Killjoy

He said he didn’t care.  He wasn’t kidding.

Five-time Golden Globe Award host Ricky Gervais kicked off the 2020 Golden Globes with a tasteless, profanity-laced screed.  This is typically how this guy rolls, but the problem was he made fun of the speeches – in advance.  I don’t recall the actual verbiage but he basically said  don’t get all political, just thank your agent, get over yourself, etc.

The problem with this intro is that it made many of the winners extremely self-conscious when they accepted their awards and gave their speeches.  The point of being a host is to be a cheerleader.  It is not to make the acceptance speeches worse.  It was kind of ironic that Gervais was the host given that the two people who received Lifetime Achievement awards, Ellen DeGeneres and Tom Hanks, embody decency and kindness.

So the Golden Globes trundled along.  There were very few bring-down-the-house moments but I will list those that stuck with me.

• Kate McKinnon’s intro to Ellen DeGeneres’ winning the Carol Burnett award was very moving, she talked about growing up gay and how important Ellen was to her.  Charlize Theron also gave a heartfelt intro to Tom Hanks’ Cecil B. DeMille award.  And DeGeneres and Hanks both gave lovely speeches.  Normally honestly the Lifetime Achievement awards aren’t the high point of the award show, they’re the snoozefest, but again, this was sort of a weird show.
• Awkwafina gave a funny yet moving speech when she won for The Farewell. Michelle Williams was again the queen of acceptance speech prep.  Having provided an impassioned speech at the Emmys when she won for Fosse/Verdon about the importance of supporting women in the workplace, this time her speech was rousingly pro-choice.  Everyone was very happy to see Brad Pitt win for Supporting Actor, who truly does seem like a shockingly decent, humble, gracious person.
• The Actor/Actress in a Drama winners, Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellweger, both gave weird rambling speeches that got played out. Phoenix’s was incoherent.  Zellweger’s was heartfelt but got off to a strange beginning when she talked about how it was good to be back after a long break from acting but the audience didn’t seem particularly happy to have her back.
• There were various callouts to the horrible brushfires in Australia, which at the end Ricky Gervais ridiculed.
• 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood were the big movie winners, and Succession and Fleabag the big tv winners. I don’t keep up with all these tv shows (preferring obscure Australian tv shows like Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries).  Spencer is back from college and he and I have been on a tear watching movies, but 1917 hasn’t opened yet.  So I haven’t yet seen it and I also haven’t had the patience to slog through yet another Scorcese-directed very long mob movie starring Robert De Niro.  Sigh.

Now is time for a screed of my own.  Little Women is one of the best movies I have seen in years and that it wasn’t nominated for Best Drama or Best Director is pretty much rock-solid evidence of sexism in Hollywood.  The Director of Little Women, Greta Gerwig, sagely predicts this in the movie itself, when Jo March’s editor informs her that “domestic” stories aren’t considered worthwhile.  The movie is a fantastic achievement, true to the book yet still breathtakingly original, and is accessible to lovers of the book and people who are entirely unfamiliar with it (Spencer, again, and Lisa Bell!)

Over and out.  Until the Oscars, or perhaps I will become motivated to begin blogging my movie reviews again before then.  Let me know what you think in the “Comments” section or send me an email.  Thanks for reading!