Snarking the Awful Golden Globes

It’s a completely meaningless awards show by a scandal-riddled organization on a network desperate for any kind of ratings. Yet there I was live-snarking the Golden Globes held by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and broadcast on NBC. Jack Nicholson has mooned the audience, Jim Carrey has talked out of his butt, Christine Lahti was locked in the bathroom, and other unscripted weirdness occurs at this intimate dinner, including 1982’s low point when Pia Zadora’s husband bought her “New Star of the Year.”

But the Golden Globes have zero integrity and credibility. Studios and networks lavishly lobby the HFPA to score nominations. Stars win in direct correlation to their glamour quotient. (“That’s the last time I have sex with 200 middle-aged journalists. It was horrible,” Ricky Gervais joked during the show about his own HFPA campaigning.)

The public doesn’t know that the motley group of freelancers who belong to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association won’t grant membership to the real foreign journalists employed at the prestige newspapers around the world. NBC and Dick Clark Productions could clean up the Globes but choose not to. Instead, they’re joined by the entire entertainment industry propping up this marketing tool. Which is why I thought last year’s Golden Globes show was the best ever, because it was canceled due to the Hollywood writers’ strike.

Tom Wilkinson, Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti all won for John Adams, HBO’s most boring miniseries ever, which also won BEST MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION. I think the HFPA only chose it to get producer Tom Hanks onstage. I loved the irony of Giamatti calling his fellow actor “Mr. Hanks.” As if.

Laura Dern won BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE FOR TELEVISION for Recount, HBO’s most inaccurate made-for-TV movie. Strange how HBO cleaned up even though its 2008 lineup was among the lowest-rated and least acclaimed.

Anna Paquin won BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES­-DRAMA for the abysmal True Blood, another unwatchable HBO show. Gabriel Byrne even won for BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES-DRAMA for HBO’s In Treatment, whose ratings were so low HBO brought in a new showrunner. Anyone want to insist that these awards aren’t bought by whichever company spends the most on the HFPA? This is exactly why promotions guy Richard Plepler now heads HBO.

But BEST TELEVISION SERIES-DRAMA went to AMC’s Mad Men, giving creator Matthew Weiner more bargaining power with Lionsgate since negotiations are at an impasse. “To my friends at Lionsgate and AMC, it’s been an amazing journey.” Was that his way of saying goodbye? Say it ain’t so.

I have milk in my fridge older than the Jonas Brothers, who presented BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM to Pixar/Disney’s Wall-E, which was a shoo-in.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE-COMEDY OR MUSICAL, surprisingly, went to Sally Hawkins for Miramax’s little-seen Happy-Go-Lucky. She kept crying about how Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson were “goddesses” and her win “seems insane when you’re all nominated ...”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE went posthumously to Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. Director Chris Nolan gave an appropriately somber speech.

Supposedly clean and sober Colin Farrell, who won BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE-COMEDY OR MUSICAL for Focus Features’ In Bruges, was suspiciously sniffing onstage and addressed that while presenting BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM to Israel’s Waltz With Bashir. “I still have a cold. It’s not the other thing it used to be ...”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES-COMEDY OR MUSICAL went to 30 Rock’s Alec Baldwin. Hey, NBC is hosting this shindig and had to win something. “When you do this you want to say, ‘Thank you, Tina. Thank you, Tina. Thank you, Tina,’” Alec continued. Then, BEST TELEVISION SERIES-COMEDY OR MUSICAL also was awarded to 30 Rock. But the HFPA got punked. “Tina Fey and I had an agreement that if Barack Obama won, I would speak for the show from now on in post-racial America,” said Tracy Morgan. Fey won BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES-COMEDY OR MUSICAL, saying, “I really know how very lucky I am to have had the year that I’ve had this year. But if you ever start to feel too good about yourself, they have this thing called the Internet. I’d like to address some of those people now: You can suck it.”

I don’t understand why Steven Spielberg accepted the HFPA’s Cecil B. DeMille Award. People, just say no to dumb Hollywood awards from even dumber Hollywood organizations. Now, if Steven were to get onstage and plead for his DreamWorks 2.0 to get financing before January 15, then I’d congratulate him for the reality check.