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.

Denzel Washington

With the American Theater Wing’s Tony Awards Show scheduled for broadcast on this Sunday night (June 8th – 8:00 PM on CBS), I happened upon the following on the radio just a few days ago.

Ruth: Walter, leave me alone. Eat your eggs. They’re going to get cold.

Walter Lee: Man say, I got me a dream. Woman say, eat your egg. Man say, I got to take hold of this here world baby. Woman say, eat your eggs and go to work. Man say, I got to change my life. I’m choking to death. Woman say, your eggs is getting cold.

Ruth: Walter, that ain’t none of our money.

Walter Lee: This morning I’m in the mirror, in the bathroom, I’m thinking – I’m 40 years old, I’ve been married 11 years and I’ve got a boy who sleeps on the living room couch. And all I got to give him is nothing, nothing but stories about how rich white people live.

Ruth: Eat your eggs, Walter.

Walter Lee: Damn my eggs. Damn all the eggs there ever was.

Recognize that?

It is a scene from the American classic, A Raisin in the Sun which was written by Lorraine Hansbury and reached Broadway in 1959.

It was made into a film in 1961 and starred Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee.

Currently, Raisin has been revived this spring on Broadway. This revival stars Denzel Washington as Walter Lee Younger, LaTanya Richardson Jackson as the family matriarch Lena, Anika Noni Rose as Walter’s sister Beneatha, and Sophie Okonedo as Walter’s wife Ruth.

I listened to that scene on the NPR Fresh Air radio show a few days ago. You can listen to it yourself at the following link:

http://www.npr.org/2014/06/02/318207683/raisin-in-the-sun-revival-a-uniquely-american-story-is-back-on-broadway

When the page opens, click where it says Listen to the Story. The scene’s intro actually comes on at the 3 minute 30 seconds mark.

This revival will run through June 15th, and has been nominated for some Tony Awards. Denzel Washington has not been nominated for his role as Walter, but he already had won a Tony for Best Actor for his role in the August Wilson play Fences in the revival in April 2010.

All of which leads me to write this piece. Denzel Washington has been a movie star for a long time. But he didn’t start in movies. He started in Theater. Washington’s first film role was that of an alley mugger in the film Death Wish (1974). Washington’s role was uncredited. He was just 20 years old in 1974 and was unknown at the time.

Magic of Movies – IIFA in Tampa 2014

Sonakshi Sinha exerts her magic

Kareena does her thing

From downtown Tampa, it is only about 9 miles out to the Mid-Florida Credit Union Amphitheater. But I was going to an area more accurately described as suburban rather than downtown to attend the second of three major IIFA shows. This one was called The Magic of Movies. While it is true that not every film has magical moments in them = this show was filled with so many moments that I’ll never forget. From the great choreography, to the booming music, and most of all the action, the buzz, and the passion that filled this venue.

Getting to the location of the Amphitheater was easy enough. Getting in was another matter. Security was very tight. Police checked for bombs hidden beneath my car, and every one entering the amphitheater was searched as well. I carried only my ID’s, ticket, and a notepad and pen. My camera had elected to stay back at the hotel.

Security and everything involved is fine – it just created some lengthy delays, and the show, as expected, began late. I say expected because every event that I attended started late. I was told about Indian Standard Time, by a Gujarati doctor that I sat next to at the Anupam Kher event of a few days ago.

He said, Take the start time, then add 45 minutes to an hour more (at minimum). That’s Indian Standard Time.

Okay.

Kareena Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra

Deepika Padukone

Madhuri Dixit

IIFA Rocks!

Bollywood meets Tampa. The house was packed and from the throngs of people howling and screaming in near ecstasy at the sight of the favorite stars as they exited from their limousines, in the Tampa Convention Center’s looped driveway,  it seemed as big an event that I had ever been close to.  Friday night’s star-studded event was called IIFA Rocks! The concept was easy to understand. Take many of India’s best performers, most adored musicians, and brightest fashion designers and movie stars, then bring them all to one place, and put on a show. Well, they certainly did.

The guys doing his best to look good in a politically correct striped tie and pin striped suit that he didn’t buy in Mumbai, is Tampa’s Mayor Bob Buckhorn. The other guy is Anil Kapoor

The idea was to bring the biggest and the brightest and the best of Indian culture right to America. The Tampa city planners, administrators, and government certainly agreed. An event of this scope had big business written all over it. Tampa last hosted a Superbowl in 2009, and a Major League Baseball World Series in 2008. So you know the city fathers would go for this., and the hotels, ditto.

IIFA Rocks! was the first of the three major events of the International Indian Film Awards Weekend. IIFA Rocks! for Thursday night, the 24th, a super show called Magic of Movies would be the big event on Friday the 25th, and the weekend’s monster show, the International Indian Film Awards, would be the climax. Yes, you can think of the Oscars – only this is the India version.

Three huge events, over three nights; think of the Oscars on steroids.

Golden Globe Awards Show – January 12th, 2014

So it was going to be a busy night on television. At 8:00 PM, following football, there was the 60 Minutes broadcast where we could listen and watch as Tony Bosch told all the stuff he knew, and we didn’t, about A-Rod, about PEDs, and about the stuff he and A-Rod did together.

Then at 9:00 PM, there was the premiere of the new prime time show on HBO called True Detective. Woody Harrelson and Matthew McGonaughey were starring as two CID detectives employed by the state of Louisiana. Which was followed by the season premiere of Lena Dunham’s Girls.

Of course there was also the power house CBS lineup of The Good Wife at 9:00 PM and The Mentalist at 10:00 PM.

Everything I just mentioned was going to be skipped or watched at another time because I decided to watch the 71st Annual Golden Globes Awards which started at 8:00 PM sharp. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were hosting.

It’s not so much that I must see the awards. Or that I had money riding on the outcomes. Or that I had to cover the event because someone was paying me to do a write-up of the broadcast on my blog. None of the above apply.

Actually it was an opportunity to see a bunch of mostly well dressed folks graciously accept awards given out by the Hollywood Foreign Press, an august body of journalists from around the world who watch films and tv. Ricky Gervais had hosted the show for a bunch of years and last year the show was hosted by the aforementioned Fey and Poehler. Actually, for me, those two funny ladies were the main drawing cards.