Golden Globes are a Sham, Like Always

Current Tunes: Radiohead – How to Disappear Completely

I’ve never ever liked the Golden Globes (GGs). I’ve had an psychological obsessions with the Oscars since I was like six, but I laughed at the Golden Globes even then as a travesty and I still do. Nevertheless, last night I found myself hypnotized and seduced by the evil whims of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and watched the ceremony in its entirety. It’s spell broken now, I look back on last night and think perhaps I watched simply in hopeful yearning for the Oscars, which aren’t much more than a month away, Lords of Kobol be praised.

The most annoying aspect of the GGs I think was Ricky Gervais. I like the guy fine, I think he’s a decent enough comedian and does make me laugh. Last night I wasn’t buying it at all though. He totally did the job like a guy who only wanted the paycheck and it showed. His one good move, in my opinion, was the absolutely stinging burn he put on Mel Gibson right before the Aussie actor came out to present an award. And even then, as much as I liked it, it was still a low blow.

Overall, looking over winners of all the categories I think the GGs pretty much got nothing truly right, especially in the film categories. I wasn’t very happy with the TV results, but I will freely admit I am not an avid television watcher, and am therefore not familiar with most shows. The one I am most familiar with that was actually up for multiple awards was “House,” which came away with nothing. And I have to say in retrospect that’s probably fair, this past season of “House” has been lacking in a lot of ways compared to former seasons.

Even though I’ve never watched a second of “Dexter,” I was fairly pleased to see John Lithgow win an award for his role on that show. I think John Lithgow is one of the more underrated actors alive today, so for me I was overjoyed to see him getting some well-deserved recognition.

With lots of awards, there were winners that I just shrugged about. I didn’t necessarily disagree with their wins, but there were other nominees I would have been happier with. Like the screenplay category in film. “Up in the Air” is a fine film indeed, full of wonderful dialogue, but I think they gave the best screenplay award to Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner because of the story of that film alone. The story though is only a part of a truly great screenplay though. I wholly believe “District 9” should have won in this category for being the total package.

The one award that was given out that I have no complaints about whatsoever is the Best comedy film award to “The Hangover.” Absolutely correct on all fronts. Generally in award season, a film picks up an award for one of three reasons: 1) It made a ton of cash at the box office or 2) The studio campaigned really, really hard for the film to win that award or 3) the film just genuinely deserves that award on a simple think like merit (imagine that!). With “Hangover” winning best comedy, I think it was likely a case of all three, at least #1 and #3.

I’m sure a good cross-section of the country is livid that Quentin Tarrantino didn’t win the best director award, but I’m sorry. If you don’t bitch about Meryl Streep winning in the best actress category again, then you can’t bitch about Cameron winning. Everyone always touts her as an absolutely dominate force among actresses, like she’s the Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods of film actresses. And she is, for sure. But James Cameron is the Michael Jordan of directors in his own right, and he’s going to be treated as such. Do you have any idea how much money he has made for Hollywood?

All the films on his resume that people adore so much, “Aliens,” “Terminator 1 & 2,” “Titanic,” and now “Avatar,” besides being very popular with a wide, wide, wide demographic of people (a demographic I have affectionately titled ‘Americans’), they make boo-koos (sp?) of money. Metric hell-tons of money. And as I covered earlier, an enormous piece of what decides whether or not you’re going to win statues come awards season is the cash you raked in at the box office. In case you’re wondering, here’s the update on that: “Avatar” is the 3rd highest grossing film domestically of all time, and 2nd highest worldwide grossing of all time. So, translate that into awards season however you like. The last guy who made this much money worldwide, he won 11 Oscars. Oh, and who was that guy? James “I Make Damn Good Movies” Cameron.

I guess the one thing I took away from the GGs is that the awards community apparently isn’t going to shy away from “Avatar” just because it’s story is less than original. Which is fine in some regard I suppose; “Avatar” is an amazing technical achievement and I wholeheartedly respect and love it as such. But let’s not kid ourselves. If the Academy gives “Avatar” the Best Picture Oscar, I’m going to have to seriously call into question their whole new “Ten Best Picture Nominations” gimmick.