The Golden Globes traditionally have been a boozier, more raffish occasion than the Oscars, especially before they were televised. The fact that it’s a dinner and attendees have wine glasses in front of them ensures an intimate feel.

Because they’ve been around for so long and get decent ratings (thanks to massive promotion by NBC) and because there are now so many no-name award shows, the Globes also have achieved a kind of genuine importance, regardless of their (variable) predictive value when it comes to Oscar.

Of course, the Golden Globes’ prestige in the industry and among film buffs continues to be much lower than you might expect from the show’s popularity.

That’s partly because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was notoriously easy to influence with gifts. In 1982, the group gave starlet Pia Zadora a Best Newcomer Award for “Butterfly” after her husband, zillionaire Meshulam Riklis, flew members out to Las Vegas.

Even in 1993, after the organization had begun to clean up its act, the HFPA gave “Scent of a Woman” a Best Picture award after the studio flew members to New York on a junket.

Nor does it help that many of the HFPA’s members can only loosely be described as journalists. Though they all have press cards of one sort or another, some of the HFPA’s freelancers are popularly believed to spend more time on their businesses or waiting on tables than writing stories.

Finally, there’s the organization’s predilection for giving Best Actress awards to the best-looking candidate, such as Madonna, who won for her role in “Evita” in 1996.

This year could well mark the apex of the Globes’ rise in importance: The British Academy Awards, or BAFTAs, traditionally held in late spring, have been moved forward to February in order to feed and be fed by Oscar buzz.

Much more respectable than the Globes, the BAFTAs attract more than their fair share of Hollywood stars and bigwigs.