{"id":89287,"date":"2018-01-07T22:00:11","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T06:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=89287"},"modified":"2018-01-16T09:12:49","modified_gmt":"2018-01-16T17:12:49","slug":"2018-golden-globe-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/2018-golden-globe-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"2018 Golden Globe Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Golden Globe Awards traditionally have a reputation as the biggest party in Hollywood, where celebrities often get sloppy drunk and everybody has a fun time. Coming off the turmoil of the past year, however, it’s little surprise that pretty much no one in the entertainment industry felt comfortable letting loose this time.
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The somber tone of the ceremony this year was signaled right off the bat when nearly every single woman in the audience arrived wearing black, as a sign of solidarity against sexual discrimination, harassment, gender inequality, and objectification. Also, black is slimming, so that worked out for everybody. (My wife grimaced and told me to strike this line, but if all these celebrities really wanted to make a statement, wearing black couture dresses that they were probably inclined to wear anyway isn’t much of one.) The men also wore black, but that’s the color tuxedos usually come in regardless. <\/p>\n

Jimmy Fallon hosted the Globes last year, so that makes this year time for his buddy Seth Meyers to follow his footsteps, as happens in many things. They seem to have a contract mandating as much. At least in theory, Meyers, who is far less afraid to get political with his material, was a good choice for this turbulent year. <\/p>\n

As expected, his opening monologue was all about sexual misconduct scandals (singling out Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey in particular). He did a pretty good job with it and got in some good zingers, but it went on a bit too long. He stayed on that theme and only rarely branched out to go after Donald Trump or other potential targets. Because the Globes are a very efficiently run machine as far as scheduling goes, Meyers was little seen after the beginning of the show. <\/p>\n

A number of other presenters and prize winners (including Oprah Winfrey, receiving a Cecile B. DeMille lifetime achievement award) got political in their speeches. How much tolerance you may have for that will depend on your own political leanings. (I’m already counting the seconds until a certain couple readers of ours start ranting about it in the Comments section.) Aside from Oprah (because who the hell would have the balls to say no to Oprah about anything?), the show gave few of them much time to dwell on it for long before the pressure to move on to the next award won out.<\/p>\n

The big winners in the TV categories were entirely predictable, with female-led projects ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ and ‘Big Little Lies’ winning the drama, comedy, and limited series awards, respectively. <\/p>\n

The movie side of things held more surprises. Early on, it looked like Guillermo del Toro’s ‘The Shape of Water’ (which led the nominations) would claim an easy victory, especially when del Toro took Best Director. In the final moments, however, ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ swooped in and claimed the top prize of the night, Best Motion Picture – Drama. This is especially shocking given the Globes’ history of weirdly classifying any movie with so much as a single comedic moment into the “Musical or Comedy” category rather than Drama, and this film is loaded with more than enough dark comedy to put it there. Instead, Greta Gerwig’s ‘Lady Bird’ grabbed that trophy out of the hands of expected front-runners ‘The Disaster Artist’ or ‘Get Out’. <\/p>\n

Whether the Golden Globes are really an effective predictor for the Oscars anymore is highly debatable, but I assume that their victories here will elevate both movies in the running for Oscar nominations, at the very least.<\/p>\n

Random Observations<\/h2>\n

The most surreal moments of the evening occurred, first, when the real Tommy Wiseau was seen in the audience smiling as Seth Rogen called ‘The Room’ a bad movie. For a moment, I thought it might be James Franco doing a bit, but then the camera cut over to Franco at his own table. Later, Wiseau took the stage with him as Franco accepted the Best Actor award, and Franco had to block him from grabbing the microphone, as if Wiseau thought the victory was really his.<\/p>\n

The antiquated and, in these days, borderline offensive tradition of naming a Miss Golden Globes teen model has been replaced by a new role called “Golden Globe Ambassador,” which offers a token message about social consciousness and has less cleavage on display, but still ultimately amounts to smiling and handing out trophies on stage. Dwayne Johnson’s daughter was the first to be given the job. <\/p>\n

Natalie Portman made a very stinging dig at the fact that all the directing nominees were men. She didn’t look very impressed watching Guillermo del Toro thank his female collaborators. <\/p>\n

Michelle Pfeiffer also really did not look very pleased to watch her husband, David E. Kelley, claim an award for ‘Big Little Lies’. I wonder what’s going on there.<\/p>\n

My wife commented: “Sam Rockwell looks like he could play Gary Oldman in the Gary Oldman bio-pic.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The network censors were very heavy-handed on the button during Frances McDormand’s (admittedly fiery, if scattershot) acceptance speech and actually bleeped her for saying “tectonic shift,” which I guess somebody misheard as being a different word. Strangely, I don’t recall this being an issue during any other speeches. <\/p>\n

Best Motion Picture – Drama<\/h2>\n