8:01 pm: Moonlight, to my surprise, beats Manchester By The Sea for Best Picture, Drama. I respect Moonlight but I politely and respectfully disagree with this decision. But this is America, folks. We like what we like and love what we love. Barry Jenkins: “Tell a friend, tell a friend, tell a friend.”
7:58 pm: Isabelle Huppert wins Best Actress, Drama — the second big upset of the night! (The other being Mahershala Ali‘s shutdown.) What happened to the Natalie Portman movement or groundswell or whatever? Best Actress Oscar Advantage: Emma Stone.
7:51 pm: Manchester By The Sea‘s Casey Affleck takes Best Actor, Drama…of course. Carved in stone, foretold by the Gods. And they’re playing him off! Casey rambled a bit, but he kept it real. The Fox party is totally in chit-chat, wallah-wallah, have-another-drink mode. Nobody except for myself, Variety‘s Kris Tapley and maybe seven or eight others are actually watching the show. They’re all checking Twitter for the latest.
7:45 pm: Six Golden Globe awards for La La Land with the winning of Best Comedy or Musical Feature, or whatever it’s called. Non-Dramatic bing bang hoo-hah.
Apologies for the cruddy resolution of the below video, but the absence of wifi in the Fox tent means I can’t upload a high-quality version.
Renowned cinematographer and HE wifi-provider Svetlana Cvetko.
7:35 pm: Emma Stone wins Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy…of course! I’ll listen to her acceptance speech later! Because I’m surrounded by champagne-buzzed, dressed-to-the-nines 30somethings going “yap yap yap yop yap yap yap yap….who won? Oh, Emmma Stone, whatever…yap yap yap yop yap yap yap.”
7:22: La La Land‘s Damien Chazelle wins for Best Director. Everything falls perfectly into line. Donald Glover, the Atlanta guy, wins for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical Series. Four Globe awards for La La Land so far — zip for Manchester (wait for Casey) and Moonlight.
7:11 pm: Four well-dressed 30somethings are standing five or six feet away and laughing and cackling and barking at each other (“Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!”) and totally ignoring Meryl Streep‘s remarks. They’re also preventing me from hearing what she’s saying. You guys…you’re so funny! And so well-dressed! Meryl’s against mixed martial arts? I’ll have to watch it on YouTube tonight. Missing most of the speeches and repartee mildly sucks.
7:00 pm: I’ll be able to appreciate the finer points of Viola Davis‘s shpiel when I see the re-broadcast. The sound is too sharp, too thin, too barky. I just heard her say the word “encapsulate.” I watch the flat screen, hear random words, recognize the famous and then check Twitter to see what just happened or what the punch line was. Oh, I see — she’s introducing Meryl Streep and her Cecil B, DeMille award. I’m really hoping Meryl lays into Trump in one way or another. Impressive clip reel.
6:50 pm: Claire Foy, whom I don’t know or, to be perfectly honest, have a lot of room in my head for, has just won a Best Actress award for The Crown, which I’ll probably never see. Just being honest. The Crown just won another award for Best TV Series, Drama. Okay, maybe I’ll give it a looksee when I get a break.
6:48 pm: The Night Manager‘s Tom Hiddleston beats The People vs. O.J. Simpson‘s Courtney Vance for Best Actor in a Limited Series, etc. Hiddleston is quite good in this Netflix series, which I didn’t frankly get around to watching until just recently, but every time I see him I think of that basketball T-shirt he wore with the words “I Love Taylor Swift” visible from a distance.
6:36 pm: Paul Verhoeven‘s Elle wins Best Foreign Language Film Award. HE approves! I can’t even remember if I predicted this, but I believe I might have.