The Golden Globes

So, this past Monday the Golden Globes awards ceremony kicked off the season of award giving. I watched the show and kind of took notes so I could comment on things after the fact. So here goes:

All in all, this awards ceremony seemed very subdued. There were no outrageous moments, no overly political speeches. Everyone seemed to get their acceptance speeches in within the desired time frame. It was actually kind of boring.

In any case, the first award of the evening went to George Clooney. He seemed very nervous, which surprised me. He also made the only somewhat inappropriate comment of the night (something to do with Jack Abramoff... *sigh*) I've never been much of a fan of George, but he just really needs to grow up. While the nominees for best director were being announced later on in the show, when his name was announced, the camera showed him at his table with a glass stuck up to his eye. You know, him holding the glass around his eye with his cheeks. He's in his mid-40s now and still acts like a 20 year old frat boy.

Sandra Oh won for her work in Grey's Anatomy. When they called her name she looked kind of lost as she tried to find her way to the stage. Admittedly, it was quite a maze to get there. You'd think they'd want to make a path so people could get up there quickly. Instead, they put tables and chairs all over the place so the winners had to wind their way through the crowd, squeezing behind chairs. Seemed like bad planning.

A lot of the winners had amusing acceptance speeches. Geena Davis told a story about a little girl telling her that because of her role as president, she now had the courage to hope to one day be president. We were then informed that that never happened, but wouldn't it have been cool? Hugh Laurie won for his role in House and his speech involved him drawing slips of paper out of his pocket and thanking those people. Steve Carrell had probably the funniest speech. He told the audience he didn't expect to win so he didn't have a speech. Luckily his wife had written one for him. The entire speech kept going back to thanking his wife. It was hilarious. It was also the only speech that got called back in by someone else later on who also thanked Steve's wife.

There was some really bad fashion going around on this night as well. Most of it was really bad hair. Rachel Weisz won for The Constant Gardener. She's a lovely woman, but what was with the hair? Colin Firth did the intro to the Woody Allen film that was nominated, but he looked more like a wild mountain man than his usual dapper self.

Then there were the accents. Some accents are cute - like Russell Crowe. Some are just annoying - like Penelope Cruz. She really needs to lose it. No one can understand a damn word she says. I don't even know who the guy who introduced The History of Violence was, but he had another uninterpretable accent.

There were very few political moments in this broadcast. Those that could qualify as such were very toned down in comparison to previous years. Included in these moments would be when the best foreign film went to the Palestinians and the man who spoke to accept the award said something to the effect that it was great that Palestine was being recognized as an independent country. I didn't think it was a country... what do I know? The only other semi-political, but more of a social commentary, came from Felicity Hoffman when she was giving her speech for winning best actress for TransAmerica. Granted, she was giving thanks for a role in which she played a transvestite, but once again it was a rather muted social comment.

Chris Rock presented the award for best actress in a tv comedy. All I can say about that is thank God he's not hosting the Oscars again. I can't stand him.

Other than that, there's not much to say. Brokeback Mountain had a good night as did Walk the Line, with both Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix winning.