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Sparkle (2)
Year after year, for a screenwriter, Awards Season means one thing: a time to ruminate on my own epic failures of the past 365 days and lament that it's not me up there bashfully claiming a golden statue. Oh my ... This is so unexpected ... I think I may faint.
As such, how much I enjoy an awards telecast almost always relates directly to how I feel about my own career at the time -- last year I barely looked up from Twitter, lest I should have to catch a glimpse of the executive that passed me over on a writing assignment conspiratorially clinking glasses with that actress who never read my script no matter how many times my agent had lunch with hers and promised it was next on her list. Well, either this year is going to be my year (live tweeting from the red carpet 2012? fingers crossed!) or Ricky Gervais' haughty attitude was just what my ego ordered, because I thought last night's Golden Globes was a HOOT!!!
The Golden Globes -- or "The Globes," as I like to call them, since we're on a first name basis -- are like the drunk Ivy League co-ed of awards season. You know what I mean. Totally smart and valid and all that, but MAN are they a good time once the liquor starts to flow. (What? It's fiiine -- Aaron Sorkin said girls can be smart AND pretty AND party. Didn't you watch the show?)
Before I launch in to the winners, the upsets, and what they mean for this year's Oscar hopefuls, let's review what makes The Globes so grand -- the glitterati are too tossed to notice when the cameras are pointed at them, so you always get to catch a glimpse of a fun US Weekly moment or two. My finds in this year's telecast?
-- Angelina Jolie looked drunk as a skunk, am I right?
-- Marky Mark (who by the way is turning out to be quite the discerning producer -- a long way from posing in his Calvins, no?) looking left, right -- not forward -- missing the camera on him completely, and taking the least surreptitious swig of wine ever while Steve Buscemi was accepting his award.
-- James Franco pointing meaningfully across his table and mouthing "I thought you weren't coming" to whoever was sitting across from him.
-- In one of the sweetest moments of the evening, I loved experiencing the whirlwind of winning through the facial expressions of GLEE'S Dianna Agron (Quinn Fabray) as she mouthed "THIS IS CRAZY!!!" to castmate Chris Colfer.
-- And finally, this face on Susan Downey while her hubby Robert Downey, Jr. talked about wanting to bone each of the five Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nominees:
OSCARS vs. GLOBES - APPLES vs. GRAPPLES
So they're not totally unrelated, but there is a key difference between the voting process for Hollywood's two biggest nights. The main difference is this: The Globes are voted on (and thrown) by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which means that it's the critics, one big pool of them, voting on the winners. Now that Globes Celebrations are over, Hollywood is going to break down into guilds to vote on the remaining statues -- the list of specialized ceremonies is virtually endless, SAG, PGA, DGA, WGA, Indie Spirit ... okay, not endless ... but you get the idea -- there are a lot of them. Basically, in political terms, it's like the Golden Globes are the general election, and the Oscars are the primaries where voters are only voting within their own party. Except backwards, and you have to be invited to join the academy, they only take about a hundred new members each year, and once you're inside, actors vote on actors, directors vote on directors, and so on and so forth (except for best picture, where everyone gets to weigh in to select a winner.) So while statistically speaking the Globes are usually a good barometer for who will win Oscar gold, it's actually a completely different voting pool. Make sense? No? I should move on, anyway? Okay.
MOVIE OF THE YEAR GENERATION?
