I just landed from Vegas after a three night stay of gambling and other forms of excess. I've had eight hours of sleep during my stay, but I'm still bringing you a retrospective diary from last night's Golden Globes.
The Social Network will look to keep the the momentum from its earlier festival wins. The Fighter, Toy Story 3, Black Swan, 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right will all be featured; while Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman, Megan Fox, Emma Stone, and Mila Kunis will keep the sexiness to the appropriate levels. My question is whether host Ricky Gervais will be asked back for 2012's version, if he's just as drunk and mean (see: funny) as last time.
Read on after the break.
8:00 pm: Our host for the evening, Ricky Gervais! Takes a sip of beer before even saying a word; I like where this is heading. Gervais immediately trashes Charlie Sheen (well deserved), The Tourist (yep), and Cher (meh). He then calls Tom Cruise and John Travolta closeted homosexuals and makes fun of Hugh Hefner's penis.
8:05: Newly single Scarlett Johansson is our first presenter for Best Supporting Actor. This is probably gonna be a runaway for Christian Bale, who's swept many of the awards on the circuit. Other nominees are Andrew Garfield (The Social Network), Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech), Michael Douglas (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. A horrible title, and a completely undeserved nomination), Jeremy Renner (The Town). And the winner is Bale. No surprise. Bale, sporting some extremely long hair, thanks everyone including the real Mickey and Dickie, who Marky Mark and Bale personified on screen. Must be nice to be a crackhead, and now be famous for it.
8:16: Julianne Moore and Kevin Spacey introduce this year's Miss Golden Globe--Gina Mantegna, daughter of Joe. Tall, brunette, cute. And we're back. On to Best Mini-Series or TV movie. The nominees are Carlos, The Pacific, You Don't Know Jack, Temple Grandin. And, Carlos wins; first surprise of the evening. Tom Hanks (producer of The Pacific) is clapping angrily. I haven't seen Carlos yet, but I'm planning on it. The original cut was over five hours long, then later slimmed down to two and a half. Edgar Ramirez I hear killed it during this role. And the music is playing over the Spanish producer while he struggles through his speech. Well done conductor.
8:21: Ashton Kutcher's father, Bruce Willis is out to schlep his film Red, one of the films up for Best Picture-Comedy or Musical. Didn't see it.
8:31: Eva Longoria
8:43: Andrew Garfield, who lost out on a statue to Christian Bale, tries to introduce The Social Network, but his English accent gets in the way when he reads 'inspiringly written' on the teleprompter. He certainly has the appropriate level of of dork to play Spider-Man.
8:47: "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" wins Best Original Song from the film Burlesque. Diane Warren--previously nominated five times--stumbles through her speech, but does give a nice moment when she remembers Ronni Chasen--a well-known American publicist--who was gunned down in Los Angles late last year attending the premiere Warren's song just won for.
8:50: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, formerly Nine Inch Nails, win for Best Score in a Motion Picture for The Social Network--the first of many for the Facebook origin story. The music was good in this; there were a lot of deserving entries here: Inception, The King's Speech, 127 Hours. I would've picked Inception though. Hans Zimmer rattled your bones with those heavy notes.
8:55: Hailee Steinfeld and Justin Bieber (who's well on his way to some sexual harassment suit when he finally hits eighteen) present the nominees for Best Animated Film, also known as Toy Story 3 and everything else. Lee Unkrich, the director accepts then laughs at how young Steinfeld and Bieber are. This one was a slam dunk. Tom Hanks looks happier now.
8:59: Ricky Gervais has lost his jacket and switched to wine. Robert Downey Jr., winner for last year's Sherlock Holmes, comes out and gives us a monologue about how he slept with all of the nominees for Best Actress-Comedy or Musical. Then he stares at Emma Stone (also nominated, and looking absolutely fantastic.) for a while. This one is Annette Bening's to lose...and she doesn't disappoint. Best Actress at the upcoming Oscar's is looking to be a two-women race with Bening and Natalie Portman, who will win for the dramatic counterpart. Bening gets a standing ovation, because she's well-liked, and she's lost two times before to Hilary Swank. Bening was good in The Kids Are All Right, but Portman was better in Black Swan. Side note on Portman: she's pregnant and her husband is way too ugly to be with her.
9:04: My ears finally popped from the altitude.
9:08: Our first Scientology commercial, which preaches spirituality, self, groups, mankind, plants and animals, but strangely not aliens and how they inhabit our bodies. Hollywood is crazy. This is probably a response to that Tom Cruise gay joke.
9:09: Sylvester Stallone, whose own face has gone through one too many rounds itself, presents The Fighter (which I thought was boring and predictable, but what do I know?), one of the films in the Best Picture-Drama category.
9:11: Two of the coolest people in the room: Geoffrey Rush and Tilda Swinton name the top five in Best Acting in Mini-Series or TV Movie: Idris Elba, Al Pacino, Ian McShane, Dennis Quaid and Edgar Ramirez. Our second straight standing ovation. This time for Pacino (You Don't Know Jack), who can't be taller than 5'5. Not a chance. That's too bad for Ramirez. I know I haven't seen Carlos yet, but Pacino's been around forever. Let's spread the love. Predictably, the music doesn't even come close to cutting his speech short. Tilda Swinton is hilarious by the way. The way she's saying the titles (Pillars of the EARTH!) is priceless.
9:24: So we're about halfway through the show and Gervais has already made at least 783,922 enemies in the room. His relentless insults include Steve Carell, saying that the British Office is the better than the American one (probably true). Tina Fey and Carell present the Best Screenplay. They have incredible chemistry together. There's no joke there. They are really good. I think they should host the Oscars sometime. Anyway, the nominees are: The Social Network, 127 Hours, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, and The King's Speech. This one's gonna be Aaron Sorkin for Network all the way. Actually a tough choice though. Inception and Speech were all top-notch, but this is Network's year and the impeccable writing by Sorkin was the best part of the film by far.
9:36: Robert Pattinson (eeeeek) and Olivia Wilde present for Best Foreign Language film, or as Gervais puts it, "a category that no one in America cares about." Olivia Wilde has bangs, and a sparkly silver dress. Easily one of the best looking women in the world. Biutiful from Spain/Mexico; The Concert from France; The Edge from Russia; I Am Love from Italy; In a Better World from Denmark. Regrettably, I've only seen Love (which was one of the best films of the year). Javier Bardem who everyone knows from No Country For Old Men stars in Biutiful, and it's supposed to be extremely powerful...but World takes the prize. Again, don't know much about these which is sad. Have to play catch up in the next month.
9:38: Helen Mirren for The King's Speech. Mirren gives a super weird speech about how the film was conceived, using terms like inseminated, gestated, and given birth. Being that she's sixty-five years old (although still sexy), I vote for someone younger discussing pregnancy.
9:47: Jane Fonda presents Burlesque: the best film you'll see this year about singing and dancing, stripteases, that stars Cher and Christina Aguilera.
9:50: Next up is Jeremy Irons (who will forever be the voice of Scar from The Lion King) who's charged with announcing the winner of Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture. Amy Adams and Melissa Leo for The Fighter; Mila Kunis for Black Swan; Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom; Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech. If I had to venture a guess it would be either Leo or Adams. Bonham Carter was refined and superb (but dressed tonight like a demented cat-lady); Kunis was also good, but probably too young and inexperienced to take an award away from more established actors. As expected, Leo wins, which I totally disagree with. She played Mickey Ward's mother, but ended up being so overblown and unlikeable. I understand that was probably the point, but it just didn't connect with me. I would much rather have seen Weaver win for the small Australian production.
Regardless, Leo's speech is nice. Everyone seems happy save for Bonham Carter who is more perplexed and disinterested. Cat-lady.
9:58: Matt Damon comes out and gives us a few lackluster Robert DeNiro impressions before a montage takes over to celebrate this year's Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement award. Looking back at some of his most important roles in some of the most iconic pictures, it's a real shame that's he known to the younger generation as the grumpy father from the 'Focker' franchise. DeNiro owns it on stage though. Seriously. Full-body searches on Megan Fox, more digs on the HFPA. He even makes fun of Little Fockers. Shots of the audience are flooded with laughter and cheers. Tom Hanks is crying.
10:13: After her proposed cavity search, Megan Fox struts her stuff and introduces The Tourist, which bafflingly has been nominated three times tonight, but has earned over $125 million worldwide. I guess the jokes on us as the producers from Columbia Pictures drink their Dom Perignon and snack on their beluga caviar.
10:14: Finally a real award; tonight's winner Annette Bening for Best Director. Strong category with a most likely foreseeable winner, David Fincher for The Social Network. I'll be very surprised if Fincher doesn't walk away with the prize, although Darren Aronofsky, or Christopher Nolan would be my selection. And the fact that the Coen brothers weren't even chosen for True Grit kinda sums up the Golden Globes. Yup, it's Fincher. Although his acceptance speech lacks a ton of spontaneity (he's reading it line-for-line from a typed preparation), it is nice to see him be rewarded after creating some of the most dark and memorable films of the last few decades. He even admits to being taken back at the love that comes from dominating the awards circuit. The Oscar will be his as well.
10:24: Alicia Keys (an odd choice) for Black Swan. Watching this brief glimpse makes me want to see it again. And not just for the girl-on-girl action. I haven't completed my top ten of 2010, but it's fighting for the top spot. The Social Network is not.
10:25: Who will win for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy? Will it be Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, or Johnny Depp as some guy from The Tourist? Kevin Spacey, Paul Giamatti, and Jake Gyllenhaal are the rest. The real winner should be Jim Carrey who was phenomenal is I Love You Phillip Morris, but since everyone is afraid of gays, he's not going to even sniff a hint of recognition. The most out of shape one of the group, Giamatti, wins for Barney's Version: a fictional autobiographical Canadian film about Alzheimer's and murder. But funny. Giamatti's a cool guy and his speech reflects that. He tells us he's eaten five boxes of Godvia chocolates, which probably has zero connection to his physical appearance. At the end, he salutes "the great nation of Canada," which now instantly puts Giamatti on the top of the greatest actors in the world list.
10:32: The great JGL (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) puffs up Inception, up for Best Motion Picture-Drama, for which he also starred. He also comments on director Christopher Nolan, whose every film is a masterpiece. The HFPA turns its chin up towards science fiction however, so Inception has no chance of winning even though it's earned a gazillion dollars at the box-office, and actually made you question what you just witnessed.
10:33: Jeff Bridges who along with his film True Grit, were completely ignored tonight, presents Best Actress in a Drama. Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone. Very excited that she was included.), Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine. Scary good.), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), and Halle Berry (Frankie and Alice. Huh?). But Natalie Portman is winning all the way. What she didn't win though is best dress of the night. I'll cut her some slack since she's pregnant, but that big red rose on the front is pretty hideous. Portman thanks her fiancé Benjamin Millepied (an unfortunate surname if there ever was one) for putting a baby in her, Mila Kunis for her "sweet lips" and Darren Aronofsky for being the man. Well deserved win. Going to be a slugfest between her and Bening at the Oscars next month. The whole category is superb however.
10:38: After Ricky Gervais commends Tom Hanks and belittles Tim Allen for their respective careers, the two Toy Story alums present Best Picture-Musical or Comedy. And the nominees are: Alice and Wonderland, Burlesque, The Kids Are All Right, Red, and The Tourist. This whole group is a joke other than Kids. The question will be whether it will crack the top-ten at the Oscars. Julianne Moore and Annette Bening must be great actors since their surprise at actually winning seems genuine, even though this was the most automatic of the night.
10:46: Sandra Bullock, who of course won last year for The Blind Side, after paying the bills thanks to Miss Congeniality, All About Steve, Demolition Man, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Forces of Nature, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, and The Proposal. Best Actress of 2009 folks. Moving on, Bullock's here to give out the Globe to Best Actor in a Motion Picture-Drama. This one is Colin Firth (The King's Speech) versus James Franco (127 Hours). Along for the ride are Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, in a rare defeat), Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine), and Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter). Firth wins, and he doesn't look a bit surprised. Like Jeff Bridges last year, this is a culmination of a long and impressive career. Bridges' Rooster Cogburn from True Grit, was the best performance of the year. If he didn't win for Crazy Heart, I expect it would have been his tonight.
10:54: Michael Douglas, who just beat throat cancer, presents the final award of the evening:
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