Golden Globe Comments, etc.

The Golden Globes have been, in more recent years, a pretty good gauge in terms of how the Oscars will play out - seven of the ten past Globe winners for best picture have taken home the Oscar. This year's ceremony offered some surprises, but was pretty flaccid over all. Dreamgirls won for Best Comedy/Musical, which is lame, but who cares, really. Babel was the Globe winner for Best Drama, and if it takes home the Oscar, I'll be pissed. Not only was it far from being this year's best drama, it wasn't even collaborators Alejandro González Iñárritu (dir) and Guillermo Arriaga's (writer) best film. In fact, it was their worst - a poorly written, unbelievably sordid mess that takes coincidence way too seriously. I have to give Iñárritu some credit: his camera use was occasionally inventive and he managed to make lingering moments between dialogue haunting and emotional, but the film was an over-wrought piece of crap. Please don't make the same mistake you did with Crash, dear Academy.

Most of the other categories were predictable. Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson took home prizes for Dreamgirls (they were the only decent part of that movie so I won't argue it), Borat won for Borat, Meryl Streep was handed another shiny trophy for her mantle piece. The big race here was for best actor/actress in a drama, with Helen Mirren and Forest Witaker winning those, respectively. I haven't seen either The Queen or Last King of Scotland, nor do I think anyone else in America has, so once again I am at a loss for giving a shit. Marty won best director for The Departed, but then again he also won for Gangs of New York and we all know how that turned out come Oscar time. I hope they stiff him again this year too so I can keep making jokes about how Three Six Mafia has an Oscar and he doesn't. Also, I'm bitter than Pan's Labarynth (and Volver, even) lost out to Letters From Iwo Jima for best foriegn language film. Iwo Jima was good and all, but once you get past the whole OMFG THE JAPS ARE THE GOOD GUYS!!!!1! thing it's pretty much your basic war film. Both Pan's Lab and Volver were infinitely more imaginative and entertaining films.

Overall, it's important to remember that these awards are simply a set-up for famous people to give other famous people shiny pieces of shit that grant them status to quit caring about their work and simply make films for the money. (The Oscar curse is REAL people!). Like the obligitory annual critics top ten lists, awards season is more politics than it is progress towards advancing the cinema. It's fodder for gossip, and for making fun of Scorsese for sucking so much. The Academy is pretty predictable in terms of how they make their decision (take Crash, for example - sure it was an upset, but why would they give the big award to a film solely about gay people when they could give it to one that generalized racism all across the board?). It's crucial to remember that the Academy is a specific group of people with specific politics, and that their views don't accurately represent the cinema as a whole but rather the politics of that specific group. So, in conclusion, FUCK AWARDS SEASON and just go see movies on your own. Make your own decisions on the best movie of the year - don't let awards season dictate what you should watch.

Here are links to some of the better/more humorous reviews of this year's Globes:

NY Times

Defamer

Variety


Also, a note about the blog:

Sorry about the slow posts, but my computer is broke and so am I, so I've had to resort to posting at work/school and from the wii (which is a bitch). I should have it all sorted out later this week, so look forward to a more regular posting schedule. I've seen a good 10-15 movies in the past few days and have a lot to talk about, so it should be good.