Day: January 7, 2018

8:07 pm: HE email to Call Me By Your Name‘s Luca Guadagnino: “You and your highly esteemed colleagues (Timothee Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg, James Ivory, Peter Spears, Howard Rosenman, Sufjan Stevens) made the absolute finest film of 2017….hands down, no question, history will acknowledge. I will continue to say this over and over because it’s true. I love you and your facility, your gift. Onward, hugs, creations.”

8:04 pm: Barbra Streisand presenting the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Drama, and the winner is Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. Hugs and congrats all around, but I’d also love to hear from Chris Willman about this. Streisand won Best Director for Yentl 34 years ago, she reminds — the last time a woman won. Time’s up!

7:59 pm: Will Three Billboards‘ Frances McDormand or Shape of Water‘s Sally Hawkins win for Best Actress, Drama? McDormand wins! “I have a few things to say. I’m still not quite sure who the HFPA [members] are when I run into them, and they managed to elect a female president….just saying. Everybody brought their very best game to this one. The women in this room tonight are not here for the food — we are here for the work. Thank you.”

7:52 pm: Gary Oldman‘s chances of winning the Best Actor Oscar would have been down the tubes if he hadn’t won tonight, but he did. Golden Globe winner for Best Actor, Drama, and he forgot to thank director Joe Wright! And now, it seems, he’s a likely winner for the Oscar. C’est la vie, c’est la guerre. Timothy Chalamet, Oldman’s closest rival, will have many shots over the years and decades to come.

7:45 pm: The Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Comedy/Musical goes to Lady Bird…of course! Greta Gerwig ascendant! The story of her life transformed. Hollywood Elsewhere totally approves. I remember that electric moment when I first saw it in Telluride.

My Telluride email to Gerwig: “By far the best, wisest, smartest, most emotionally resonant film I’ve seen at Telluride ’17. No question. I will say as much tomorrow morning. It’s the only real break-out and pop-through. And Saoirse Ronan, of course, for Best Actress. Loveless and First Reformed were also excellent, of course. But Lady Bird was/is the best of the bunch.”

7:35 pm: Lady Bird‘s Saoirse Ronan wins Best Actress in Motion Picture, Comedy/Musical. Well earned, fully supported, enthusiastically cheered. Everyone is getting pushed off too quickly, it seems. It’s 7:37 pm — the producers want this show over by 8 pm. It’s now 7:43 pm — they’re not gonna make it.

7:28 pm: HBO’s Big Little Lies wins for Best TV Movie or Limited Series. Watched two episodes, wasn’t delighted but didn’t mind it, couldn’t stay with it. If you ask me the awards onslaught (including the 2017 Emmys) is out of proportion to how good it really is/was. Who strongly disagrees?

7:18 pm: The Shape of Water‘s Guillermo del Toro wins Best Director award! “This fable has saved my life…The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water.” Guillermo tells the band to stop playing him off: “This has taken 25 years…give me a minute, give me a minute. I thank you [and] my monsters thank you.” Obviously The Shape of Water is going to win Best Motion Picture, Drama. 8:08 pm Update: Wrong!

7:03 pm: It’s time for the big Oprah Winfrey tribute. A good, willful progressive with her priorities straight, but never forget what Winfrey said in the wake of President-Elect Donald Trump‘s visit to the Obama White House: “I just saw the two of them together, [and] I will say this: I just saw President-elect Trump with President Obama in the White House and it gave me hope. To hear President-elect Trump say that he had respect for President Obama, it felt that he had reached a moment where he was actually humbled by that experience.” This, ladies and gentlemen, is part of who and what Oprah is. Be honest. Irrefutable. That aside, Winfrey’s speech is heartfelt, show-stopping. Truth-slap to racism, paternal power and brutal men, whose “time is up.”

6:56 pm: Master of None‘s Aziz Ansari wins for Best Actor in TV Series, Musical or Comedy. Check.

6:53 pm: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Best Series, Musical/Comedy) is really doing well tonight. On my knees, I guarantee with all my heart that I’ll never, ever watch this…ever.

6:40 pm: Fatih Akin‘s In The Fade (a top Hollywood Elsewhere favorite along with Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Loveless) wins for Best Foreign Language Film! Congrats to all concerned, and particularly Diane Kruger, who gave a world-class, drill-bit performance. Congrats to the formidable Fredel Pogodin, who handled L.A.’s In The Fade publicity and screenings.

6:37 pm: Martin McDonagh wins for Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri — second setback for Lady Bird following Laurie MetCalf‘s unexpected loss to Allison Janney.

6:33 pm: Before presenting the Best Screenplay award, an out-of-the-blue tribute to Kirk Douglas, who’s 101 years old. Isn’t it great how age takes your legs away and shrinks you down to roughly half your size when you were in your prime?

6:28 pm: Allison Janney win Best Supporting Actress in I, Tonya! Second major upset of the night following Sam Rockwell win. I don’t think this means a damn thing, but credit is due. I, Tonya has its admirers, but it’s an ugly, ugly film — a wallow in a coarse social milieu.

6:22 pm: Coco wins Best Animated feature. No offense but Hollywood Elsewhere doesn’t do “animated.” But (a) congrats to all concerned, (b) takes all realms to make a world.

6:08 pm: Golden Globe for Best Actor, Comedy/Musical goes to James Franco! Like I wanted/predicted. Big hugs, applause, etc And he brings Dracula up on stage! “This was a movie about the best/worst movie ever made,” etc. Costar Dave Franco accompanies. Winner Franco getting played off. Franco brothers prevail — good one!

6:07 pm: Out of the shower. What’d I miss? Nothing.

5:57 pm: I’m sorry but I have to take a shower. If not now, when? The Golden Globe for Best Musical Score goes to Alexander Desplat for The Shape of Water. An omen of things to come? The Greatest Showman‘s “This Is Me” wins for Best Song….meh.

5:52 pm: Amusing and energetic Seth Rogen hyping The Disaster Artist at the mike. The actual Tommy Wiseau at the table. The reel runs, and before you know it we’re onto the next thing. Alexander Skarsgard wins for Best Supporting Actor, Limited Series, Big Little Lies.

5:44 pm: John Goodman is cool, of course, but isn’t Rosanne Barr a serious Trump supporter? Sterling K. Brown wins for Best Actor in a TV series, Drama, in This Is Us. The Handmaid’s Tale wins for Best TV Series, Drama.

5:32 pm: Rachel Brosnahan wins GG for Best Actress in a TV comedy, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. One of these days I’ll hear the name “Rachel Brosnahan” and go “of course!” The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Elizabeth Moss wins for Best Actress, TV Drama…great. Uhhm…Moss was excellent in Ruben Ostlund‘s The Square!

5:18 pm: Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor goes to Three Billboards‘ Sam Rockwell! Surprise, right? Slight upset. Willem Dafoe stunned. What does this mean? Probably nothing but goorah for Rockwell, and goorah for Rockwell have lost the weight he put on for Three Billboards. Rockwell gets played off…my respect for going on that long. A much more interesting acceptance speech than Kidman’s.

5:15 pm: Big Little Lies‘ Nicole Kidman wins for Best Actress in a Limited Series….blather, blather, thank you thank you, tearful nod to her husband Keith Urban, etc. God bless, thank you…zzzzz.

5:10 pm: Calling out racism, sexism, hyprocrisy…all guys are vaguely guilty and some more so, that marvellous steely glare…Seth Meyers is such a bullwhip, so whip-lashy! Clever patter, kinda hate the man!

“Good evening, ladies and remaining gentlemen. Marijuana is legal and sexual harassment finally isn’t. For the males in the audience, this will be the first time in three months that it won’t be terrifying to hear your name read out loud. If it’s any consolation, I’m a man with absolutely no power in Hollywood.”

Didn’t I read Meyers wouldn’t be telling Trump jokes? “Remember when [Seth Rogen] was the guy making trouble in North Korea?” “Hollywood…Foreign…Press..the only names that would make Trump angrier would be the Hillary Mexico Salad Association,” blah blah.

“Harvey Weinstein will be back in 20 years as the first person who was ever booed during the ‘In Memoriam’ segment.” Doesn’t the late Harry Cohn have that honor?

“…that is alive every day in the White House.”

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The Golden Globe awards will begin at 5 pm Pacific, 8 pm Eastern. Never forget that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association lives in its own little world, and that their picks are…well, they’re fine but not all that consequential. The only real benefit of winning a Golden Globe award is that you get to sell the fence-sitters with your acceptance speech. Remarks that are especially eloquent, confessional or heartfelt tend to enhance or underline one’s Oscar worthiness.

I’ll be posting my usual live-blog reactions to the winners as the show progresses.

Herewith are the likeliest winners according to the Gold Derby gang along with my own likes, misgivings and prejudices:

Best Film, Drama: Not a single Gold Derby-ite is predicting a win for the most beautifully woven and emotionally seductive drama of 2017 — Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name. Allow me, then, to predict this, partly because it’s the only film to vote for and partly out of spite for the herd-voting mentality. The Derby-os are mostly predicting a win for Guillermo del Toro‘s The Shape of Water, which isn’t a “drama” as much as a romantic fantasy genre film –i.e., The Creature from the Love Lagoon. If Shape wins, great. But it won’t beat Lady Bird for the Best Picture Oscar.

Best Film, Comedy/Musical: The GD gang has almost unanimously predicted that Greta Gerwig‘s Lady Bird will win in a walk. HE agrees.

Best Director: The triumphant artist-poet who directed 2017’s finest film — Call Me By Your Name‘s Luca Guadagnino — hasn’t even been nominated by the HFPA so who cares? This is a joke. The Gold Derby-os are of the strong opinion that Guillermo del Toro will win. I for one would like to see Dunkirk‘s Christopher Nolan take it. Not would I mind if All The Money in the World‘s Ridley Scott wins as a gesture of respect for his last-minute nine-day re-shoot with Christopher Plummer.

Best Actor, Drama: There are more Gee Dees predicting a Gary Oldman win for his Winston Churchill than a triumph for Call Me By Your Name‘s Timothee Chalamet. I’d like to think that the relatively small group of HFPA voters might step outside the box and give the award to the younger contender. There really is no comparison between what the 22 year-old Chalamet pulls off in Luca Guadagnino‘s film vs. Oldman’s hammy, heavily-made-up performance in Darkest Hour. I’m predicting Chalamet, but I’m not confident that he’ll win.

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I’m personally sad that the Fox Searchlight people have removed me from their Golden Globe viewing-party invite list, but I guess it’s not that much of a tragedy. Because I’ll be watching the show from home (5 pm to 8 pm), I’ll actually be able to hear what the presenters and winners will say. Last year the less-than-brilliant sound system inside the Fox Pavilion and the wallah-wallah from the guests, especially during the final 40 minutes or so, resulted in my missing 80% of the material.

Now I’ll have to hike over to Century Park West at 8:15 pm and wait in some long, snaky line for the slow-ass shuttles, and then the shuttles will creep down Santa Monica Blvd. at a snail’s pace, and then we’ll all get dropped off, blah blah.

I was there in the Hilton lobby just after the show ended last year. There was a horrible, mile-long line in the Hilton lobby just to get into the Amazon-bound elevators. [Video after the jump.] But Hollywood Elsewhere and the loyal and resourceful Svetlana Cvetko are not line-waiters. We knew what to do! Picked up our wristbands, found a staircase, took a deep breath and walked up the eight flights (i.e., 16 staircases divided by a landing). Ingenuity, lung power, determination, aching calf and thigh muscles.

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Before delivering his opening monologue at tonight’s Golden Globe awards telecast, the joyously judgmental, ironically smart-assed Seth Meyers had better wise up. Because his faux-ironic, nyah-nyah, finger-pointing bullshit is about to get old.

I’m saying this because attitudes have suddenly shifted about the #MeToo beheadings, and about Meyers, whose “Closer Look” essays on Late Night with Seth Meyers have revealed a guy who’s been having the time of his life with the Robespierre-like terror of the last several weeks. Let no one doubt that Meyers has been chowing down on this big-time, and has never indicated the slightest hint of a conflicted attitude about it.

But now he has to indicate this. Even if it pains him. Because the needle on the cultural richter scale has been ever-so-slightly moved by Daphne Merkin‘s 1.5 N.Y. Times op-ed piece, titled “Publicly, We Say #MeToo. Privately, We Have Misgivings.”

The preying showbiz fiends who’ve made life miserable for so many women for so many years have been disciplined big-time, and there can be no response other than relief that the world is now becoming a kinder, more compassionate and less oppressive place. Predatory dino behavior hasn’t been permanently cancelled, but the perps are scared and hooray for that specific effect.

But other counter-disturbances have happened, and Merkin has put her finger on them.

“You can be sure that this weekend at the Golden Globes, Hollywood celebrities, not exactly known for their independent thinking, will turn the red carpet into a #MeToo moment replete with designer duds,” Merkin begins. “Many have promised to wear black dresses to protest the stream of allegations against industry moguls and actors. Perhaps Meryl Streep will get grilled — again — about what she knew about Harvey Weinstein. The rest of us will diligently follow along on Twitter, sharing hashtags and suitably pious opprobrium.

“But privately, I suspect, many of us, including many longstanding feminists, will be rolling our eyes, having had it with the reflexive and unnuanced sense of outrage that has accompanied this cause from its inception, turning a bona fide moment of moral accountability into a series of ad hoc and sometimes unproven accusations.

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