Talking About the Golden Globes

I thought the GG Awards show was dreadful. I can take Host and MC Ricky Gervais being mean-spirited, and I can take Gervais being cruel while he thinks he’s being cool. what I can’t take is how smug he is about it.

If you want to be cutting edge while you are being callous, and on the wrong side of good taste – that’s fine; but Ricky acts as if it is his sacred rite to skewer all and sundry, and he’s so bloody proud about how well he thinks he does it.

Yes, most in the audience do take it in and are able to laugh about it. Hollywood has tons of experience in doing so – what with all the roasts, and a lifetime of having Mr. Warmth, Don Rickles on hand or in nearby Las Vegas, they all should be used to taking a verbal shot to the chin and rolling with the punches.

From another standpoint – a lot of it wasn’t all that funny.

The 2016 Golden Globes Awards Ceremony was held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. Now I’ve nothing against Beverly Hills, and even less against that particular Hilton hotel. The event takes place in the Hilton’s International Ballroom which means the 1,300 guests both eat and drink throughout the evening. So without auditorium seating, the lucky folks who need to get to the stage have to negotiate a veritable obstacle laden maze to find access.

This naturally takes up valuable time, and in many, no, make that most cases, the award winners actually vanish from sight as they go behind some decorative panels to find a set of steps that takes them to the back stage area or what is likely called the off-stage wings.

Then when some one is particularly long-winded in their acceptance speech they are give the instructions to PLEASE WRAP. Heaven forbid they should speak too long. The sky would fall in. Kudos to Taraji P. Henson, the Golden Globe winner for Best Actress in a TV Drama. When she was cued to please wrap, she said, I’ve waited 20 years for this. Now you will just have to wait.

And she took her time.

Of course there was a lot of time wasted by that ridiculous faux bear-head skit by Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill. Or Ricky Gervais simply standing there and grinning. Never mind how much it costs to attend this event. By the way tickets are NOT available to the general public. What about the waste of our time.

Then there’s the censoring of the improper language by those on stage. This is 2016. This is an event that rewards the best of the best for their professional efforts in Film and TV. These are adult actors performing in adult roles. Many of the topics in these films and dramas involve sex, rape, imprisonment, murder, criminal activities of every stripe, and/or people living out their lives that likely have moments of super frustration and anxiety. We hear all sorts of words in what we watch and what is considered Golden Globe Material – yet we have to put up with censorship at the Awards Ceremony.

I don’t get it.

I also noticed that of all the gentlemen who made their up to the stage to accept an award – only one couldn’t be bothered to be presentable (not counting Jonah Hill, and that was Quentin Tarantino who couldn’t be bothered to tuck his shirt into his pants.

Then there’s the stage at the venue. Because this is a ball room, and not a theatrical venue, there’s not much of stage. Which means there wasn’t all that much to ooh and aah about with regard to the set design or decoration.

And because of the time element, there were times when we could clearly see the next couple of presenters hovering within a few steps of the winner or winners before they made their exit stage left.

Now I’m not going to discuss more than just a few of the actual individual awards. There were too many shows or film that I hadn’t seen. Or haven’t seen yet. But the categories were puzzling, weren’t they?

Never in a million miles or a million light years would I consider The Martian a comedy. Yet that’s the category where it was. In fact it won the GG for both Best Picture Musical/Comedy, and Best Actor Musical/Comedy. Go figure.

I also had no idea that Lady Gaga is an actress. She won a GG for Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for her role in American Horror Story. a series of which I have not watched even one episode.

But there’s nothing wrong with not knowing something. Bet you didn’t know that she attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private school for girls at 1 East 91st, in Manhattan, and I lived about a half block away, also on 91st Street. We may have passed each other in the street many times. Who knew?

I expected Transparent to win again this year. Likely so did Jeffrey Tambor, and the show’s creator Jill Soloway. But Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle walked away with a pair of awards in those categories. Now I just reviewed the Mozart series (here), and I gave it a mostly favorable review. But to be honest, the terms ‘possible award winning series’ never entered my mind.

Glad to see Leo grab himself a trophy finally,

Fight it, kill it, wear it…

and I was also pleased to see Denzel Washington get recognition with the Cecil B. DeMille Award, kind of a Lifetime achievement award.

But this show needs some serious updating. First, stop calling it Hollywood’s biggest party and that can be done by moving it out of a hotel ballroom and into a big theatrical venue. You know, a place with a real and sizeable stage. Next get rid of the dinner and drinking aspect.

Sure the GG’s are second fiddle to the O’s which announce their noms in a few days. But even if you are second fiddle or second chair, or even second best – that doesn’t mean you have to put on a second-rate show.