Keira Knightley, James McAvoy in Atonement
The smaller, shorter, subdueder 2008 Golden Globes "news show" — a result of the ongoing WGA strike, now entering its tenth week — ended not too long ago. There was no red carpet, no dress parade, no dumb questions from journalists, no mind-numbing speeches, no godawful jokes, no poorly staged musical numbers, no toilet paper stuck on anyone's shoe.
Many have lamented this year's loss of glamour, glitz, and tasteless jokes. But personally, I don't think that's a bad thing. Much to the contrary. I find the vast majority of those glitzy and glamorous — and tasteless and phony — award shows all but unwatchable, and the Golden Globes ceremony is one of the tackiest around. This year, I actually managed to watch a full 20 minutes of the one-hour Globe newscast — probably a historical record — before I got bored and began looking for the winners online.
Now, having said all that I wonder how the Golden Globe audience would have reacted when Julian Schnabel was named the winner of the best director award for the French-language triumph-of-the-human-spirit drama The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, when everyone predicted Joel and Ethan Coen as the surefire winners for No Country for Old Men. (The Coen brothers were given a consolation prize, the best screenplay Globe.)
Or their reaction when Atonement, a romantic drama that has received precious little love from U.S. film critics' groups and no love whatsoever from the Screen Actors Guild, was voted the best film of the year in place of favorites No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Indeed, despite its seven nominations — more than any other film this year — Atonement was hardly a front-runner; it ended up winning only one other Globe, for Dario Marianelli's score.
Or their reaction when Marion Cotillard (above), not Ellen Page, was named best actress in a comedy or musical for her performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose (which happens to be neither a comedy nor a musical). Like Schnabel's, Cotillard's victory was particularly surprising because even though the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has nominated foreign productions in regular categories every now and then, those films — and their talent — hardly ever win. After all, the HFPA awards are geared to the American film industry. (Non-English-language films, for instance, are ineligible for the best film drama/comedy or musical categories.)
Among this year's other surprises were the HFPA's choice of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as best comedy or musical — over Jason Reitman's more popular and better received Juno — and, to a lesser extent, the choice of best supporting actress Cate Blanchett, as one of the many Bob Dylan incarnations in I'm Not There, instead of Amy Ryan's rotten mom in Gone Baby Gone. Ryan, a two-time Tony nominee, has been the favorite among U.S. critics' groups.