Liveblogging the Golden Globes Part 9

10:14 Obviously, I'm getting tired. Danny Boyle wins the Best Director category for Slumdog Millionaire.

And with that, I'm going to leave you. Don't take it personally, I just have some work to do for which I actually earn a paycheck. But this has been enlightening. It will either reinvigorate my desire to blog, or burn me out on it indefinitely. Good night!

Liveblogging the Golden Globes Part 8

9:47 Ok, rejoining the show. Best Actress in a TV Comedy. Tina Fey wins. The lady is my hero. Oh, and also I'm afraid she has taken to exclusively playing baby crazy women in their late 30s, and I hope they take Liz Lemon somewhere else sometime soon.

Fantastic speech. The joke about Hollywood Foreign Press action figures is great, but even better was when she told her internet critics, individually and by name, to suck it.

To explain more thoroughly why I love Tina Fey, let me tell you a story. Recently, I was watching an episode of Damages with my newish roommate. He mentioned three times how ugly he finds Glenn Close before I finally had to say something. Because men, women in the entertainment business do not exclusively exist for the purpose of giving you something to wack off to. While watching Damages, I have never thought to note how physically unattractive Ted Danson is, though I am not even remotely attracted to him or his character on the show. Because he is playing an unlikeable character, and doing it well. Just like Glenn Close. They are helping to create an interesting world filled with devious people with impure motives.

Anyway, it annoys me that Glenn Close, or any actress, is just expected to be attractive by virtue of being an actress. I told my roommate as much, and was a bitch about it, because it's the kind of situation that deserves to have a bitch intervene and tell someone he's being an asshat.

What does this have to do with Tina Fey? Well, were it not for Fey, this situation would have made me feel bad. But Tina is funny and smart and bitchy and a feminist. And incredibly successful. And whenever I start to feel guilty for being myself, I remember Tina Fey and am reminded that it doesn't matter at all if my roommate thinks I'm a bitch. And that it would be way worse if I silenced myself when I'm RIGHT and he's being and asshat, just to avoid fulfilling the stereotype of a bitchy feminist. Because thanks to Tina Fey, the stereotypical bitchy feminist is a little better understood and a little less villified. Give her an award for that. But the GGs are cool too.

10:04 Stephen Spielberg gets a lifetime achievement award. Which means lots of shots of Drew and her crazy hair! Thanks Steve.

Liveblogging the Golden Globes Part 7

Correction: Ok, I totally messed up my initial comment about the Best Supporting Actor in TV category. Alec Baldwin was NOT nominated in the category, which means he wasn't robbed by the overabundance of miniseries actors nominated. But the comment still applies to NPH. But wait, oh my god...

9:28 Renee Zellwegger totally got her hair done in the same wind tunnel as Drew Barrymore! I sincerely hope someone gets a picture of the two of them together at some point tonight. Though at least Drew's dress (pale blue, one shoulder, ethereal) was lovely. Renee's is terrifying, or maybe it's just that she looks like a pale wiry bug. Perhaps she'd like my tip about the Edward's individual pie slices? On second thought, Renee should be eating entire pies at this point.

9:31 Paul Giamatti wins for John Adams. I don't have anything else to say about this, obviously.

9:32 Oh, except to add that Kiefer Sutherland was nominated in this category for his performance in the "24" movie that came out in November or December. And sat on my Tivo for 6 weeks before I finally decided I wasn't going to watch it. I'm going to give the show a try again this season, but it has gotten so thin in the past few years.

9:33 Best TV Series Comedy or Musical. Nominees are 30 Rock, Californication, Entourage, The Office, and Weeds. 30 Rock should win, and.... does. This is an easy one. Ha, Tracy Jordan accepts for the show, based on an agreement he made with Tina Fey if Barack Obama won the election. This is a political statement I can get behind because it's goofy and hilarious. Alec can't resist getting in on it, reminding Tracy to thank Jeff Zucker.

To explain why any other result here would have been absurd:

Entourage and Weeds just aren't as good as they once were. They both skate on reputation and the fact that they appear on pay cable (again, an arbitrary distinction that really matters to the HFPA). Entourage, in particular, has become really thin. Sometimes I watch that show and I don't even know what it's about anymore. It's passed the point of self-referential and come out the other side. So it's kind of like the poo of the entertainment industry. There are a lot of not terribly interesting characters played by only mildly interesting actors who take up a LOT of camera time. Even the Ari Gould character, who was always the core of the show, has gotten stale. Most criminally, the show often has not a single laugh-out-loud funny moment in an entire episode. That's not Best Comedy material.

Weeds has different problems. I applaud the decision to take the show out of Agrestic and push Nancy into a much more questionable and less suburban drug world. But the show hasn't figured out what it is now that it's lost the suburban-mom-as-small-time-dealer schtick. It could come back. But it doesn't deserve to be applauded at this moment.

Californication is great, I love David Duchovny, and I'm glad the show has found an audience. But it's a niche show, and doesn't rise to the level of 30 Rock. The latter manages to be hilarious within the constricts of network television, commercial breaks, and broadcast standards. In fact, it is often hilarious because of those things. The show makes the medium work in its favor, which is a much better way to handle making a TV show than constantly bitching about how hard it is to work in network TV. It is what it is. Californication is often very funny, but also sometimes gets overly repetitive or rests on the ability to say fuck and show simulated sex. Sometimes creativity flourishes best when it's forced to overcome a set structure or other restrictions. So though Californication is great, it doesn't earn the award as much as 30 Rock does.

The Office is biggest competition for the win, and the show is still good and worth watching. It's got some growing pains right now with the Jim/Pam relationship, but is handling them better than expected. 30 Rock is still better right now. But that doesn't mean The Office is bad. It's nice to have a couple heavyweights battling it out.

Liveblogging the Golden Globes Part 6

9:17 I don't understand why In Bruges is getting so much acclaim. Three nominations? It was kind of interesting, but by no means a "great" movie. But I don't understand the film industry very well. I like getting to know a show on television over a longer period of time, so I can really evaluate how good it is. Movies just don't tend to have as much of an effect on me. I saw Doubt a couple weeks ago, and it was an interesting movie, really well acted, but I stopped thinking about it less than 12 hours after seeing it. I don't know. Maybe I just have ADD.

9:21: Best Screenplay is Slumdog Millionaire. This is one movie I will definitely see.

9:22: Huh, is Alec Baldwin nominated for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for 30 Rock? Or maybe I screwed up earier in the show. Because Alec Baldwin just won for Best Actor in a Comedy. Which is awesome. Very funny, classy speech. The reference to his daughter is sadly a bit awkward. It's one of those times when I wish I knew less about famous people's private lives. But he really deserves the win, if only because he's so thoroughly entertaining. Which is supposed to be what this whole business is about, not swaying my vote or getting me to recycle.

Livebloggin the Golden Globes Part 5

9:04 Ok, I'm plowing on. I can catch up on Tivo next weekend, since it's a 4-day in D.C. Plus, this is the most blogging I've done at once ever.

9:05 Tom Brokaw. Who was on my mind because he's the Tom Hanks of broadcast journalism. He's introducing Frost/Nixon. On the one hand, this movie looks interesting. On the other hand, I watched much of the original Frost/Nixon interviews during a class on the American Presidency in college. Whenever I see the previews, I just think about how it would be interesting to go back and watch them again.

9:07 Best Foreign Language film. I haven't seen any of these I don't think... Huh, Kristen Scott Thomas was in a French film. That intrigues me. Anyway, the winner is an Israeli film, but that's upstaged by Colin Farrel making a joke about how he used to be a cokehead as he struggles with a cold during the presentation. He's refreshingly self aware! Though I still can't understand 75% of what he says.

9:09 Aaron Eckhardt looks adorable, as does Maggie Gyllenhall, though she does it in a more grating way. The category is Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie. Interesting how these are almost all biopics, and the actresses are almost all veterans. The winner is Laura Linney for John Adams, which is having a really good night. I feel like that has a lot to do with the fact that it was aired in mid-March, when everyone was starved for good TV after the writer's strike, so it got a ton of attention. Don't get me wrong, I've heard great things about it and it has a great cast. But this is just one of those ways in which the winners can be arbitrary. I doubt Judi Dench sucked, you know? But I didn't even know she was in a TV Movie this year until just now.