REFRESH FOR LATEST: I am live-snarking the 69th Annual Golden Globes starting at 5 PM PT tonight based on the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s 2012 nominations last month. Come for the cynicism. Stay for the subversion. Add your comment. Warning: Not for the easily offended or ridiculously naive.
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The 2012 Golden Globes take place inside the Beverly Hilton Hotel ballroom at a star-studded dinner broadcast live by NBC and emceed for the 3rd time by Hollywood’s enfant terrible Ricky Gervais. Only this host can’t resist openly loathing everyone including the Hollywood Foreign Press Association putting on the show. Perhaps Christian Bale summed it up best when he took the stage last year and called the HFPA ”those oddball characters”. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the Golden Globes are completely meaningless awards bestowed by a scandal-riddled organization on a network desperate for ratings.
Studios and networks who lavishly lobby the HFPA almost always score nominations. Stars win in direct correlation to their glamour quotient. Everything about the awards is geared towards hyping the media’s interest and the telecast’s ratings. Journalists like myself for years have been attacking the HFPA for its exclusionary membership policies. The small motley group of 85 mostly freelancers who belong to the HFPA won’t allow in the real foreign journalists at the prestige media outlets across the world. The HFPA clique doesn’t want to dilute the financial bonanza they receive from the studios and networks who arrange exclusive interviews about each year’s movies and TV shows. Oscar-winning documentary director (Vikram Jayanti, in his 2004 film The Golden Globes: Hollywood’s Dirty Little Secret) has called the group a bunch of “freeloaders” who know more about hors d’oeuvres than auteurs and select winners based on “who kisses butt best”. The HFPA has been accused in a lawsuit by its former publicist of accepting “payola” and other questionable business practices. Even though the charges are denied by the HFPA, the lawsuit alleges what we’ve all known: that the Golden Globes and the organization behind it have zero integrity. The Federal Communications Commission one year even accused the HFPA of misleading the public as to how the winners were determined.
The organizations who put on the Golden Globes — NBC and Dick Clark Productions — could clean up the HFPA but choose not to. That’s because everybody is making gobs of money, including the HFPA, which pockets an estimated $ 30 million in broadcast fees for the awards show. Instead, the entire entertainment industry props up this pathetic broadcast, which is seen as a night-long marketing movie and TV tool. Only once in the last seven years has the winner of one of the Golden Globe best film prizes gone on to win Best Picture at the Oscars (2008′s Slumdog Millionaire). So I refuse to treat these awards with any seriousness. And if you don’t want that, then for crissakes stop reading me…
The only reason I can think of to tune in to the Golden Globes is for the bad behavior. Over the years, Jack Nicholson has mooned the audience, Jim Carrey has talked out of his butt, Christine Lahti was locked in the bathroom, and other unscripted weirdness occurs at this intimate dinner. Including 1982′s low point when Pia Zadora’s husband bought her best “New Star Of The Year”.
I only hope that Ricky Gervais can live up to his performance last year when he ensured the meanest Golden Globes on record. NBC has been hyping him as “the host we can’t control”. Considering that NBC is in dead last place again among the networks, that’s encouraging. Bring it on, Ricky, even if Hollywood and the HFPA will hate you later. The show is about to start:
Last year Ricky wanted to come out in a Nazi uniform. He chickened out this year, too. “So where was i? Nervous?,” Gervais asked the audience. Then he immediately dissed NBC and the Golden Globes themselves. “The Golden Globes are just like the Oscars — but without all that esteem.”
This is definitely toned-down Gervais. He’s obviously been muzzled or muzzled himself. What a sell-out. Making never-was Kim Kardashian jokes is beyond easy. Same with washed-up Eddie Murphy jokes about Norbit. Ricky is too chicken to go after the bonafide Hollywood stars. Doesn’t lay a glove on Adam sandler even though the comedian just had a big film bomb. (“Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler played all the parts in The Help.”) And arrogant asshole James Cameron jokes. (“I’ve sat through longer James Cameron acceptance speeches ” than Kim Kardashian’s marriage.) Gervais pretends he’s not cowed: “The Hollywood Foreign Press warned me if I cause any controversy whatsoever they’ll invite me back next year. He reads the rules he’s been given: “No profanity, no nudity, not to libel anyone, and I mustn’t mention Mel Gibson this year and especially not Jodie Foster’s Beaver.” With that, Jodie gives the thumbs-up sign.
This is the best Gervais can do to open the show? Incredibly stale stuff. It’s going to be a loooong night…
Gervais asks Johnny Depp if he’s on recreational drugs. “Have you seen The Tourist yet?” Johnny replies, “No”. And I believe him.
“Oh, he’s fun,” Depp mutters about Gervais.
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A
SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER – BEGINNERS
Plummer affectionately calls Ewen MacGregor “that scene-stealing swine”.
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
LAURA DERN – ENLIGHTENED
Dern thanks Lucille Ball. Nice warmth.
BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
DOWNTON ABBEY (MASTERPIECE) – PBS – A Carnival/Masterpiece Co-production
Was there any doubt that Julian Fellowes would take this home to Britain?
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
KATE WINSLET – MILDRED PIERCE
Oh, Kate, please stop memorizing your speeches. They lose all their spontaneity. And not a word about Joan Crawford? Shame on you… Once again, HBO bought a Globe. This mini-series was tepid at best. maudlin at worst. And not kate’s finest hours to be sure.
Really, I can’t believe how sanitized the opening half-hour of the Golden Globes has been. What happened to all the danger NBC was hyping by having Gervais host again? Real disappointment. Step it up, Ricky, or you’re yesterday’s news.
Jakes Gyllenhaal looks good out of the Witness Protection Program that has become his thwarted career.
“We’re already 5 minutes over. That’s your fault,’ Gervais says to the audience. “Keep your speeches short. thank god and your agent. I know for a fact that God and my agent have had exactly the same input in my career.” This stuff isn’t even amateur night at the Improv stand-up worthy.
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
KELSEY GRAMMER – BOSS
Kelsey thanks Starz boss Chris Albrecht for his “balls” for ordering the show without pilot or all 8 episodes. I think Kelsey won for his performance pretending to still his love his soon-to-be ex-wife Camille on Bravo’s The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills.
BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
HOMELAND (SHOWTIME)
SHOWTIME Presents, Teakwood Lane Productions, Cherry Pie Productions, Keshet, Fox 21
Well the HFPA morons get at least one award right. Homeland was the best TV I’ve seen in a long, long time. Claire Danes was transformative. Damien Lewis even better than in Band Of Brothers. Mandy Patinkin not annoying like he usually is. Granted, it’s a remake of an Israeli show. But I’d follow 24‘s Howard Gordon anywhere that terrorism takes him.