Golden Globes Wrap
It shouldn’t come as any surprise to know that there were few surprises at the 2012 Golden Globe Awards.
I’m sorry but this always puzzles me. Given the Hollywood Foreign Press consists of just 90 or so members, how are their choices so easy to predict? Surely it would only take a few members to think differently from the wider consensus to cause an upset. Or is their real goal not to honour who they think is best, but rather to position themselves as being the forecaster of the Academy Awards?
Here’s a quick list of the major winners:
Best Picture, Drama – The Descendants
Best Picture, Musical or Comedy – The Artist
Best Actor, Drama – George Clooney (The Descendants)
Best Actress, Drama – Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)
Best Actor, Musical or Comedy – Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
Best Actress, Musical or Comedy – Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)
Best Supporting Actor – Christopher Plummer (Beginners)
Best Supporting Actress – Octavia Spencer (The Help)
Best Director – Martin Scorsese (Hugo)
Best Screenplay – Woody Allen (Midnight In Paris)
Best Foreign Language Film – A Separation
Best Animated Film – The Adventures Of Tin Tin
The only “upset” would appear to have been Martin Scorese’s best director win for Hugo. Some had predicted it but the majority had sided with The Artist’s Michel Hazanavicius.
In terms of my own bets, I’d wagered $200 on Brad Pitt for Moneyball (at $5) and $200 on Viola Davis for The Help (at $3.25). Both were defeated and I finished with a loss of $400. I’m not too disappointed given I got good odds but I was confident that Davis would rain on the parade of Meryl Streep. The Oscar race is still wide open in that category if you ask me.
The Artist has done itself no harm and is now on track to win the Academy Award for best picture. Then again, we said this last year about The Social Network and it’s momentum was stopped once the Guild Awards were announced (and The King’s Speech made it’s charge). We’ll see.
Ricky Gervais was a little disappointing as host. He wasn’t as provocative as last year and he didn’t appear on stage all that often (aside from the opening monologue). A few good quotes though…
“Congratulations to all the nominees and all the winners... I hope you enjoy the goody bags and the champagne and the gold. I hope that took your mind off the recession for a little while.”
“It’s going well, isn’t it? You’re so much better than last year’s audience. They had a right stick up their a***.”
“I mustn’t mention Mel Gibson this year. Not his private life, his politics, his recent films and especially not Jodie Foster’s beaver. I haven’t seen it myself. I’ve spoke to a lot of guys here - they haven’t seen it either, but that doesn’t mean it’s not any good.”
“Tonight you get Britain’s biggest comedian hosting the world’s second biggest award show on America’s third biggest network. Sorry? Fourth? It’s fourth.”
Golden Globes Competition
A big thanks to the 76 people who entered my Pick The Golden Globes competition.
It was a tight contest with no one getting a perfect score. We had 6 entrants finish on a score of 5 out of 6. They were Sam Dagan, Jimmy Orsag, Solo Fogg, Isabelle Laskari, Paul Nelson and Barry Rutherford.
It therefore came down the tie-breaker question – the age of the person who presented the award for best picture, drama. Sam Dagan was spot on with his guess of 69 as that’s the current age of Harrison Ford. Well done to Sam and I’ll talk to him soon about prizes.