As the Globes Slowly Spins
I sure hope you didn't skip
24's literally explosive Night 2- seriously (as Shonda Rhimes would say), how dark is this new season already?- for the Golden Globes Monday night. All the flowing wine seemed to have loosened and thickened nearly everyone's tongue, resulting in long speeches that combined with a sluggish pace and an epic number of ads to push the show beyond the 11 pm/ET cutoff time. (You know an awards show is badly time-managed when the seriously big winners are forced to hurry through their speeches.)
Anyway, to have had a good time, it looks like you really did have to be there this year. And partake of the bubbly.
Imagine the collective yawns and groans across the land when that international bummer
Babel (this year's overly contrived
Crash) took home the best drama trophy, handed out by Arnold Schwarzenegger on crutches that could have been a symbol for the whole wobbly though star-studded evening.
But enough about movies, with this exception. I would expect these four acting winners to repeat at the Oscars: the majestic Helen Mirren for
The Queen, Forest Whitaker for
The Last King of Scotland (a movie I haven't seen, but he rocks and roars in the trailers, and the competition is pretty negligible this year), and that dynamic
Dreamgirls duo of Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy.
Most memorable moments of the show: clever, charismatic speeches by Globes faves Meryl Streep and Hugh Laurie (love him, but rewarding Michael C. Hall's
Dexter would have been so much more satisfying); Tom Hanks' rollicking salute to Cecil B. DeMille honoree Warren Beatty, with the mantra "What balls this man has!"- in this case, "balls" referring to "artistic vision and fortitude"; Sacha Baron Cohen picking up that theme in his hilarious acceptance, which recounted one of the more graphic parts of his
Borat movie; and the emotional high point being America Ferrera's win for
Ugly Betty, which had much of the ballroom wiping away tears.
As for the TV winners, it was a mostly satisfying mix, tending to uphold the Globes' reputation for welcoming new shows and fresh faces (
Ugly Betty, Ferrera), cheering on deserving underdogs (the brilliant Alec Baldwin from
30 Rock) and acknowledging buzz shows (yay,
Grey's Anatomy!) that often aren't taken seriously enough by moldy institutions like the Emmys.
I was happy for Kyra Sedgwick's win for
The Closer (she should have won last year), and couldn't have been more pleased for Helen Mirren's double-fisted royal triumph on the big and small screen. The Globes do love their British actors on TV, though, considering the wins of Emily Blunt and Jeremy Irons in those ridiculous supporting categories (lumping together actors from TV movies, miniseries, episodic comedies and dramas) and Bill Nighy of BBC America's
Gideon's Daughter over Robert Duvall in AMC's marvelous
Broken Trail. (I love Nighy in just about everything, including this little gem of an import, but still.)
The Golden Globes don't actually mean much in the larger TV picture. They're a much bigger deal to those handicapping the Oscars this time of year. But if a win can help boost the profile of shows like
Ugly Betty and
30 Rock, and help convince skeptics that
Grey's Anatomy isn't just popular but pretty freaking awesome entertainment, then maybe it wasn't such a waste of time after all.
But honestly, people. You should have been watching
24.
