Globehood

John Lopez: I have this tradition — maybe you do, too — where as soon as Best Picture is announced, I spit out my bargain Trader Joe’s pinot in dismay, then remind myself awards shows aren’t really about art, they’re marketing machines powered by sharp agendas, massive egos, and, above all, money. But this year, I almost choked on my wine when Boyhood won Best Motion Picture Drama and Richard Linklater won Best Director of a Motion Picture. Are you kidding? The Hollywood Foreign Press Association agrees with me?

I mean, it must, because there’s no way IFC Films has that kind of bribery fund. Speaking of which: I’m sure there will be some whisper campaign/backlash now, because an Oscar is too valuable a trophy to let Richard Linklater just have. But for the record, anyone who’s been on the rolling heart attack known as a film set knows you don’t wrangle a production for 12 years as a gimmick — and if you want to make a dollar, you don’t finance films that way. (Starting over every year is like starting a new movie: Linklater didn’t make one film over 12 years, he made 12.) If you think it’s Oscar bait, just remember that Boyhood came out at the height of summer. There are a lot of rules in the Oscar playbook: Releasing your film as indie counterprogramming to Transformers: Age of Extinction is not one. For my money, wrestling bold drama out of geniuses fighting Nazis, historic movements battling injustice, or psychotic billionaires is a noble but perennial affair. Coaxing poetry out of the daily struggles of a single mom shepherding her children to maturity — that doesn’t come around every awards season. The movies are great at drawing larger-than-life characters and celebrating humanity at its best or denouncing its worst; but dull, frustrating, everyday life is something studios assume we pay our money to avoid.

Still, it blows my mind that Linklater, of all people, is winning these awards. Does that make him the Establishment? It makes me feel my age. For me, Dazed and Confused was one of those adolescence-defining films that opened up movies as something other than Indiana Jones or Schindler’s List. It was immediate and recognizable to the point that I forgot I was watching a movie and not meeting a new group of friends. Until then, I thought movies had to be extravaganzas about people better, faster, smarter, or more interesting than me and my dull problems. But that’s the vein in which Linklater has always made films. They’re so simple, the style so windowpane clear, you take them for granted. It’s encouraging that they didn’t last night.

“Run and get a refill, Pacey. This one’s empty and Mama’s still thirsty.”

https://twitter.com/ScottFeinberg/status/554435010447433728/photo/1

Tina and Amy, GOAT

Paul Drinkwater/Getty Images

Mark Lisanti: We recognize that there might be some recency bias at play here, and that the small sample size of the previous three years might loom larger in our minds than they otherwise would — literally everybody who still remembers Johnny Carson and Bob Hope has been dead for years, and nobody’s interested in hearing the name “Billy Crystal” this morning (the musical numbers aren’t going to mix well with this hangover) — but let’s ask the question anyway: Are Tina Fey and Amy Poehler the greatest awards show hosts of all time? Can we hand them matching GOAT tiaras right now, drop the balloons, fit them for the sashes? Waking up this morning in a pile of empty champagne bottles, it seems an irrefutable choice. Go ahead and fight us on this. A broken magnum of Dom Pérignon turns a bleary-eyed blogger into an unstoppable force of righteous certainty. Come at us, bros. We can remember all the way back to 2012 with little to no problem. The vomiting kicks in only if we shoot for the earlier aughts.

In their third and final go-round as Golden Globes hosts, Tina and Amy threw their own Viking funeral on the stage at the Beverly Hilton, riding their flaming boat into history. They went right in on The Interview, inviting 30 Rock conspirator Margaret Cho to take a few more shots at the pop-culture-obsessed hacking monolith of North Korea. They pointed out Emma Stone’s uncanny resemblance — “It’s cute but it’s creepy” — to any of the subjects in the Big Eyes paintings. They called out Joaquin Phoenix, nestled comfortably at a nearby table with performers who haven’t publicly decried the bullshittery of awards shows, and invited everyone to see if he was enjoying his chicken à la hypocrite. They congratulated George Clooney on marrying up. They recognized the artistic accomplishment of Selma, and how “everything worked and now everything’s fine.”

And they dropped the Cosby joke, with the pills in the people and the people not wanting the pills in them, which went over like this:

In the stunned expressions of their audience, you can see the emotional calculus being performed as they tried to triangulate the appropriate on-camera response:

“Did they really just do a Cosby joke?”

“They did.”

“Are we allowed to laugh at it?”

“I have no idea.”

“It was funny, though, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not going to say one way or the other.”

“Let’s just reach deep and do ‘scandalized but potentially amused.’”

“Follow Chastain, she’ll know what to do.”

“Deal.”

So we salute Tina and Amy in their hosting victory lap: If they’re not the greatest of all time, they’re at least the greatest of our time.

And we’ll see them at the Oscars in four years. Book it.

Frances McDormand Would Like You to Wrap Up Your Speech Now, Part 1: Hush, Amy Adams

“Hey, Lois Lane, how about investigating the story of the sad little actress who thinks winning a Golden Globe actually means something? How’s that sound, big eyes?”

Has Ruth Wilson Actually Seen Her Show?

Wesley Morris: Let’s set aside the hosts, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Let’s bypass some fabricated screenplay banter between Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader. We’ll overlook Margaret Cho’s transcendence of the needless North Korean apparatchik shtick in order to send it crashing into the side of a mountain (it’ll be even funnier the year there are actual Asian nominees). Hilarity was generally not the 72nd Golden Globes’s thing. Kevin Hart was disrespectful with a visibly exasperated Salma Hayek. Jeremy Renner, standing alongside a dazzling Jennifer Lopez, wanted everyone to know he knew what awards-show breasts were.

But maybe the global air of creative censorship has lots of people shaken. The thank-yous were mostly earnest, brief, self-conscious, and safe. So it should have been a pleasure to watch surprise winner Ruth Wilson make her way through the broadcast cheap seats to receive her Best Actress in a TV Drama Series statue. Her dress was unsafe, and her speech seemed headed toward the same danger in the way that the English can accept a prize with drollery and sass.

Not Wilson. She took a gander at the trophy and proceeded to tell a story about what happened the last time she was up for one of these. It was during the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike, and she had to watch the show from a hotel bar. “I lost. It was more than a little disappointing.” She went on to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for “getting me back here and putting me on this podium.”

A good awards-show speech can do wonders with self-deprecation and conceitedness. Of course one wants to win. But one ought to do so with at least an air of humility. Maybe this is what one thinks in losing. I’m going to guess Claire Danes, Viola Davis, Julianna Margulies, and Robin Wright were thinking: Has she seen her show? Wilson came off like a resort guest relieved to be staying — at last! — somewhere that understood how to cater to her needs, like the airline executive pissed about being served bagged nuts in first class. She praised the rump of her costar Dominic West, and before she’d finished mentioning her parents, the producers began to play her off the air. It was 50 seconds too late.

We All Noticed J.Lo’s Dress; Jeremy Renner Just Made a Point of Noticing It the Most

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hYuE2Y2y6A

Ordinary People

Lester Cohen/WireImage

Chris Ryan: At some point between Jeremy Renner commenting on Jennifer Lopez’s globes and Kevin Spacey bringing back his Francis Underwood voice like the guy who lived in your dorm who was still doing Dr. Evil impersonations in 2002, Jill Soloway got onstage and accepted the award for Best TV Series Comedy or Musical on behalf of the show she created, Transparent. The very best thing you can say about the Golden Globes — and this is basically what George Clooney said (though he was referring to Birdman) upon accepting his Cecil B. DeMille Award — is that it occasionally shines a light on some of the great but lesser-known movies and shows out there.

Transparent winning was the best example of that looking-out-for-the-underdog spirit. What a remarkable journey it must have been for Soloway, who shepherded Transparent from being a pilot in Amazon’s original-programming Hunger Games and through its tremendous first season. She seemed genuinely moved to have her program recognized, as did her cast. And she gave one of the most affecting speeches of the night, dedicating the victory to the late transgender teen Leelah Alcorn, who took her own life late last year. I get pretty cynical about whether popular culture can, in Soloway’s words, teach the world about authenticity, truth, and love. But I know that last year she got about as close as you can while still making a damn entertaining television show.

“Leto! Lee-to! Digging your new braid, brother! Locks of love, mi amigo, locks of love!”

Kevin Spacey Isn’t Frank Underwood, Even If He’d Like to Be

Sean Fennessey: What a strange life Kevin Spacey is having. Last night he won his first Golden Globe in eight tries for his role as Francis Underwood on House of Cards. It’s an uncommon inversion for a man who has impressed his peers enough — he has two Oscars — though not the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, until now. These days, Spacey is considered by many to be a honeybaked ham draped in candied pineapple rings — a scene-chewing piglet and inveterate hog. But I’ve always found him something deeper: an aggressively invested and watchable actor after both mischief and old-Hollywood grandeur. He makes movies move, makes them feel full, even when they shouldn’t. I rewatched J.C. Chandor’s still-thrilling Margin Call last month — it would not work without Spacey’s Sam Rogers, a grousing, grounded manager forced to execute the sell-off that eventually shatters the economy. That is the last significant film role that Spacey had, in 2011. Between those Oscars and Margin Call, he mucked around for a decade with faux-deep bad choices (K-Pax, The Life of David Gale) and fizzy dream projects (Beyond the Sea). He’s been gone lately mostly because he dashed off to relaunch and oversee the Old Vic Theatre in London.¹

But since 2013, onscreen, he’s been Underwood, the drawling, devising center of Netflix’s soapy political drama. House of Cards isn’t classically reputable television, and after a reaching and preposterous second season, it’s taken about as seriously as Spacey these days. But I love House of Cards for all of its schlocky, junky, lurid, buffed-up Finchery style — where does it say that prestige television has to be important television? It, too, would not move without Spacey. Likewise the Netflix creative revolution, of which Spacey is its fiercest promoter. So when Spacey started in on his speech last night — featuring an Underwood drop, an oddly placed F-bomb, and some serious-man utterances about a meeting he’d had with the late director Stanley Kramer — Salma Hayek couldn’t be bothered and a collective eye roll hit the Internet. Also, things like this.

Spacey is tight-lipped about his personal life, and he always has been. To expect something else, in this moment, indicates a public brand of personal desire. This will likely always follow him, in small measures at least, no matter how many Underwoodian incantations he delivers, no matter how many speeches he gives, no matter if his career sinks into obscurity from this moment forward. Though I suspect Frank Underwood will have his revenge either way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU9QTLXYCCc

Mike & Jeff, Reunited in Inevitable Victory

Steven Hyden: Before last night, neither Michael Keaton nor Jeffrey Tambor had ever received a major acting award. Under normal circumstances, I would point to this as yet another reason why awards shows are meaningless trash heaps. (Seriously, who wasn’t already aware that Keaton and Tambor are acting geniuses?) In this instance, however, I would rather express my appreciation that the Golden Globes finally got it right and handed these men some well-deserved hardware. Clearly, they were robbed in the past because Keaton and Tambor are known primarily as comedic actors, and even comedic actors with incredible range, uncommon insight, and singularly loopy auras typically don’t win awards. But they did last night.

In his speech, Keaton thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for acknowledging comedy as a separate entity from drama, though his role in Birdman (as well as Tambor’s role in Transparent) allowed for more of the capital-A Actorly affectations that win awards than playing, say, Beetlejuice or Hank Kingsley did. Keaton and Tambor won because they were great in their respective projects, but also because they appeared in projects that awards voters are more inclined to recognize as great. So, hail to Birdman and Transparent, but let’s not forget where these guys came from. Let’s not forget this eternally hilarious scene from the film that introduced me to Keaton and Tambor during one of my first movie theater experiences more than 30 years ago.

Tambor fires Keaton, Keaton tries to kill Tambor, Tambor pays Keaton his gas money, Keaton is all, “You wanna get nuts, let’s get nuts.” Mr. Mom never won anything except my lifelong love, but c’mon, these guys deserved all the awards even then.

Orange Crush

aul Drinkwater/NBC

Molly Lambert: JUSTICE FOR GINGERS! Julianne Moore won Best Actress in a Drama Motion Picture for Still Alice, which is not David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars, but hey, good enough. Amy Adams won for Big Eyes, whose lukewarm press could not defeat the Adams attack. Does this mean we’ll be seeing a potential Moore vs. Adams faceoff in the Oscars? Both are Susan Luccis of the Academy, well past due and owed a win. I ultimately have to cast my vote for natural ginger Moore over dye-jobbed Adams, whose blonde Big Eyes wig is closer to her natural color than her signature red. Sorry, Amy, I have to ride or die for Amber Waves. 

Frances McDormand Would Like You to Wrap Up Your Speech Now, Part 2: Cool Story, Maggie Gyllenhaal

“Can we speed this up, Missy? Twitter just told me Marnie from Girls got up to some very dirty business tonight [LINK NSFW], I gotta go check the DVR.”

Your 2016 Golden Globes Hosts: Kristen and Bill

Amos Barshad: After their third go-round, Tina and Amy are all done hosting the Globes, but if common sense, good cheer, and Twitter have anything to do with it, we’ve already got our 2016 replacements. For a few scant minutes, while presenting Best Screenplay, good pals Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader got up and riffed with some sublimely, perfectly dumb fake movie quotes, giving us that rarest of award-show laughs (non-monologue division): not unintentional comedy, not schadenfreude comedy, but actual, legitimate comedy. The two have already notably paired up once since their run-and-gun SNL days, as estranged siblings in the indie drama The Skeleton Twins. That was mostly a clenched-teeth affair, but there were a few moments of joy, none better than a transcendent rebonding scene in which the two, fueled by after-hours dentist’s office nitrous oxide, roll around the carpet, acting like morons and trying to make each other laugh. Last night, dressed up all fancy, standing up straight, and operating without the use of misappropriated medication, they did it again. And it was lovely to watch.

Hader, cracking up with incredulity: “Oh, you’re gonna do your Robert De Niro impression?”

Wiig, game as ever: “I’m gonna try!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlN91NS8vPA

Top Five Likeliest Reasons Jennifer Aniston Was Miserable All Night

George Pimentel/WireImage

Juliet Litman:

1. She’s pregnant and couldn’t drink. (This is a headline from the future. Look for it in the weekly tabloids on Wednesday.)

2. George Clooney’s appearance on Friends didn’t make it into the Cecil B. DeMille montage reel. Plus, we all know that Clooney is Team Brad.

3. She didn’t realize what a poor choice she made with her dress until it was too late.

4. She had never heard of Benedict Cumberbatch before and does not care for him now.

5. She just finished a Leftovers marathon.

Is There a Bigger Fan of Prince’s Cane Than Allison Janney?

No, there is not.

Bonnie & Clyde ’15

Jeff Vespa/WireImage

Ryan: Twelve months ago, Ben Foster and Robin Wright were engaged, then they got matching tats, then they broke up, then they showed up to the 2015 Globes together. Foster is out here like a dude who robbed a bank, got away with it, and then came back the next day to open up a savings account. I don’t get that joke either, but I can’t think of any other way to describe Foster’s face.

Just a Couple of Texas Boys

Jason Gallagher: “Dez has to maintain possession ALL THE WAY TO THE FUCKING GROUND.”

1. I saw a production of The Crucible there last summer that was more captivating and inventive than any film I saw in 2014.