The Golden Globes

The French are coming! The French are coming! And they won a bunch of awards, all for the silent film "The Artist" (Best Comedy/Musical, Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical and Best Score). Among the highlights of the less serious warm-up for the usually utterly boring Oscars was Ricky Gervais who was surprisingly signed on to host again after offending all sorts of people last year and signing off with the line "I want to thank God for making me an atheist." This year he was much less offensive, though still really funny. In introducing Natalie Portman he said "Last year, our next presenter won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar for her work in Black Swan. This year, she took some time out to have a baby. Consequently, she’s been nominated for nothing. Really pathetic. But she learned that valuable lesson you all already knew: Never put family first. Please welcome the very foolish Natalie Portman." He introduced the seemingly staid Colin Firth with this short gibe: "What you don’t know is that he’s very racist. Very. And I mean, really nasty stuff. I’ve seen him punch a little blind kitten." And finally, regarding Eddie Murphy quitting as Oscar host to protect asshole director and homophobe Brett Ratner: "He walked out on them. Good for him. When the man who says ‘yes’ to Norbit says ‘no’ to you, you know you’re in trouble.” He finished the show by congratulating the guest for enjoying their free drinks, party bags and "gold" and helping us forget about the recession for a night (a rather lovely gibe, I thought). It's kind of nice to see someone undermine the self-congratulatory pseudo-liberalism of Hollywood while forcing them to smile; though the surrounding smugness almost snuffed him out.

The rest of the show was a rather dull affair though. Most of the jokes fell flat, the speeches were mostly just lists of people to thank, with a few exceptions and nothing truly extraordinary came out of the event -- except a continued inability of actresses to keep weight on (maybe they should pass on their anorexic secrets to the masses). Meryl Streep won again for The Iron Lady, which I haven't yet seen, again robbing anyone else of the prize, and gave an odd speech like she always seems to. A young black actress, Octavia Spencer, won best supporting actress for The Help, Idris Elba won best actor in a TV series for Luther and Morgan Freeman was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement, making a black trifecta (without any being negative roles, something the Oscars have rightly been called out for -- make a movie with a bad parent, corrupt cop or mother who beats her kid and sleeps with a white racist and you are bound for the award). There were other examples of what seemed to be an affirmative action year with Peter Dinklage (who is quite good in films like The Station Agent) winning Best Supporting Actor in TV Series, Mini-Series, or Made-for-TV Movie, George Clooney winning simply for being one of the few people with a personality in the room and Matt LeBlanc winning for his "acting." The extraordinary Iranian film The Separation did win for best foreign film, Scorcese picked up another award for Hugo, and Woody Allen, in absentia as usual, won best screenplay for the clever Midnight in Paris. Surprisingly, Clooney was not the only one rewarded for the mediocre The Descendants, as pompous Alexander Payne won best drama and the poorly reviewed Tin Tin won best animated feature, with Spielberg giving an utterly dull speech. Finally, two of our best young actresses -- Kate Winslett and Michelle Williams both won in their categories. However, I noticed the camera spending a considerable amount of time hovering over Katharine McPhee, who may very well be the cutest woman in the world at the moment (soon to be seen on the hyped new TV show "Smash" about how a star is made, not born).

I still don't understand why the actors can't give interesting speeches and thank people we've never heard of on their own time (or Harvey Weinstein at the beginning of the show for everyone who wins, as he was named by at least half the acceptance speeches, or "husband/wife/kids" as Dustin Hoffman and Gervais tried to make fun of). I remember a great speech by Hugh Grant years ago, but feel like absolutely nothing except Gervais will be remembered from this year, except for maybe the absence of Jack Nicholson. Maybe it should be expected from one of the most mediocre years in recent Hollywood history, though 2012 does show some promise of improvement. Let's hope so ...