'The Farewell' & Awkwafina receive Golden Globe nominations

Awkwafina, center, in the Golden Globe nominee 'The Farewell.'

ASAM NEWS

The Farewell received two major nominations from the Golden Globes in the categories of Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy and "Best Motion Picture in A Foregin Language.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association this morning announced that Awkwafina has received a nomination for best actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy for her performance in The Farewell.

It will be going up against Jojo Rabbit, directed by Taika Waittit, was nominated in the same category.

Awkwafina is the second Asian American in two years to receive a best actress nomination from the Golden Globes. Constance Wu garnered one last year for Crazy Rich Asians, but did not win.

Others to be nominated in this category are Ana de Armas for Knives Out,
Cate Blanchett for Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Beanie Feldstein for Booksmart and Emma Thompson in Late Night.

The Farewell also received a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture in a foreign language even though it is an American movie. Crazy Rich Asians received a Best picture nomination last year, but again, did not win.

It will go up against the Korean movie Parasite along with Les Misérables, Pain and Glory and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Parasite, the Korean thriller, received a nomination in the Best Screenplay Motion Picture. The movie's director, Bong Joon Ho, was nominated as Best Director - Motion Picture. 

Also receiving a Golden Globe nomination was the husband and wife team of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez for their song "Into the Unknown" from Frozen 2. Lopez is Filipino American and a frequent winner on award shows. He is one of only 15 people to have won an Emmy, Oscar, Grammy and Tony Award. He composed the music for Broadway’s The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q. He is also behind the music of Frozen and Coco.

Noticeably absent was any nomination for Sandra Oh for her work in Killing Eve. Oh was named best Actress in a Drama Series last year. Instead, her costar, Jodie Comer received a nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series. The BBC-produced series also was included in the Best Television Series-Drama category.

Also missing is Mindy Kaling, who wrote and produced Late Night for Netflix.

Today’s announcement will only increase speculation that Awkwafina could also get a nod for an Oscar nomination, becoming the first Asian American women ever to be given the honor. Academy Award nominations are scheduled to be announced January 13.

The Farewell is an American production follows Chinese American Billi (Awkwafina) returning to China under the guise of a family wedding to say goodbye to her grandmother recently diagnosed with cancer (though she doesn’t know it), has both English and Mandarin dialogue.

Gold Derby last month placed the odds of Awkwafina winning an Oscar nomination at 15/2. This weekend, the IndieWire wrote “Awkwafina is poised to become the first Asian American woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award.”

The last Asian to be nominated in the category was Merle Oberon in 1935 for The Dark Angel. Oberon was born in what was then called British India.

A Golden Globe nomination is not a guarantee of an Oscar nomination. Last year, the Academy Awards snubbed Crazy Rich Asians despite its Golden Globe nomination.

The Golden Globes will be telecast live on NBC on January 5.

Views From the Edge contributed to this report.

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Filipino American wins his second Oscar

SCREEN CAPTURE / ABC

Robert and Kristen Anderson-Lopez accepted the Oscar for Best Song.

“REMEMBER ME,” a song from Disney-Pixar’s “Coco,” won the Best Song Oscar for songwriters Robert Lopez and his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

When Lopez won an Oscar for "Let It Go" from Frozen as Best Song in 2014, he was the first person of Filipino descent to win an Academy Award.

When Lopez won his second Oscar Sunday (March 4) for the song "Remember Me" from the animated feature Coco, he is STILL the only Filipino to win an Oscar.

There was a conspicuous absence of Asian/Americans at the annual glamorfest and celebration of movies.

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Kazuhiro Tsuji, who accepted the award for Makeup and Hairstyling for his work in The Darkest Hour, was the only other Asian given an Oscar.

In addition, Ren Klyce won an Oscar for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Kumail Nanjiani didn't win. He was nominated for Best Original Screenplay with his wife Emily V. Gordon for their work on The Big Sick. The Oscar in this category went to Get Out writer and director Jordan Peele.

The film on a Chinese/American banking family in Abacus was nominated for Best Documentary but lost to Icarus.

Also nominated in their categories were: Ru Kuwahata for Negative Space in Best Animated short and producer Ramsay Naito for Boss Baby in Best Animated Feature.

Lopez's “Remember Me” was widely favored to win, as the song plays a key role in the narrative about a Mexican boy who travels to the Land of the Dead to learn the truth about a famous musician who may be his ancestor.

Upon accepting the award Kristen Anderson-Lopez pointed out that the Best Song category had almost equal representation between men and women and that all the categories should have the same gender representation.

For a complete list of Oscar winners, click here.

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Golden Globe's Asian American nominees react to their nominations and representation

Hong Chau and her "Downsizing" costar Matt Damon.

AMONG THE GOLDEN GLOBE nominees were a few Asian/Americans -- not as many as anticipated -- but some.

Although the Golden Globes don't have the prestige of the Academy Awards, the recognition by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is often seen as precursor for the Oscars.

Among the nominees were sprinkling of Asian/Americans, including the surprise nominee of Hong Chau as Best Supporting Actress for her work in Downsizing.

Since 1970, there have only been two other actress of East Asian descent who have been nominated for supporting actress: Tina Chen for The Hawaiians and Rinko Kikuchi in Babel.

But Chau's bold interpretation of a Vietnamese immigrant including a heavy accent (to the point approaching a stereotype) was hard to ignore in the Matt Damon science fiction starrer in which she nearly stole the scenes she was in.

Chau told Entertainment Weekly she is especially grateful for what this means for her parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam in the late 1970s.

“They know everything about the story because, like most parents, they don’t like to be surprised, so I walked them through the entire plot of the story in every single detail,” Chau explained. “This is one of those rare occasions where I’m actually able to talk to them about a job and they’re excited about it because it’s a Vietnamese character that’s so closely related to their journey, so I’m excited to share this experience with them.”

“This is the type of character who’s always in the background,” Chau added. “I hope filmmakers will go back and take a look at people whom they thought they couldn’t mine drama or entertainment from. There are a lot of characters that have been underdeveloped because people aren’t interested or are afraid of attempting to tell their stories. Take another look at them: that’s what I hope for.”

Alan Yang and Aziz have been here before. The show previously won two Primetime Emmys for writing. The Golden Globe nomination is for Best Television Series - Comedy. 

RELATED: The Anna Awards for Asian/American entertainers

"It’s really great,," said Yang to Entertainment Weekly. "it’s really wonderful and I’m really proud of what we did in season 2 because one of our goals for this season was to make it different from season 1, and not in a trivial way. You know, we wanted to go deeper, we wanted to be more ambitious, more experimental, and I think the season was more aggressive and more ambitious. I’m glad that it totally didn’t turn people off. We took some big swings and I’m happy with how it turned out."

Aziz also was nominated as Best Actor in a Television Series - Comedy.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez were nominated for Best Song "Remember Me."

Awards are also nothing new for Robert Lopez and his wife and song-writing partner Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Their song "Remember Me" from the animated feature Coco.

The song-writing pair issued this statement:

“We are so grateful to our collaborators at Pixar for asking us to write a song that is so personally meaningful — about family, music, and saying goodbye to those you love. We couldn’t be prouder of what these filmmakers have achieved in ‘Coco’, a film that has always strived to faithfully portray and celebrate Mexican culture. Thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press — we are humbled by your recognition.”

The Filipino/American and his wife previously won an Oscar for "Let It Go" from the 2013 Disney pic Frozen. The husband-wife team also co-wrote the Tony award-winning stage musical The Book of Mormon.

Angelina Jolie's film, First They Killed My Father, entered as a foreign language film from Cambodia, was among the nominees for Best Foreign Film. The movie tells the story of 

author and human rights activist Loung Ung's life under the rule of the deadly Khmer Rouge.

The foreign press snubbed any recognition for The Big Sick starring Kumail Nanjiani and written by the comedian and his wife. Critics loved the movie and predicted a nod for Best Original Screenplay or a Best Supporting Actor nominations for Holly Hunter and Ray Romano. 

The oversight prompted this tweet from Nanjiani’s page, purported written by Stephen Spielberg: “Hey gang. This is Steven Spielberg tweeting from Kumail’s phone. My fave movie this yr was The Big Sick. It’s avail on Amazon Prime & iTunes & all that. Great movie to watch w the fam. I watched it w my family (the Spielbergs) & we all loved it. Handing phone back to Kumail now.”

None of the media fell for the hoax, but it was a clever retort because The Big Sick, on several critics' "best-movies-of-the-year" list, was deserving of a nomination in those categories.

Also missing was the understated performance of John Cho in Columbus directed by Korea-born Kogonada. A film without special effects, violence or nudity (well, there's one scene featuring Cho) and about what's important in life and how we relate to others deserves some notice in the super-hero world we live i today.

Cho's restrained performance de[octed real person struggling with his past and wondering what the future held for him.

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