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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The Almost Golden Globes


We've been covering all the 2010 movie awards which have been bestowed from the various critics' associations so far, but yesterday came the nominations for one of the most famous of all the movie trophies, The Golden Globes. But don't get excited, you will rarely find the phrases "critically best" and "the golden globes" mentioned in the same sentence..
There's no way we're going to put the entire Golden Globe nomination list here, you can go to GoldenGlobes.org to read that, no, we're just going to highlight some of the more genius selections of this august body.
.For Best Drama, The Golden Globes nominated "Black Swan", "Inception", "The Fighter", "The King's Speech" and "The Social Network". Okay, that's a decent list, but where is "127 Hours" and "True Grit"? But then, in the Musical/Comedy category it gets really crazy; they nominated, among others, "Burlesque", "The Kids Are All Right" and "The Tourist". Wow. Where do we start? Listen, we love Cher, Christina Aguilera and Cam Gigandet as much as the next person, but "Burlesque" was widely panned as a movie. And panned doesn't even start to describe how the Johnny Depp/Angelina Jolie vehicle, "The Tourist" was received. Let's just say "The Tourist" is probably a leading contender to win this year's Razzie Award for worst movie of the year. And there's only one problem with putting "The Kids Are All Right" in the musical/comedy category; it's neither a musical nor a comedy. Even Angelina Jolie reportedly laughed yesterday when she heard of "The Tourist"'s nomination and said that she wasn't aware she had been in a comedy.. Angelina Jolie also got an acting nomination for a performance which one critic described as "ranging from a blank, vacant stare with tight lips to a blank, vacant stare with a half-smile". Most surprisingly, one omission we noticed was for Justin "I'm Funny When I Put My Dick in a Box" Timberlake. There was some Oscar buzz for Timberlake for "The Social Network", but if he can't even get a Golden Globes nod, we're guessing the Oscar voters won't bite, either..Okay, now for reality. Almost no one takes the Golden Globes seriously. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is a group of people, some of whom are not even journalists, who write about movies in obscure newspapers in some foreign countries. The entire membership of the HFPA is 95 members, as opposed to the Oscar Academy which has 6,000 members. And the HFPA has, in the past, awarded acting trophies to Pia Zadora, Sharon Stone and Madonna, members of the Fraternity of The Worst Actors of All Time.

Speaking last week on a Hollywood Radio TV Society lunchtime panel at the Beverly Hilton, "Rescue Me" creator Peter Tolan said that The Hollywood Foreign Press Association "is really just a group of whores from other countries." He went on to say "It's really an excuse to go out with people who don't speak English that well and maybe win a trinket. So fuck the Golden Globes."
.Worst of all, the word "bribery" has circled around the HFPA for years. In 1999 Sharon Stone was famously caught showering all 82 members of the HFPA with Coach wrist watches in the same year that she received a nomination for "The Muse". The President of the HFPA told his members to return the watches, and Miss Stone did not win that year. On another note, some commentators said yesterday that "everyone knows that the Golden Globes 'nominate for the Red Carpet'." In other words, they'll nominate someone like Angelina Jolie because they want her on their Red Carpet and at their awards, which raises the profile for the Golden Globes.
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But with all that said, it's okay. Everyone in Hollywood knows the Golden Globes are a joke, the HFPA know they're a joke, but Hollywood plays along because the publicity reaped for the movies which appear at the Globes, or better yet, win one, is priceless. The Globes are also considered one of the most fun parties of the year with gallons of free-flowing booze, and what Hollywood star doesn't like to get dressed up and party like a rock star on someone else's dime? So just sit back, enjoy the show, and know that you're watching something akin to cotton candy, but that's okay, cotton candy tastes pretty damn good sometimes.

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