Oscar snubs leave Globes with also-ran nominees

Hollywood's junior prom for film honors features quite a different cast than the senior prom at next month's Academy Awards, the AP reports.

Sunday night's Golden Globes are in a rare place this season, coming after the Oscar nominations, which were announced earlier than usual and threw out some shockers that have left the Globes show a little less relevant.

Key Globe contenders lined up largely as expected, with Steven Spielberg's Civil War saga "Lincoln" leading with seven nominations and two CIA thrillers — Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" andBen Affleck's "Argo" — also doing well.

All three films earned Globe nominations for best drama and director. Yet while "Lincoln," ''Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" grabbed best-picture slots at Thursday's Oscar nominations, Bigelow and Affleck were snubbed for directing honors after a season that had seen them in the running for almost every other major award.

The Globe and Oscar directing fields typically match up closely. This time, though, only Spielberg and "Life of Pi" director Ang Lee have nominations for both. Along with Spielberg, Lee, Bigelow and Affleck, Quentin Tarantino is nominated for directing at the Globes. At the Oscars, it's Spielberg, Lee, "Silver Linings Playbook" director David O. Russell and two surprise picks: veteran Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke for "Amour" and first-time director Benh Zeitlin for "Beasts of the Southern Wild."