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.

6:18 pm: Svetlana’s hotspot wifi signal is weak, weak, weaker than weak. Not that I don’t appreciate it(!), but I can’t even call up YouTube. Highlights so far: Mahershala Ali loses, Hugh Laurie‘s baldspot, La La Land collects three…no, four Golden Globe awards! Damien Chazelle just won for Best Screenplay. Congrats!


Patron Tequila has a photo booth thing going on, snapping your photo in black-and-white and then printing it on glossy postcard stock.

6:14 pm: To no one’s great surprise, Ryan Gosling wins Best Actor in Comedy/Musical GG award for La La Land, sure to be followed by Emma Stone winning for Best Actress in same general category.

6:03 pm: I thought the HFPA-ers might blow off Viola Davis after giving the backhand to Moonlight‘s Mahershala Ali, but no — the Fences costar has won for Best Supporting Actress. The camera just caught a shot of Jeff Bridges hugging a couple of guys…Foghorn!

6:02 pm: I’m behind the eight-ball here. The lighting is warm and orange-y, but the TV sound is too barky, treble-y. I’d be better off sitting at home. On the other hand it’s nice just to “be” here. HE is alive on the planet earth, right smack dab in the heat of things, wearing shiny black shoes and occasionally eyeballing hot women in great-looking gowns.

5:54 pm: La La Land‘s Justin Hurwitz just won for Best Musical Score. I missed the anal/anus joke — trying to understand the allusion on Twitter. La La Land also just won a Best Original Song (“City of Stars”) award.

5:49 pm: Hugh Laurie, who just won Best Supporting Actor in a TV Series, needs to visit Prague for two or three sessions, if you follow my drift. Seriously, there’s no reason for any actor these days to walk aroudn with a huge gaping bald spot. Bald spots are distressing metaphors for any number of things. A little bald spot is okay, or…you know, a feather-head thing. But no gapers.

5:40 pm: Last year and the year before that the 20th Century Fox viewing party had wifi with a password. This year they have neither. Thanks to HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko for letting me use her iPhone hotspot wifi.

5:37 pm: The People vs. O.J. Simpson‘s Sarah Paulson wins for Best Actress in a Limited Series of TV Movie. Full and unqualified agreement. And People vs. O.J. Simpson wins for Best Limited Series of TV Movie, Cheers to HE’s own Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander for their brilliant script.

5:26 pm: I’m respectful of and interested in the Golden Globe winners in the cable/network arena. I’m just not feeling the heat, boss. Billy Bob Thornton won Best Actor for Goliath…cool. Atlanta, which I’ve never watched and almost certainly never will watch, just won Best TV Series Comedy…terrific. A lot of people whooping and cheering here. Kudos to the Golden Globe guys for refusing to post the name of the winner and the TV show or movie he/she has just won for.

5:09 pm: Wait a minute…Nocturnal Animals costar Aaron Taylor Johnson beats Moonlight‘s Mahershala Ali for Best Supporting Actor? What just happened? Several blogaroos just fell on the floor. We chose Mahershala Ali, we wanted Mahershala Ali, we decreed that Mahershala Ali would win….what the fuck, HFPA?

5:05 pm: Sitting on a couch inside Fox viewing pavilion, plate of food nearby, all is well. I hate to give Jimmy Fallon props, but that La la Land musical tribute was highly pleasurable. The work that it had to require, all the rehearsing, the fluid camerawork…hats off to whomever arranged and directed it.