Avatar?
Where the hell did that come from? I just read an item in which the head of Fox makes a somewhat disingenuous claim that Avatar was the underdog (yeah, a 250 million dollar underdog). Then he decries how disrespected broad appeal films can be.
But I thought the purpose of these awards shows was to honor Art. Oh, silly me. Let’s just create an award for Best Motion Picture – Special Effects and get it over with.
Here’s who I’d like to honor for their performances at the Golden Globes last night:
The award for Most Heartfelt Speech goes to . . . Mo’Nique. She certainly got the evening started on a lovely note.
The award for Most Apt Speech goes to . . . Jeff Bridges. (“You’re screwing up my reputation for being underappreciated,” as a room full of his professional peers showed their appreciation with a well-deserved standing ovation.)
The award for Most Poetic Speech goes to . . . Christoph Waltz, when he told of the little orbiting globe that is his life being pulled into Tarantino’s gravitational pull. Anyone who has had any exposure to Tarantino immediately knew the truth of that metaphor. But then he kept going with it, on an extended trajectory of astronomical allusions until he finally brought the image system back around to tell us that his globe has now been made golden. Whoa! That was quite skillful!
I’m not going to spend too many words here bemoaning The Big Dis of Tarantino last night. I doubt he’s sitting around feeling sorry for himself. Doesn’t seem like that kind of guy. He’ll just go off and make his next film about burning down the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel with the entire Hollywood Foreign Press Association inside. And his big mug on the screen, laughing. (I mean, really! What were they thinking?!)
I do, however, have a little award of my own that I’d like to give him: Most True Response to Hearing His Name Called in the Nominees Line Up . . . for his fist pumping to the camera. YES!!!
Here’s another award I’d like to give – Best Send Up of False Humility in Acceptance Speeches to Robert Downey, Jr. (“I’m not going to thank anybody! I did this all myself! . . . I’m not going to thank my agent for restarting my career about 12 times! I’m not going to thank my wife, without whom I would be working as a bus boy somewhere. What a great job that would have been!”)
And I have a couple of inglourious awards to give:
Most Diplomatic Speech goes to . . . James Cameron, for claiming that he thought the Best Directing prize would go to Kathryn Bigelow (his ex-wife) when everyone else in the room was sure it would go to Quentin.
And, I don’t like to be petty, but I have to say I would give the Most Ungracious Recovery From a Gown Mishap award to Chloe Sevigny (“I can’t believe he just tore my dress!”)
And more on the subject of dresses (when the awards disappoint, at least we have the dresses):
For my money, Most Classy Dress goes to Helen Mirren – basic black with subtle sequins in a shape that made her look incredible.
Most Interesting Dress (and my personal favorite) to Sally Hawkins, for a knee-length, silvery-gray, criss-crossed, sparkly thing I would describe as a sort of Techno meets Mary Jane style.
How bout an award for Best Cleavage? (I’m a woman, so I can do this.) I actually don’t have one (maybe also because I’m a woman). But I will say that the fashion industry seems to have discovered that being flat chested offers many interesting opportunities for deep, deep, deep necklines (chestlines?) (waistlines?). In that category of dress, I think I liked Felicity Huffman’s the best.
And did you see those spiked heels on Julia Roberts? How do they walk in those things?
(* By the way, in the area of giving due credit, The Big Dis is the title of a little-known 1989 independent film made by Gordon Ericksen and John O’Brien in the vein of Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It. It had its own small cult following at the time (some of us thought it should have been titled He Can’t Get It). Don’t know how it would play today, but it was a real charmer back then.)