Monday, January 13, 2014

The Golden Globes

I didn’t see the Golden Globes last night. I’m in Hawaii. But I’ve seen enough of them that I could probably review the show without having actually seen it. I hope this works because it would be great to skip to Emmys this year.   Let’s see how well I did – assuming that you watched the Golden Globes, which is like assuming the Houston Astros will win the 2014 World Series.

Remember, I could be completely off. This was written before the show aired.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will again be very funny and will even make a 12 YEARS A SLAVE joke that doesn't cause the audience to gasp.

They'll be 3,454,483,203,293,935 times better than Seth MacFarlane.  

Steven Spielberg will not be there because he’s not nominated.

If 12 YEARS A SLAVE wins, Spielberg is going to want a recount on LINCOLN.

Since it’s the Foreign Press, shouldn’t the “Best Foreign Language Film” be in English?

The audience will be drunk by the red carpet show.

Expletives will be bleeped all night.

There will be a teleprompter snafu and two presenters will look like idiots because they can’t ad lib their way out of a hard rain.

None of the Best Comedy nominees were actually comedies. NEBRASKA? I’m surprised 12 YEARS A SLAVE wasn’t in the comedy category.

Since it’s the Foreign Press (i.e. waiters at Matteo’s), any nominee with a foreign sounding name will likely win. Chiwetel Ejiofor is a lock.

It’s hard to take seriously an awards show where 12 YEARS A SLAVE and HER compete for the same screenwriting category. Or Jacqueline Bisset and Sofia Vergara, in the same acting category.

Taylor Swift will win because she didn’t win last year and if she doesn’t win she won’t attend anymore.

Always ahead of the curve, BREAKING BAD will win.  

There will be at least two jaw-dropping upsets.

You’ll see that Michael J. Fox is nominated and say, “Is that show still on?”

The set will look like Liberace’s bathroom.

No one will miss Ricky Gervais.

MAD MEN wasn’t even nominated so Matt Weiner will never eat at Matteo’s again.

Jennifer Lawrence will look great.

There will be no Obamacare jokes.

Bill Clinton will not be there this year to introduce HER.

Meryl Streep’s dress will still have the Ross For Less tag on it.

Since ANCHORMAN 2 was not nominated, maybe – just maybe, you'll be spared Will Ferrell as Ron Burgandy.

By the time you read this no one will care who won.

So how’d I do?

37 comments :

unkystan said...

OMG! Ken, you are spooky! You were 97% correct, even the "12 Years a Slave Joke" (which was pretty funny)where Amy says it made her think differently about slavery. Tina's reply: "Uh, what were you thinking before?". Kudos to those funny ladies!

Michael said...

Excellent, right down to the teleprompter snafu.

Anonymous said...

Tina Fey needs to lay off the botox, or whatever procedure she had done. Downright scary looking.

Joe said...

Spot on, Ken. What is with the hall they use every year? It stinks. Winners take forever to reach the stage and each time they show the crowd everyone is milling around and moving from table to table. And the background of hums and whooshing sounds gets annoying pretty fast.

Mike Barer said...

I watched just because I accidently stumbled on to the nominations on TV about a month ago. Kind of a travesty as many of the winners seemed drunk as they mumbled through their acceptance speeches. To the topic on hand, you nailed it, Ken!

Jim, Cheers Fan said...

I turned it on a few times looking for the Tina and Amy Show, and I got two hyperventilating, tearful acceptance speeches and two or three B-list actor pairings stumbling their way through an introduction. The thing with Jonah Hill and a beautiful blonde looked like it might actually be funny, but I tuned in too late. Are people being mean or was Jacqueline Bisset really drunk when she gave a speech for an award for a show this TV/internet junkie never heard of?

(autocorrect keeps messing with my captcha code)

Michael said...

The only thing more predictable than some of their jokes was your review taking some potshots at Spielberg. It is an award show tradition.

Spielberg said...

...and I love it.

Breadbaker said...

Of course, since the whole world is available as clips now, you'll be able to Google "Jonah Hill pool party" and "Leonardo di Caprio supermodel vagina" and see some of the best and raunchiest jokes.

Although for my money the best line of the night involved Matthew McCaughnahey losing weight.

Powerhouse Salter said...

Weakest scripted joke of the night: "And now, like a supermodel's vagina, let's give a warm welcome to Leonardo DiCaprio."

jbryant said...

Powerhouse: Maybe I'm a perv, but I thought that was the funniest joke of the night. It's also been singled out as a highlight in most of the coverage I've seen. Diff'rent strokes.

DwWashburn said...

Amy and Tina are the only reasons to watch the show. And once again they hit it out of the park.

Charles H. Bryan said...

I didn't watch them either -- I love Tina and Amy, but Peyton Manning followed by some A-Rod bashing on CBS was too good to pass up. Nothing could have been funnier than Scott Pelley asking (in a suitably moralistic tone) some "nutritionist"/drug hustler if he cared about the integrity of baseball. I'd love to know which sitcom writers are secretly scripting 60 Minutes, because between the Amazon piece, the NSA piece, and last night's show, they've been in a sweet little groove -- just like Leo.

Howard Hoffman said...

You earned the right to take the Emmys night off. Mazel Tov.

thesamechris said...

I liked that Jacqueline Bisset waited for the music to set in until she said something, because she is really good at talking over music. When the music started she used it, the rhythm and the dynamics.

I also liked Andy Samberg thanking his "team". Funny. Fuckin A-Stars having a "team". Put your girdle on yourselves!

Andy Anderson said...

Ken my wife forced me to watch Robert Redford in younger years we resembled each other--with age we still do - Damn

Pat Reeder said...

I want a gig like Tina and Amy, where everyone in Hollywood tosses over-the-top hosannas at you for everything you do. I thought they were very good, but to read some of the write-ups, you'd think they were the most brilliant humorists since Mark Twain and that everything they stand within 50 feet of turns to gold. MTV.com even wrote a list of the 15 "Most Jawdropping" hilarious moments of the night. One was the GG president's line about his speech being the part where the audience could go use the bathroom. Is your jaw still attached?

And MTV's writer hailed Tina's joke about "Gravity" (it shows George Clooney would rather float away in space and die than spend another minute with a woman his own age) as "perfect" on so many levels!!! Geez, it was a fine joke, but as a writer of a daily radio humor service, I have to write dozens of topical lines like that a day. The MTV writer gushed that it was SO perfect because it was both true and the funny part fell right on the last word! Uh, yeah: that's sort of the basic formula for all topical one-liners. Ever hear someone say, "That Jay Leno joke was hilarious because it was based on a false premise, and the punchline came before the set-up!"

Canda said...

Having a room full of drunk celebrities laughing at jokes about themselves and at each other's expense guarantees big laughs. No host will ever attempt to replicate Mark Twain, Robert Benchley or Dorothy Parker. There's no need to reach that high.

Eric J said...

I didn't watch it either, so I think you did great!

DBenson said...

Anybody catch Stephen Colbert showing off his temporary substitute for the People's Choice award?

BigTed said...

Jacqueline Bisset was the crazy old aunt at the dinner party who dominates the conversation for so long that there's no time left to enjoy the fun people you actually came to see.

thesamechrisagain said...

What a good year in movies!

And the globes were a success in that I like a bunch of people better now than I did before.

There was really nobody who lessened my opinion of them. (At some point it cant get worse)

Just listenend to Alex Eberts winning score: Deserved.
He should have been nominated and win for best song as well. (It's all on youtube (still))

Like Guaranteed by Eddie Vedder this needs more recognition
Go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrxWfy2U5LI

thesamechrisagainandagain said...

But Guaranteed
Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6w1ax7GuM8
is still the best song to a movie I have ever heard.

Tell me if I'm naive.

Johnny Walker said...

I really want to know how correct Ken was -- but I can't be bothered to sit through the whole show to find out.

Maybe I'm tired, but I didn't get this one: "It’s hard to take seriously an awards show where 12 YEARS A SLAVE and HER compete for the same screenwriting category. Or Jacqueline Bisset and Sofia Vergara, in the same acting category."?

benson said...

I'll probably get crucified here, but while the material was funny, what I take away from all this is, you cannot watch awards show as a family anymore. You read the comments on here over the past year or two and Two Broke Girls gets slammed for vagina humor, yet Tina and Amy get a free pass?

SharoneRosen said...

During last years GG show, I thought Tina & Amy were delightful. This year, I thought not. I seem to be alone in this opinion, but to me, not one bit of the writing was good nor interesting. Often, I thought even they looked like they were in pain delivering this slop.

I thought they both looked lovely, if that counts for anything.

Mitchell Hundred said...

I've said this elsewhere, but comparing 12 Years a Slave to Lincoln is ridiculous because Lincoln is not about slavery. A movie about slavery would have actual slaves in it. Lincoln is about politics.

Anonymous said...

I would love to know why the TV categories are always linked with mini series or made for tv movie. That should be it's own separate category! Then with a drama and a comedy category it makes so much more sense! Every year I think how ridiculous that is - Do you have any idea why Ken? Anyways the first hour was funny and then I zoned out. I loved the hosts but was befuddled by some of the wins. How Aaron Paul did not win for Breaking Bad is beyond me! And Brooklyn 99 winning best comedy - no way. While I do watch it each week - big bang is 100 times funnier!

Erin

cadavra said...

I'd like to win an award just so I can say, "I'd like to thank my team. [pause] I'd like to, but I don't have one."

Hamid said...

It's not entirely fair to say that Spielberg only shows up to award shows when nominated. I remember seeing him at several Oscars where he didn't have a film in contention. Though, as a fan, I wish he'd move away from these big historical epics and do something new and fresh. I wish he'd do an R rated thriller or horror.

I haven't watched the full Golden Globes show yet, being in the UK, but I've read that Mia Farrow and her son Ronan caused a stir when they tweeted during the show when Woody Allen was given a lifetime achievement award. Ronan tweeted:

Missed the Woody Allen tribute - did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?

Ouch! And I wasn't aware that Dylan Farrow had actually confirmed in a Vanity Fair interview last year that the abuse had taken place. I'm now in a bit of a quandary. I love a lot of Woody Allen films, but if his former adopted daughter has confirmed the abuse, I can't in good conscience support him and watch his films. But then there's the flipside allegation that the abuse claim was something that was planted in the child's mind by her mother, but that could be a load of BS. Equally, he's never been convicted.

What to do? It was easier deciding to loathe and boycott Mel Gibson, as there was abundant evidence he's a viciously racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, homophobic, domestic abuser.

Hamid said...

I should clarify I meant to say I saw Spielberg ON several Oscar shows, otherwise it sounds like I was actually at the Oscars!

Anonymous said...

SharoneRosen said...

"During last years GG show, I thought Tina & Amy were delightful. This year, I thought not. I seem to be alone in this opinion, but to me, not one bit of the writing was good nor interesting. Often, I thought even they looked like they were in pain delivering this slop. I thought they both looked lovely, if that counts for anything."

I thought they were lame too, plus the cheap "slut shaming" of Leo DiCaprio was hypocritical. He's a single man, and dating models is his prerogative.

Tina's admitted to being a self-involved creep, but I expected a bit more from Amy.

Loosehead said...

Liberace's bathroom. Spooky.

MuffinMan21571 said...

Not to justify the Globes or anything, but WHY do you have a problem with 12 Years a Slave AND Her competing for best writing? They both had scripts, right- so WTF's the problem???

jbryant said...

MuffinMan: I can't speak for Ken, but maybe it's because 12 YEARS A SLAVE is an adapted screenplay and HER is an original? The Oscars, of course, have separate categories so it's not an issue.

Anonymous said...

Ken, that was so on point'. In the Best comedy' category. Not one of those movies is really a comedy... and it does seem to be a hodgepodge of talent thrown together in some of these categories... Someone else must have wrote the jokes - becuase Tina and Amy were not as fresh and spontaneous as last year. Tina: "I'm fresh.."
Amy: "I'm always fresh..."

Storm said...

"...Meryl Streep’s dress will still have the Ross For Less tag on it."

Me-OW, Mary! Read her for filth!


Don't be shady, be a LADY,

Storm


wv: the urpzen = what one gets after doing yoga on a full stomach?