Attention is what the Globes are all about: these are the awards decided by 90 obscure journalists that nonetheless set the stage for the Oscars and draw a worldwide TV audience of 250 million.
“Winners good-naturedly moon the crowd (Jack Nicholson in 1999), have to be rousted out of the bathroom (Christine Lahti in 1998), or give their award away (Ving Rhames giving his statuette to his idol Jack Lemmon in 1998),” the association says in its on-line history of Globes. It was founded as a freewheeling event presented by the group’s members until 1958, “when Rat Packers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. stormed the stage, with whiskeys and cigarettes in tow, and took over the show, to the delight of the audience.” It’s not easy towing whiskey and cigarettes, but Sinatra wasn’t called The Chairman of the Board for nothing.
Gervais fits right into this irreverent tone, and often the Globe nominations do as well: last year, for instance, the much-derided comedy The Tourist was up for several awards (Gervais: “It seems like everything this year was three-dimensional — except the characters in The Tourist.”) This year’s slate is a more comprehensible collection, which could hurt Gervais’ opening monologue but does make for some intriguing competitions.
In the category of best comedy or musical, for instance, the nominees include The Artist — a French director’s fable about the early days of talking pictures in Hollywood in the 1920s — and Midnight In Paris, an American director’s fable about the early days of literature and surrealist art in Paris in the 1920s.
The Artist, a silent movie, isn’t exactly a comedy or a musical, although it does have some funny parts and some music. It’s too bad that the category wasn’t malleable enough to include Hugo, an American director’s fable about the early days of silent movies in France. Hugo wound up in the drama category, competing against the likes of Moneyball and War Horse.
However, the real battle in that category pits the cinema of George Clooney (star of Alexander Payne’s comic tragedy The Descendants, and director and co-star of the political expose The Ides of March) against The Help, a middlebrow bit of American civil rights history that is both well done and a bit too cleaned up for its own good. The Help is the kind of film that Oscar traditionally embraces, and it might feel right at home among the foreign press as well. That would be too bad, because Clooney and Gervais on stage together could inspire a tsunami of irony.
Tellingly, the Globes found no room for Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, an artful (not to say artsy) and poetic meditation on birth, death, family, the universe, childhood and memory. That is, it feels “foreign press,” but it’s no The Help.
Those anticipating what Oscar might be up to this year (the Academy Awards are given out Feb. 26) will be watching several developments: in the category of best actress in a drama, for instance, The Help’s Viola Davis could give an early indication of how her film might fare against the edgier entertainment of The Artist and The Descendants. She’s a strong contender, although she faces tough competition from Meryl Streep for her brilliant evocation of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.
The best actress in a comedy or musical should be taken by Michelle Williams, who brought Marilyn Monroe to life in My Week With Marilyn, a film that isn’t exactly a comedy or a musical but does have some funny parts and some music. She could be around at Oscar time as well.
In the best actor category, the Globes were especially good to Ryan Gosling, nominating him in both a drama (The Ides of March) and a comedy (Crazy, Stupid Love). Unfortunately, he’ll probably lose them both, to Michael Fassbender (Shame) or Clooney (The Descendants), and then to Jean Dujardin, whose old-fashioned movie star charm gave The Artist much of its allure. Speaking of nice-just-to-be-nominated, it was very Golden Globeish of the foreign press to find room in the comedy category for Brendan Gleeson’s hilariously transgressive turn in The Guard.
Which brings us back to Gervais, who has become the main reason to watch the Globes now that the Rat Pack is gone and few Hollywood stars are untamed enough to moon the crowd. If the Golden Globes are the precursors of the Academy Awards, could Gervais be bound for the Oscar ceremonies one year?
(The Golden Globe awards will be broadcast on NBC on Sunday, Jan. 15 from 8 to 11 p.m. ET.)
http://blogs.canada.com/2012/01/09/those-irreverent-golden-globe-awards/
No comments:
Post a Comment