-Man. He's a drama-actor nominee for the postwar drama Brothers. He'll face stiff competition from Jeff Bridges, in the game for his country crooning in Crazy Heart; Colin Firth (A Single Man); the Nelson Mandela-channeling Morgan Freeman (Invictus); and some guy named George Clooney, whose Up in the Air topped the Globes with six noms.

• Mo'Nique made good on her Oscar momentum with a Best Supporting Actress nod for her turn as the toxic mother of Precious. She'll go up against Penélope Cruz (Nine), Julianne Moore (A Single Man) and two Up in the Air costars: Vera Farmiga, Clooney's problem, and Anna Kendrick, Clooney's other problem.

• Outside of Iron Man, it is noted with tongue planted firmly in cheek, films touching on the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq haven't produced box-office bucks. But today they did produce Globe noms—six, to be exact, thanks to the combined success of The Hurt Locker, Brothers and The Messenger.   

• That sigh of relief you hear is the studio behind Nine getting something snappy to put in its ads ("5 Golden Globe Nominations!"), despite duller-than-expected buzz.

• That even bigger sigh of relief you hear is the studio behind Avatar, which earned four nominations for the film, and thusly won't have to launch the behemoth in theaters Friday amid talk that Hollywood's most expensive movie ever stinks, at least by Globe standards.     

• As expected, Up will sail through award season. It's up for animated feature opposite Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Princess and the Frog. Come the Oscars, Up will be training its sights on the big, nongenre prize: Best Picture.

• Add Quentin Tarantino's name to the list of today's multiple nominees. The writer-director's in the game as a (natch) writer and a (natch) director. Both are for (natch) Inglourious Basterds.

• As a director, Tarantino will go up against Up in the Air's Jason Reitman, The Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow, some guy named James Cameron (Avatar) and some other guy named Clint Eastwood (Invictus).

• Tarantino's Inglourious screenplay will compete against those for District 9, The Hurt Locker, It's Complicated and Up in the Air, which netted Reitman his own second Globe nod.

• Bono and U2 are Original Song nominees for their Brothers contribution, "Winter." To win, they'll have to beat out four other tracks, including one by some guy named Paul McCartney, who distinguished the otherwise-ignored Everybody's Fine with "I Want to Come Home."