I know that I said on
Friday what I was expecting from the Golden Globes going into last night’s
ceremony: I said all I cared about was the awards in television and that
entertainment was very low on my list of concerns.
This was something I
have sadly come to expect from the Golden Globes during so much of the past
several years. During much of the 2010s watching the Golden Globes could be a
joyous experience and that always happened when SNL alums were hosting. Tina Fey
and Amy Poehler were wondrous in their first three appearances on the show; the
opening number of the 2017 Golden Globes in which Jimmy Fallon led the
celebrities through a brilliant satire of La La Land is a high point in
my career of awards watching; the gentle prodding of Seth Meyers with very
little of his political commentary – all of those were fun.
This didn’t occur when
Ricky Gervais did so and with each passing year he seemed less committed to
entertaining and more to getting drunk. (I’m convinced he was completely pissed
in his final stint in 2020 before the show started.) Amy Poehler and Tina Fey
did their best during 2021 but could do little to overcome both Covid and the
mood; Jerrod Carmichael’s exceptional work of addressing the elephant in the
room in his opening monologue was both radical and hysterical in 2023 but the
audience clearly was uncomfortable and Jo Koi last year was arguably the most
disastrous choice to emcee any awards show since Seth McFarlane hosted the
Oscars in 2013. One can understand why I chose to focus more and more on the
awards given then the ceremonies themselves: I couldn’t say something nice, so
I didn’t say anything at all. (And I knew my fellow critics were not going to
be nearly as forgiving so I saw no need to pile on.)
Nikki Glaser, however,
seemed to know the right mood to set from the start. “If you’re watching on
CBS, welcome and if you’re watching on Paramount Plus you have six days to
cancel your subscription.” She then looked at the audience: “These people can
do anything except convince America who to vote for.”
With that she was off
and running and kept her political commentary, refreshingly, to a minimum and
always in a certain context. “The Penguin, The Bear, Baby Reindeer, these
are not just things you will find in RFK Junior freezer,” she said before
saying they were nominated TV shows. “Look at all the movie stars: Colin
Farrell, Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet. And look all the big TV stars: Colin
Farrell, Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet.” She claimed she was not their to roast
even though that’s more or less what she did but unlike the contempt that one
saw in Gervais, there seemed to be an affection towards it that I just didn’t
see. “Eddie Redmayne is nominated for Day of the Jackal. He plays an
assassin that no one knows exists because his show takes place on Peacock.” An
appropriate dig. “Nicole Kidman has been nominated for her 20th
Golden Globe. Congratulations to Nicole and to Keith Urban for being such a
horrible musician that Nicole leaves the house to make eighteen movies a year
rather than listen to you.” (It’s as good as explanation as any.) “Tilda
Swinton is here, nominated for playing Timothee Chalamet.” Then she went after
Chalamet. “Timothee you were so good as Bob Dylan that Dylan himself said your
singing was completely unrecognizable.” Then she turned to Zendaya. “You were
so good in Dune. I woke up for every scene in you were in.”
This level of mockery
was very pleasant – and she was more than willing to turn it against herself.
After losing Best Stand-up performance to Ali Wong (I’ll get back to that) when
the commercial cut back to her she said, “Welcome back, I’m Golden Globe loser
Nikki Glaser. But I’m not bitter because I just made $11,000 betting for Ali
Wong to win that award. You lose some, you win some.” If her genius – and I’ve
only touched on some of it – doesn’t get her an automatic invitation to return
next year, I don’t know what will and I have to say this is more proof that,
the best man to host any award show is a woman. I’m looking forward to Chelsea
Handler’s return hosting the Critics’ Choice next week.
And this flow, I should
add, was felt entirely in every single pairing who came out with almost no
awkwardness. Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley came out together to present an
award looked at each other. Moore: “what are you doing here?” Qualley: “It’s my
week.” (I’ll be getting to The Substance.) Seth Rogen and Catherine
O’Hara before their presentation of Best Female Actor in a Limited Series did a
superb bit of all the awards that they had won for Canadian productions over
the years. (O’Hara, as we all know, is very good on these moments.) Melissa
McCarthy and Awkwafina came out to present the awards for Comedy and chose to
use their moments to ‘raise awareness’ for each nominee. McCarthy said she
would use The Bear to raise awareness for bears freedom to do cocaine;
Awkwafina about how The Gentlemen are underserved in our communities and
the self-esteem issues faced by Nobody Wants This. “We see you. We want
you!” they assured Kristen Bell.
And the majority of the
speeches themselves had their creative high-points. By far the most visible was
Demi Moore’s somewhat surprising victory for Best Female Actor in a Comedy for The
Substance. Moore’s moving, defiant speech about her career and how she had
thought a few years ago it was over was everything an awards show speech should
be. Kerry Washington said before announcing Best Male Actor in a Comedy: “Good
luck following that speech.” Sebastian Stan’s victory for A Different Man was
also somewhat of a surprising and he gave a quieter, albeit differently
inspiring speech. Some speeches were a bit overextended by far – Adrian Brody’s
win by far the biggest offender – but I actually found it a strength that no
one was trying to hard to play anybody off tonight.
And it’s hard not to
see the parallels even in some of wins in movie with television. Kieran
Culkin’s win for Best Supporting Male Actor for A Real Pain made him the
first performer since Angelina Jolie in 1998-1999 to win back-to-back awards in
television and film. (In an interesting parallel, one of the performers he beat
was his former Succession sibling Jeremy Strong, who was nominated for The
Apprentice.) Ali Wong did something similar in her victory for Outstanding
Stand-Up Special; last year she won Outstanding Lead Actress in A Limited
Series for Beef. And Moore’s victory comes in the midst of what has been
a revival of her career on multiple platforms she was one of the Swans in Capote
vs The Swans in what was by far the most tragic role.
I have put off relating
my reactions to the winners in television in large part because with only a
couple of exceptions I was dead on in the lion’s share of my predictions. It
was hard to imagine being wrong about Shogun being the biggest winner in
Drama: it swept the lead prize and took trophies for Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna
Sawai as I expected. Sanada was, as you’d imagine, humble (and went out of his
way to point out the biggest technical glitch of the night) and Sawai even more
so. She gave credit to the voters but she made it very clear that if she’d been
a voter she would have chosen Kathy Bates. (Bates’s held her hand to her heart
when the camera cut to her.) But given his reaction when his name was announced
not even Tadanobu Asano expected to win for Best Supporting Male in Television.
It was not like he was undeserving: his character was one of the more beloved
of the entire series. But Asano’s work had been overlooked by the Emmys this
September so a natural assumption seemed to be it would be this year.
The producers were
incredibly grateful about just what was happening, which is to be fair, more
than deserving when you consider just how much they were asking of FX when they
were producing, how long it took for it to be realized and how great the
exception was. The producers were astonished, among other things, “their
marriage had survived.”
The one disappointment
I had of the night was Jeremy Allan White’s third consecutive win for
Outstanding Male Actor in a Comedy for The Bear. Sight unseen, I’m not
sure he deserved it and he clearly didn’t expect to win: he was the only
nominated actor who wasn’t present. This was made up for by numerous factors,
not the least of which he will not be able to win at the Critics’ Choice
awards.
And of course there was
the fact that Hacks was the big winner in comedy. Jean Smart’s win (her
second for the show; the first speech she gave) was as you might expect humble.
“I’ve never felt more grateful to be called a Hack she said.” When the show
triumphed for Outstanding Comedy Series, it’s first win at the Globes Paul W.
Downs gave another superb speech, ending by saying: “We’re still shooting
season 4 and we’re up at 6 am tomorrow. So if Jean asks for a shot, no one give
it to her. Give her water instead. I’m looking at you, Kate Winslet.” (Winslet
and Smart, of course, collaborated in Mare of Easttown Smart’s previous
HBO project before starting Hacks.)
And Limited Series had
by far the biggest rewards. As was to be expect Baby Reindeer ended up
winning the grand prize but I suspect there was room for doubt given that in
the other upset of the night (though not nearly at the level of Asano’s) Colin
Farrell won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor for The Penguin. This
award by far gave me the greatest joy in a night full of them, not just because
I believed it would happen but because it was one of the great performances.
Farrell started his
speech by saying: “No false modesty. I did it all by myself” before
acknowledging everybody responsible, especially the makeup people and the crew.
Given just how much work it took for Farrell to become Oz and given the cold
nature of how the show looked – which he confirmed – I have a feeling this was
a heartfelt one.
The female wins were
more expected. Jodie Foster, as to be expected, did prevail for Night
Country and even Sofia Vergara, her fellow nominee, seemed overjoyed.
Foster has now moved past the point of talking about her privacy and went out
of her way to thank both her partner and her children along with Issa Lopez and
the people of Alaska. And Jessica Gunning did prevail for Baby Reindeer and
justifiably went back to the idea of how incredibly lucky she was. When the
show did win the grand prize (something I was not sure of given that Farrell
had prevailed) Gadd was his usual modest self, talking about why he thought
this incredibly dark and unpleasant show had managed to find such a following. He
spoke about the needs for stories like this, particularly in today’s world (his
speech was the only one among the TV winners that had anything to do with the
political climate) and even that was more out a desire for creativity than
anything else.
In 2024 there was a greater balance
considering that at least half the awards were divided between shows that had
come from the 2022-2023 season (Succession, Beef) and the 2023-2024
season (Season 2 of The Bear; Elizabeth Debicki’s win for the new season
of The Crown.) This year, with the exception of the wins for White and
Farrell, all of the awards for TV were given the shows that aired during the
2023-2024 season. Will this trend continue in the remainder of the end of year
awards?
On Friday I will begin
my predictions for the TV Awards for the 2025 Critics Choice which severely
differ from the Globes in many ways in almost every category. They are usually
superior to the Globes both in awards given and entertainment value. This year
the Golden Globes set the bar high on both fronts. I look forward to seeing how
that turns out.
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