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Sunday, January 13, 2008
No glitter at the Globes and way too much Mary Hart
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Before the red carpet began at last year’s Oscars I stood there and watched the unbearable Mary Hart of “Entertainment Tonight” trot by and fans in the bleachers started yelling her name and cheering. I thought I’d never again see anything as lame in my whole life.
Well, for once I was wrong. Sunday night’s Golden Globes “press conference” was lame enough to make any movie fan weep.
What was NBC doing? Its hourlong “Golden Globes Winners Special” sadly trailed the actual event. If you watched on E!, you saw the official announcement and heard all the winners named in 30 minutes. NBC’s show trickled them out for a full hour.
But E! did remarkably inept things too — like having show host Ryan Seacrest break in just as the winner of the best motion picture drama was being uttered so that E!’s commentators could predict which film would win. By the way, the winner was “Atonement,” which also took best original score.
The Globes did make some smart choices. Daniel Day-Lewis (“There Will Be Blood”) and Julie Christie (“Away From Her”) were solid selections for drama actor and actress. Marion Cotillard scored as musical/comedy actress in a much-needed win that will help boost her Oscar buzz.
France’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” also increased its buzz by taking home two awards — best foreign-language film and best director for Julian Schnabel. The film is a potential Oscar nominee in several categories, but not for the Academy’s foreign film race (each country is allowed only one contender and France chose “Persepolis”).
“No Country for Old Men” also won two Globes: screenplay and supporting actor for Javier Bardem. Cate Blanchett won supporting actress for portraying Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There.” Both are expected to get Oscar nominations.
In a way, I was pretty happy about the whole Globes thing. Instead of hours of celebrity face-time hogging, we got to hear that Johnny Depp (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”) had won his first Globe …and we got to go to sleep at a decent hour.
But the hard truth is that on the live feed we had to watch a sea of entertainment news show hacks read out winners’ names. Do we really care that Jim Moret of “Inside Edition” wants to stand up and applaud the Hollywood Foreign Press Association?
And on E!’s coverage we got to see Mary Hart shout out most of the biggest nominees, gush about “all the incredibly talented people in the industry” and, worst of all, comment about how the movies last year were so powerful and required so much coverage that “the work at time has left me breathless.”
That’s a moment to rank right up there with the Globes years ago picking Pia Zadora as the new star of the year.
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