Much Ado About Nothing

A couple of days ago, we gave you the highlights of the Miss America Pageant, and now it's time to scan the high points of another event in which pretty people are asked to whore themselves in public while groveling for money and attention, The 2011 Golden Globes Awards, which took place on Sunday night.
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First let's get the obvious out of the way. By now, unless you've been hiding out in the backwoods of Alabama, plotting to shoot up an abortion clinic, you've certainly heard about host Ricky Gervais'
"outrageous" jokes he made about many of the stars at the Awards. Among other things, he introduced Bruce Willis as "Ashton Kutcher's dad", he said that "many of you probably know Robert Downey, Jr. from the rehab clinic and the L.A. County Jail", and he openly mocked the fact that the Globes nominated the critically savaged movie, "The Tourist". But let's get real, he didn't say anything that wasn't true, and that wasn't hilarious to hear. The ratings for the Globes went up this year, and over 70% of viewers polled yesterday said that they thought Gervais was very funny and entertaining. So the only people really insulted by Gervais' humor were a handful of celebrities who were the butt of his jokes. And do we feel sorry for a bunch of spoiled movie stars who are vastly overpaid for not even working very hard? No. No, we don't. In fact, our advice to movie stars in 2011 is that if you're going to get paid millions of dollars for working a few weeks a year by speaking lines in front of a camera, then you should not only be forced to be the butt of jokes every so often, but also keep your mouth shut while listening to them, and silently thanking god for your extraordinarily good luck in life.
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And now, with that out of the way, the winners were no surprise. The four major acting winners were Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo. These are the same four who will also probably win the Oscars next month, unless Hailee Steinfeld can edge out Leo for the Supporting Actress prize. We were most happy to see Melissa Leo get some recognition; she's one of those people who's been knocking around Hollywood for many years, and is just now beginning to realize her potential. Natalie Portman was the essence of grace and poise in her acceptance speech until she let loose with some incoherent ramble about her boyfriend knocking her up with a baby, afterwhich she emitted what can best be described as a full-on donkey laugh.
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Robert DeNiro got a lifetime achievement award, and in his acceptance speech, made several jokes. He should not have. Luckily, humor was more adroitly handled by Tina Fey and Steve Carell, who are so funny, and so funny together, that we just keep scratching our heads and wondering why the Oscar people have never asked them to host the Academy Awards. Actually, on second thought, DeNiro did get out one funny line in which he "was glad that the Globes people decided to give him the award before they saw "Little Fockers". Amen, sister, amen!





We've always thought Christian Bale was sexy, and we're actually digging the Jesus H. Christ look with the long hair. But please, Christian, no more movies in which you have to starve yourself.  You can keep your own body next time; it's called "acting".
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Annette Bening got the Best Actress trophy in a Comedy for "The Kids Are All Right", which is strange, considering that the movie is not a comedy. But it's okay, we feel really bad for Bening since she was the early odds-on favorite to finally win an Oscar this year until the juggernaut of momentum shifted in Natalie Portman's favor.
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"True Grit"'s new star, Hailee Steinfeld made her first appearance as a newly-minted movie star when she took the stage as a presenter, and for such a young girl, and a novice in the industry, she was completely poised and really quite beautiful. Sadly, though, Steinfeld was forced to share the stage with the much shorter, and much more immature, Justin Bieber. The two teens are almost the same age, but watching them together was like watching a mature, 21 year-old college coed allow her 4th grade nephew to stay up past his bedtime to accompany her to the party with the grown-ups. Jesus. Take notes, Bieber.

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Despite the hype surrounding the publicity behemoth that is tonight's Golden Globes Awards, most industry insiders don't see the Hollywood Foreign Press's annual bestowing of movie awards as a serious indicator of Oscar success. The Golden Globes, over the years, have been tainted by too many scandals, including a brand new one accusing the head of the HFP of taking kickbacks and bribes for nominations, to be taken seriously as an objective measure of the best of Hollywood's annual output. For those who really wanted to gauge the latest scoreboard on the 2011 Oscars, all eyes were on Friday night's Critics Choice Movie Awards, which are awarded annually by the largest U.S. critics' group, the Broadcast Film Critics Association. The Critics Choice Movie Awards are the final awards given by a critics group before the hoopla of the Golden Globes, the SAG's, and the Oscar nominations themselves, and they have the distinction of being a very accurate predictor of Oscar success. The Critics correctly predicted the Oscar Best Picture the past four years in a row, and eight of the past ten years. On Friday night, the Critics awarded "The Social Network" as Best Picture, Colin Firth as Best Actor, Natalie Portman as Best Actress, Christian Bale as Best Supporting Actor and Melissa Leo as Best Supporting Actress.

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.