Golden Globage

Oh, the agony of not having promptly blogged about the Golden Globes! Apologies to my adoring fans; it's just been one thing after another. Believe it or not I have actually been keeping all of my New Year's resolutions. I just didn't make a resolution to be better about blogging. Apparently, that was needed! So, what did you think of the ceremony? Was Ricky Gervais all that you hoped he'd be and more?

I must say, I wish we had got even MORE of him. His zingers were top-notch ("I like a drink as much as the next guy. Unless the next guy is Mel Gibson" when introducing Mel himself to come out and present! So wonderful!) but I could have used way more. I suppose there were the typical concerns about "Oh well gee gosh if he had more time there talking, you know, well gee the ceremony would be so long! And well gosh, those folks there at home watching, well, they just don't want to watch if it's too long, see..." Yawn! Get over yourselves.

Must we go through this every year? So the biggest award ceremonies of the year last a few hours. OK, they last a few hours. Why can't you accept this? Do you think they ought to shorten the Super Bowl too? Think Obama ought to trim down that State of the Union speech? Things last however long they last. It's so dumb that this is a crisis for people. What gets me the most about it is that the VAST majority of the people in this country, and the majority of the people who complain, spend hours each week watching television. Hell, they spend hours each DAY watching television. They are perfectly content to sit flipping through the channels, frittering away their lives. But when a show is on that lasts the length of time they will sit on the couch watching anyway this is a problem. SO DUMB.

But enough about stupid people. On to the celebrities! My favorite red carpet moment was Tom and Julia (Hanks and Roberts, of course) who were hanging out with the yammering interviewer and discussing the rain. Rain that, by the way, took by surprise much of Beverly Hills. The storm was supposed to move away, but no. So anyway, Julia made a crack about NBC not being in such a good place right now and the interviewer was like, Julia! You're live on NBC right now! trying to deflect the insult. So Tom says, "NBC said it was going to rain at 10 p.m., but then they pushed it back to 11:30." Ha! Love it.

James Cameron is such an interesting man. He's so creative, and he totally makes it happen. He doesn't even need The Artist's Way! I liked his shout-out to (his ex-wife, but friend) Kathryn Bigelow that maybe she should have won the best directing award that he in fact won. I really haven't decided how I feel about this whole Avatar versus The Hurt Locker versus Up in the Air thing, yet. I like Kathryn and I like the vision in her film, but I think Cameron's execution of his Avatar vision might be a but more statue-worthy. Noticeably absent from the directors' race is Spike Jonze for Where the Wild Things Are. This really bothers me. That movie was, first of all, far superior to what I imagined it could be, but secondly, the textbook definition of good directing, and realizing a vision. No offense to Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) - truly, none - or Lee Daniels (Precious), but I think the directing that Spike Jonze did for WtWTA was better.

As for the best picture, though? I'm partial to In the Loop, which was sadly not nominated. Out of the Golden Globes' Best Picture - Drama nominees, I would have chosen Inglourious Basterds, with a nagging thought that maybe I wanted Up in the Air. I really, really liked Up in the Air a lot. But Inglourious Basterds was so magnificent and hugely well done.

Needless to say, if you have not watched both In the Loop and Inglourious Basterds, you should do so immediately if not sooner. They are both out on DVD, so crank up your Netflix queue and get on that! (And, something else we apparently have to go through every year -- if you're not yet a Netflix member, e-mail me! I'll send you a free trial so that you can mend the error of your ways.)

Now about that Golden Globes Best Picture - Comedy/Musical category. Hmmm. I've seen (500)Days of Summer and The Hangover, but I haven't yet seen Meryl I, Meryl II, or Nine. I'm cool with The Hangover's win, though. It really was a funny, well-acted, enjoyable movie. It just blatantly had no worthy, righteous characters in it, but in a silly way. It didn't take itself too seriously, and it came off really well.

Now, do I think Mo'Nique's acceptance speech at the Globes was totally amazing? No. Do I think her performance was good? Sure...it was great. But it's so boring when the Supporting Acting races are foregone conclusions -- her for Precious and Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds. I like them both, I just wish there was some tension and excitement and speculation!

All in all I am not doing too bad in seeing the main awards contenders. It helps that the Oscars are later this year. If they were in early-mid Feb, I would have had to spend a week in Chicago by now just to watch movies. Ugh. The movies in the theaters right now that I need to see are The Lovely Bones, Sherlock Holmes, Nine, Brothers, and It's Complicated. The movies definitely on their way to Grand Rapids are A Single Man, The Messenger, The Damned United and Crazy Heart. The Oscar-potential movies in my Netflix queue are Julie & Julia and Moon. Plus I have The Cove at home. I really want to see The Beaches of Agnes and Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country, but they both have unknown DVD release dates at this time.

Movies movie movies movies movies. What do you think was the best picture of 2009?