This is no typical awards show season.
Only one thing will positively happen on Jan.13, the night slotted for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to hand out their annual Golden Globe awards: A bunch of celebrities will get completely plastered. Who will win? Who will show up with whom? Wearing what? And most importantly, will we even get to witness Hollywood's annual evening of high-class, shameless crunked-ness?
Okay, Let me back up a bit. You might have heard a little somethin-something about the Writer's Guild of America's ongoing strike. Well, in addition to damning your favorite shows to weekly reruns until the strike is settled, this year's awards shows have no one to bang out a script. In support of the WGA -- and likely in fear of having to sit through a show with lower-par jokes than usual -- many of Hollywood's public relations firms announced on Friday that their clients, a.k.a. Hollywood's elite celebs, will not be attending.
Although NBC says the show will go on, it remains unclear which celebrities aren't attending the ceremony and which ones might say "eh, screw it" and show up for the bubbly.
Hollywood pundits have voiced doubts that NBC will air the sparsely attended event at all. But whether the recipients are physically present to pick up their awards or not, they will still win, which means one thing: We get to complain about not only who wins, but also who's nominated!
But first, my obligatory snobby disclaimer: the Golden Globes are silly. They mean nothing. As some kind of confused, illegitimate spawn of the Academy Awards and the People's Choice Awards, the Globes don't know what they want to be. Honor the esoteric, indie film or give love to the mainstream blockbuster? Why not do both? Or neither? Or better yet, why not give a statue to a random limo driver outside?
All criticism aside, it must be said that the Globes do two things fairly well: For film, they foreshadow the Oscar nominations, and for TV, they rightfully honor the shows and actors the Emmy Awards forgot.
For the Best Motion Picture Drama category, the Globes managed to nominate such Oscar candy as "Atonement," "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood," all of which I hope the Academy similarly adores. "Michael Clayton," "American Gangster" and "Eastern Promises" are fine films, but I'm going to be angry if they walk away even with Best Drama bragging rights. And "The Great Debaters"? Seriously?
As for the Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy category, I'd go so far as to only give my thumbs up to "Sweeney Todd," which I found surprisingly solid. The others -- "Juno," "Hairspray," "Across the Universe" and "Charlie Wilson's War" -- range from annoyingly silly to downright contemptible. Ellen Page, I'm looking at you.
The Best Director nominations are amazingly solid. Tim Burton, the Coen Brothers, Joe Wright and Julian Schnabel are all first-class filmmakers. I'm somewhat wary of Ridley Scott's directing abilities, but "American Gangster" was indeed applause-worthy, so his inclusion in this category doesn't particularly irk me.
All 10 Best Actor nominees -- split between drama and comedy, of course -- are inoffensive, but the stronger nominees had better win over the weaker ones, or I'm going to burn my DVD collection in protest. Who's one of the stronger men in this category? The answers are Daniel Day-Lewis ("There Will Be Blood"), Viggo Mortensen (he flew to Moscow and hung out with real Russian mobsters to prepare for "Eastern Promises"), Johnny Depp ("Sweeney Todd") and John C. Reilly ("Walk Hard"). I must confess that I only want Reilly to win because he's so damn likeable, and I think it would be absurdly hilarious if he won an award for the goofiest role of his career.
In contrast to their male counterparts, the Best Actress nominees are embarrassing mainly because of the movies they are nominated for. "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "Hairspray," "The Brave One" and "A Mighty Heart" were not vehicles for truly memorable performances; I don't care who the leading lady is. These actresses' nominations had more to do with each woman's star-power and less to do with her acting accomplishment. I do lend my wholehearted support to four of the Best Actress nominees, however: Julie Christie ("Away From Her"), Keira Knightley ("Atonement"), Helena Bonham Carter ("Sweeney Todd") and, -- from the bottom of this film-snob and Francophile's heart -- the awe-inspiring Marion Cotillard ("La Vie En Rose").
It's about time I turn to the television side of things, but I admit I have far less insight or interest when it comes to honoring the tube's stars. My merely mediocre knowledge of what quality television programming is tells me that I should be happy that "30 Rock" got a whole slew of nominations, and that "Big Love" finally got some, uh, love from the awards gods. But why did Edie Falco grab the only nomination for the final season of "The Sopranos," and why is "Grey's Anatomy" still accruing high praise, even when it's obviously seen better days, not to mention plot lines? And for the love of all things pop culture, why the hell doesn't "The Wire" ever get nominated? Thank God I don't watch much TV. Even these few blips in judgment have caused me great pain.
So whether we viewers get to see it or not, the show will go on when the Golden Globes are handed out on Jan. 13. Let's just hope somebody gets a camera inside and catches some inebriated celebs embarassing themselves. If they attend, of course.
