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Ricky Gervais’ Funniest Moments from the Globes
As I stated earlier in my postgame analysis for this year’s Golden Globe awards, one of the absolute highlights had to be Ricky Gervais’ cringingly brutal assault on Hollywood’s elite through his stand-up. There were certain moments when the audience and bloggers believed that he had been fired midway through the show for his humor just got too out-of-hand. It’s my fervent prayer that the powers-that-be realize that for much of the viewing public, his performances was absolutely gold. And whether he hosts or not, the stars are still going to show up…so have him host it anyway!!!
Well, I was just put on to a video compilation of some of his best bits of the night. So if you missed the Globes, or just want to experience some of the comic’s no-holds-barred routine all over again, check out the video below:
Golden Globes – Postgame
Okay. I will admit that the HFPA really did do all right by me, last night. Overall they made some pretty good decisions, especially in officially solidifying “The Social Network” as the frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar. If “The King’s Speech” can’t win here, I really can’t imagine it winning anywhere.
However, even if the Golden Globes released a list of their Top 100 favorite films, and their list happened to match mine movie per movie, I would still not take up with them. An organization that will accept bribery and star-fucking as good reasons to nominate “Burlesque” or “Alice in Wonderland” as Best Picture of the Year is no friend of mine.
Here is the full list of winners from last night:
BEST PICTURE, DRAMA
“Black Swan”
“The Fighter”
“Inception”
“The King’s Speech”
“The Social Network”
Best Picture (Musical/Comedy)
“Alice in Wonderland”
“Burlesque”
“The Kids Are All Right”
“Red”
“The Tourist”
Best Director
Darren Aronofsky, “Black Swan”
David O. Russell, “The Fighter”
Christopher Nolan, “Inception”
Tom Hooper, “The King’s Speech”
David Fincher, “The Social Network”
Best Actor (Drama)
Jesse Eisenberg, “The Social Network”
Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
James Franco, “127 Hours”
Ryan Gosling, “Blue Valentine”
Mark Wahlberg, “The Fighter”
Best Actress (Drama)
Halle Berry, “Frankie and Alice”
Nicole Kidman, “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence, “Winter’s Bone”
Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams, “Blue Valentine”
Best Actor (Musical/Comedy)
Johnny Depp, “Alice in Wonderland”
Johnny Depp, “The Tourist”
Paul Giamatti, “Barney’s Version”
Jake Gyllenhaal, “Love and Other Drugs”
Kevin Spacey, “Casino Jack”
Best Actress (Musical/Comedy)
Annette Bening, “The Kids Are All Right”
Anne Hathaway, “Love and Other Drugs”
Angelina Jolie, “The Tourist”
Julianne Moore, “The Kids Are All Right”
Emma Stone, “Easy A”
Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, “The Fighter”
Michael Douglas, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”
Andrew Garfield, “The Social Network”
Jeremy Renner, “The Town”
Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech”
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter, “The King’s Speech”
Mila Kunis, “Black Swan”
Melissa Leo, “The Fighter”
Jacki Weaver, “Animal Kingdom”
Best Screenplay
Christopher Nolan, “Inception”
Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, “The Kids Are All Right”
David Seidler, “The King’s Speech”
Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, “127 Hours”
Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network”
Best Foreign Language Film
“Biutiful”
“The Concert”
“The Edge”
“I Am Love”
“In a Better World”
Best Animated Feature
“Despicable Me”
“How to Train Your Dragon”
“The Illusionist”
“Tangled”
“Toy Story 3”
Best Original Score
Danny Elfman, “Alice in Wonderland”
Hans Zimmer, “Inception”
Alexandre Desplat, “The King’s Speech”
A.R. Rahman, “127 Hours”
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “The Social Network”
Best Original Song
“Bound to You” from “Burlesque”
“You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” from “Burlesque”
“There’s a Place for Us” from “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”
“Coming Home” from “Country Strong”
“I See the Light” from “Tangled”
Cecil B. De Mille Award
Robert De Niro
As far as my predictions go, I had a very good night. Some of these weren’t the most difficult awards to predict, but I still amassed a record of 12 out of 14, or 85 percent. That might be the best record that I’ve ever had on this particular award show. If it hadn’t have been Johnny Depp getting screwed by two nomination vote-splitting or an absolute upset like no other in Best Foreign Language Film, I would have had a perfect score.
If you had been within one hundred feet of my apartment at one o’clock in the morning (I had to DVR the show since I was working on set during the airtime), you would have heard a chorus of whoops and hollers at every “Social Network” victory. I was particularly ecstatic upon hearing Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ names being called, for not only was that one of the film’s most difficult nominations to win, but that moment pretty much sealed its Best Picture victory.
The acting victories were literally identical to the BFCA wins, with Firth, Portman, Bale and Leo all going home with awards. In the Musical/Comedy section, Annette Bening made her last stand at putting up a fight against Natalie for the Oscar, but I really don’t think it will be enough (despite Bening getting a full ovation and Portman only a few random stands). Paul Giamatti pulled out a not-so-surprising but really cool win over Johnny Depp and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Obviously, the talk of the night was Ricky Gervais’ absolutely no-holds-barred hosting job which bordered on a Comedy Central Roast. I’ve heard things such as network executives swearing that it will be the end of the comic’s career, but for me, the best part of the show was waiting for what he was going to say next. I mean, come on. When you’re that rich and that famous, there is absolutely no reason not to verbally macerated on national television. I haven’t laughed as hard in a long time as when Ricky referred to Bruce Willis as Ashton Kutcher’s dad.
The best part of the night, and ironic for me, since I really don’t care much about the television portion of the awards, was Chris Colfer’s win for “Glee.” Sometimes you see a performer put on their phony “I never would have imagined” face. You could tell that this kid had expected hell to freeze over and then thaw again before he would win this award. The shock, awe and pure joy in his face was just a memorable sight. And while I really don’t enjoy “Glee” so much, both Colfer and Jane Lynch’s performances are far and away the only things that keep it afloat in my attention span. Congrats to both of them.
Well, the critics have officially had their say. All that’s left are those in the industry, and I can only hope that they greet “The Social Network” with as much warmth and gratitude as their judges have. And since it has now received nominations, at least, from every single Hollywood guild, the horizon is looking pretty damned bright.
“Valentine’s Day” Review
Not a whole lot to say about this film, so let’s keep it short and sweet. All in all, it’s about seventeen different chick flicks combined into one, as if one wasn’t enough to begin with. They’ve managed to cram every sappy and cliched plotline from other cheap romantic comedies and micromanaged them into bite-sized form. You have a woman in love, who doesn’t realize there’s another woman. You’ve got two strangers meeting on an airplane. You’ve got a guy who meets a girl who has a mysterious double life. You’ve got a budding young teenage romance and an elderly couple trying to hang on to theirs, along with many, many more. All these plots and all of these people, and what do you get? A candy-coated mess of a movie.
There’s quite a few issues with this piece of cinema. A big one is the film’s overwhelming sense of predictability. In every single case, it seems obvious to the audience how every story will be resolved. You know who’s going to break up, who’s going to make up and who’s going to hook up, and usually it’s just not at all exciting. The acting, for the most part, is stale and dissatisfying. Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Jamie Foxx and Julia Roberts more or less just meander through their lines. The “Grey’s Anatomy” stars are completely flat. Ashton Kutcher is his usual douchebag self. And the combination of Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner is perhaps the worst acting couple in recent film history. The only highlights were perhaps Anne Hathaway with her energetic variety of personalities and the always lovely Shirley MacLaine as a guilt-stricken grandmother.
Another noticeable flaw is the film’s quite poor use of editing. A story with this bulky of a plot needs a lot of fine-tuned editing to keep a fluid motion. The structure of “Valentine’s Day” is jumbled and clunky, and without the help of solid cutting, it seems completely uneven, as well. The different stories don’t melt together in a rhythmic fashion and the momentum is almost completely lost in the shuffle. Also, the film makes some very strange attempts at parallel editing which don’t accomplish the point of the technique. Instead of intercutting two scenes at a steady rhythm and matching intensity, they simply have two things happening and cut them together in an increasingly awkward manner.
Overall, the biggest flaw is that in a film such as this with many different stories and boatloads of characters, they need to feed and feed off each other as well as exist in their own right. Don’t get me wrong, this film certainly does intertwine it’s characters, but it just does not do it well. If you were to cut this film into pieces and have each story work as an individual film, quite simply put, they would not do so.
None of the stories follow a solid three-act plot structure. None of them are meaty enough in substance and conflict in both story and characters to act as individual tales. When the characters interact outside the boundaries of their inherent stories, those stories are damaged and lose their relevance. When you look at films that successfully accomplish the crisscross method (“Magnolia,” “Short Cuts,” hell even “Crash” does it better than this film) each character, or group of characters, is interesting enough to practically have an entire movie based on just them, and therefore, the whole structure is the better for it. In the case of “Valentine’s Day,” instead of getting a pretty, ribbon-tied basket of delicious treats, you’re handed a flattened box of sloppy, melted, old chocolate recently bought at the local convenience store. In essence: a mess.
GRADES: C- * 1/2 / * * * * * 3 / 10.0
The Edge of the Frame 