Millions of gluttons for punishment tuned in to hate-watch the Golden Globes last night and walked away with plenty of fodder for snarky tweets. Ricky Gervais, whose opening monologue addressed the celebrity audience as a bunch of “pill-popping sexual deviants,” set the tone for a show that was aggravating in both its groaning predictability and willful obscurity. Every year there's bound to be a handful of winners about which you can picture the Hollywood Foreign Press Association winking and saying, “You didn't see that coming, did you?” Here's some of the hate-bait those sly dogs dished up this year.

The Martian wins Best Picture — Musical or Comedy
The consensus among everyone who is not a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press is that The Martian is a good movie that is definitely not a comedy. But the crop of comedic films was decidedly weaker than the dramas. (Since when are middling rom-coms like Trainwreck nominated for awards?) So Ridley Scott's intergalactic Castaway goes up against Spy instead of a shoe-in like The Revenant and everyone (i.e. Ridley Scott) goes home happy. Matt Damon also walked away with a Best Actor award for the film in spite of Christian Bale's excellent glass-eye work in The Big Short.

Mozart in the Jungle wins — twice
I'll be honest — I've never seen Mozart in the Jungle, but I figure it's not my fault that Amazon hasn't succeeded in convincing me it isn't insufferably pretentious, boring crap. It's one thing to recognize the excellence of an underrated show that's been unfairly overshadowed, but that's not how most critics seems to feel about MITJ. Superlative shows like Transparent and Veep might've seemed like duller choices up against a dark horse about a symphony (I need a nap just thinking about it), but at what point does rewarding it just amount to trolling? When you give it a second award — Gael Garcia Bernal, Best Actor — that's when. And good job ruining Aziz Ansari's elaborate joke about “losing with dignity to Jeffrey Tambor.”

Lady Gaga win Best Actress for American Horror Story
Sorry, but she wasn't even good at acting during her speech!


I guess I have to watch a show called Mr. Robot now?
Among the upsets that are being positively received by the masses — Mr. Robot's win for Best Drama over Game of Thrones, Narcos, Empire and Outlander, as well as Christian Slater's win for Best Actor in a Drama for his work on the show. I haven't watched USA since they were regularly showing reruns of Wings, but by many accounts Mr. Robot is a compelling reason to tune in (thanks in large part to lead actor Rami Malek, who lost to Jon Hamm). Yay for streaming services and premium channels, but it's kind of fun to see scrappy cable stalwarts like USA and the CW being part of the conversation again. 

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