Thanks to the writers' strike, last night's pared-down Golden Globes took the form of a news conference – like the ones appealing for the return of missing children, only bleaker.
It was the oddest Golden Globes you're ever likely to see – no stars attended, no fancy frocks were worn, results were blasted through in a matter of minutes and the traditional Golden Globes pursuit of trying to second-guess which rabbit-eyed young starlet would be fighting off the advances of Jack Nicholson by the end of the night was put on hold.
And if that wasn't harrowing enough, Atonement won a Golden Globe as well. We're all doomed.
The writer's strike has done several things to the world of film and TV, some bad – like taking The Daily Show off the air – and some less bad (coughDa Vinci Code sequelcough). And somewhere in the middle is last night's Golden Globes awards ceremony.
Up until the last minute nobody knew what would happen to the Golden Globes after the WGA and the SAG banned their members from attending so long as it was being televised, but there were three choices: 1) ditch the Golden Globes altogether, 2) don't televise the Golden Globes so that celebrities can still attend and 3) cobble together a hasty, amateurish half-hour press conference to announce the winners of the Golden Globes that leaves everyone – hosts, broadcasters, winners and viewers – feeling slightly cheapened.
Needless to say, they went with number three.
Everything that people enjoy most about the Golden Globes – the sparkle, the dresses, the freewheeling spirit of semi-drunk playfulness, was absent from the press conference; replaced with a sense of profound embarrassment that the winners were all at home watching the events unravel on Telemundo instead of being up on stage making four-hour teary-eyed acceptance speeches about the power of cinema.
But perhaps it was best that the Golden Globes weren't televised, because the majority of the winners were all so vastly obscure that nobody would have watched more than 10 minutes of it anyway. Best actress? Julie Christie in That Film Nobody Has Seen. Best actress in a comedy or musical? Some woman nobody's heard of in That Film Nobody Has Seen. Best actor in a TV comedy? David Duchovny in That TV Show That People Saw Once Before Quickly Deciding It Was Rubbish And Turning Off To Do Something More Interesting Like Removing Someone Else's Toe Jam With Their Tongue.
And, worst of all, Atonement won the Golden Globe for best motion picture even though if we wanted to watch a bunch of upper-class bibbles mimbling on endlessly about their problems in rage-inducing accents we'd probably just prefer to watch an episode of Trinny And Susannah.
Still, not all the Golden Globe winners were this dull. Johnny Depp won best actor (comedy) for Sweeney Todd – which also scooped the best comedy or musical movie award – Daniel Day-Lewis won best actor for There Will Be Blood, Tina Fey won best comedy actress for 30 Rock and No Country For Old Men also took a couple of prizes.
But that's not what the 2008 Golden Globes will be remembered for – not when the awards were handed out in such a perfunctory star-free manner.
Now we'll just have to see what happens to the Oscars next month. Hopefully, if the strike is still ongoing until then, lessons will be learnt and the same toe-curling mistakes won't be repeated again.
Because, really, Atonement?
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