“Up in the Air,” starring George Clooney as a man who flies about the country firing  people for a living, nabbed six Golden Globe nominations on Tuesday, including best drama.

“Up in the Air” had the most nominations this year,  followed by the musical “Nine,” with five, including top musical or comedy.  The recently released science-fiction epic “Avatar” and director Quentin Tarantino‘s  “Inglourious Basterds” were nominated for four awards, including best drama.

The Hurt Locker looks like Best Drama

Other film nominees for Golden Globes were the Iraq war movie “The Hurt Locker“ and the urban tear-jerker “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.”  Others in the category for best movie musical or comedy was Meryl Streep’s  cooking movie “Julie & Julia, this years comedic breakout hit “The Hangover” and the independent darling, “(500) Days of Summer.”

The Golden Globes are given out in January by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and are seen as a key indicator of which movies will compete for the world’s top film honors, the Oscars, in March. The Golden Globes will be presented mid January, 2010.

The best actor nominees were Clooney, Jeff Bridges who plays a down-and-out country singer in “Crazy Heart,” Colin Firth as a gay man suddenly alone in “A Single Man,” Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in “Invictus” and Tobey Maguire for “Brothers”, another wartime drama.

Nominations for best actress in a drama went to Sandra Bullock for the surprisingly popular football film “The Blind Side,” Helen Mirren for “The Last Station,” Emily Blunt in “The Young Victoria,” Carey Mulligan with “An Education” and  Gabourey Sidibe in the title role,  “Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire.”

A great way to know you’re looking at the Golden Globes and not the Academy Awards is that you can have Sandra Bullock nominated twice in an evening. This time it’s for best actress in a musical or comedy in  “The Proposal.”  She’s joined by Marion Cotillard in “Nine,” Julia Roberts in “Duplicity” ( really intelligent and fun movie!) and Meryl Streep once again, pulling a Sandra Bullock for “It’s Complicated” and a second for “Julie & Julia.”

The Coen Brothers have a serious claim for the Golden Globe

Nominees for best actor in a movie musical or comedy were Daniel Day-Lewis for “Nine,” Matt Damon in the black comedy, “The Informant!,” Robert Downey Jr. for the unbearably hyped “Sherlock Holmes,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “(500) Days of Summer” and Michael Stuhlberg for the Coen Brother’s wonderful fable, “A Serious Man.”

Lastly, the foreign language film nominees are the Italian movie “Baaria,” Spanish director Pedro Almodovar‘s “Broken Embraces“, the fabulous Chilean movie “The Maid,”  “A Prophet” from France and Germany’s “The White Ribbon.”

It’s worth noting that one film in particular seems to be on every critic’s top ten list for the year.  It’s Kathryn Bigelow‘s tense Iraq drama,” The Hurt Locker”.  Though it’s still quite early and there are many films to still see, it’s the Daily Helping’s opinion that Ms Bigelow could have a Best Picture on her hands.  This is all the more interesting since she’s James (Avatar) Cameron’s ex-wife.