That’s it, my award season is over. The Golden Globes, that Wild West saloon parade of superlatives considered by many to be the dim-witted younger brother of the Academy Awards, aired Sunday under the helm of three-time host Ricky Gervais. The British cringe comic, whose ratio of beer swilling and celebrity-blasting was more balanced this time around as compared to the small fiasco of his potshots at Charlie Sheen and Robert Downey, Jr., appeared only to pull the show back on schedule when speeches ran overlong, and was bleeped only when introducing the “incredibly racist” Colin Firth and the beautiful, but unintelligible Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas.
Overall, the results were predictable, even if some left-field dark horses rose to kick the viewer in the teeth — a fitting reward for idealism and willful ignorance. Of course I’m talking about Meryl Streep’s Best Actress in a Drama Film win for “The Iron Lady,” the biopic of former ultraconservative British Prime Minister and class divider Margaret Thatcher. In a year where such performances as Rooney Mara in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and Viola Davis in “The Help” displayed the polar opposites of fantastic performance, Streep’s win constitutes one area where the Globes and Oscars at times resemble one another: repeat wins are the safer bet than the truly mercurial efforts of lower profile performers.
But that ship has sailed. I’ve had my Streep rant and I’m done. On the flip side, Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Artist” took four of its seven nominations, though sullied by a dicey choice of Martin Scorsese over Hazanavicius for Best Director. Let’s face it, Scorsese is a sacred cow even I worship, but “Hugo” is not “Mean Streets” or “Raging Bull.” It’s a beautiful, tragic adaptation of a wonderful book, but again to assume that a distinguished director like Scorsese deserves a gimme underlines the core moral of “Starship Troopers,” that something given has no value.
Otherwise in other film categories I was pleased with the outcomes, while TV gave love to some less likely contenders, such as Kelsey Grammer (“The Boss”) and Matt LeBlanc for “Episodes,” a win perhaps no one ever expected. Overall, the Globes’ mix of television and film also brings together the most eclectic constellation of stars under one roof of the season, and allows onstage and in-crowd match-ups of talent improbable and magical. But the best visual of the evening was a rare appearance by Sidney Poitier to award Morgan Freeman with the Cecil B. DeMille Award. Between Poitier and Christopher Plummer, the mixture of elder statesmen and performers as young as the kids on “Modern Family” on a single stage over the night worked to negate any argument that in the face of economic depression, Hollywood might fail and crumble.
Through two World Wars and a half dozen lesser conflicts, money has still been found to keep the silver screen lit and to allow viewers the hour or three of escape. As things start to look up, awards shows remind us that even more than pure entertainment, some movies reach for a higher standard. Some films make our lives richer and we shudder to think of life without them once we’ve seen them. For all the pomp and circumstances that surround awards shows, that’s the thing to take away, and the Globes are, to this reporter, the most consistent aggregator for filmic greatness.
