Only the mysterious hecklerspray phantom bothered reporting on the 69th annual Golden Globe ceremony that took place on Sunday evening. Of course, we were ready to take multiple notes on the ceremony and present you with a factual article about the winners, losers and which actress had slopped gravy down their dress.

However, broadcaster E! decided that viewers in the UK weren’t allowed to watch the actual ceremony. Instead of seeing Ricky Gervais offend Hollywood’s elite, viewers were instead treated to endless repeat of an advert featuring Kim Kardashian getting out a helicopter. If they couldn’t be bothered, then neither could we.

So, we still don’t know what happened at the Golden Globes. Nobody injured themselves from what we gather (shame), but following the ceremony, it looks like a bitchfest has kicked off between Mrs. Elton John and Mr. Madonna. A case of sour grapes after losing out in an awards category? Or a bout of jealousy because Madonna bagged herself the sparkly orphan that they both wanted?

Both Elton John and Madonna were nominated in the “Best Original Song” category at the Golden Globes. Other people probably were also there, but let’s be honest, none of them really had a chance did they?

Elton was hoping that his song Hello Hello would win, though it appeared in the appallingly titled film ‘Gnomeo and Juliet’ and therefore didn’t deserve any shred of credibility. Madonna won the award with her single Masterpiece, a song that appeared in her own film ‘W.E.’ We only assume this is a big screen Hollywood tale of the Nintendo Wii console.

Did Elton John take defeat graciously? Not particularly, instead of doing the mild mannered clapping thing, he decided to sit motionlessly and look like a man with a face resembling a rejected prune who also happens to be wearing a subbuteo football as an earring.

Look at his miserable face in Madonna’s speech around the 1.07 mark:

So how did his man wife David Furnish react? In a calm, controlled and sensible matter? Don’t be stupid, Furnish is only human and he did what we’d all do in a time of sadness and anger; took to Facebook. No doubt he’ll blame the free bar at one of the Golden Globes after parties, but at the time he posted the following status:

“Madonna. Best song???? Fuck off!!!”

Don’t ever go messing with David Furnish, the boy knows how to spout his anger. Check out all of that punctuation. He must mean business. We can only imagine that his fingernails have been sharpened as he prepares to get all up in Madonna’s business and trade insults until he’s ran out of diva quips. Furnish continued his temper tantrum by commenting:

“Madonna winning Best Original Song truly shows how these awards have nothing to do with merit. Her acceptance speech was embarrassing in its narcissism.”

Surely Elton John and David Furnish didn’t think they’d walk this category did they? Oh wait, it looks like someone got a little cocky before the event even started with Elton saying:

“Madonna had “no fucking chance” of beating him in the category.”

Setting a lovely, lovely example to their new child aren’t they?

Hey! The Golden Globe nominees have been announced! Isn’t that amazing? Your day just went from pretty average to spectacular on the waft of a bunch of nominations for a bunch of actors who barely know you exist!

Tip top stuff.

Two veritable strangers to us all are having a particularly good day today, namely, Ryan Gosling and George Clooney. Everyone in Hollywood loves them. Loves them hard. The little bestubbled, preening, walking piggy banks!

Gosling and Clooney were among the top repeated nominees, while David Fincher got something or other. Bully for those guys.

In the key Best Motion Picture Drama category, the Clooney-directed Ides of March is oddly, going to go up against the Clooney-starring The Descendants. The people choosing the noms clearly didn’t spend their youth making compilation tapes and adhering to the ‘One Artist Per Comp’ rule.

Swine.

The Help, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, Moneyball and Steven Spielberg’s War Horse were nominated, too, even though Clooney has nothing to do with them. Impressive!

Gosling meanwhile, with that long gormless face of his, goes up against Clooney for Best Drama Actor. He also got a nomination for Best Comedy-Musical Actor for Crazy Stupid Love, which absolutely no-one has seen.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo picked up two nominations: one for Original Score, and one key one for breakout star Rooney Mara (Best Drama Actress).

50/50, The Artist, Bridesmaids, Midnight in Paris and My Week With Marilyn are up for Best Motion Picture Comedy-Musical while over in the TV series nominees, we get American Horror Story, Glee, Game of Thrones and New Girl.

The ceremony is set for January 15th and, of course, Ricky Gervais is hosting.

Chief Mong and Spazz Honcho Ricky Gervais is to host the Golden Globe Awards again, which is great news for Ricky Gervais’ bank manager. Of course, we should point out that he’s shown remorse for all that ‘mong thing’, and by the end of the article, we will too.

For now, we’re mong mad.

If you remember, last time he hosted the Golden Globes, he ruffled a few feathers by mocking Scientology (good lad) and dry-heaving over the thought of Hugh Hefner’s penis (good work) and… well… in places, he was actually very good, which makes it very irritating for someone wanting to throw a jibe his way. He did go on to say mong though and we’re not letting that go because we’re lazy. Lazy mongs.

Anyway, Ricky Gervais is going to return to the podium at the annual awards gala in 2012, like a massive, massive mongo mong-mong.

Apparently, Gervais was voted in for the job by 83 entertainment spazzes from around the world (didn’t ask us though, did they? Idiot swine. Go hang) and he landed the gig despite a small but vocal minority who dissented. They probably called him a ‘mongy bastard’.

Of course, the people who didn’t like Gervais’ material from the last show were older members who found Gervais’ material in January insulting. Naturally, older members probably like jokes about women and ‘blacks’. That’s what old people like isn’t it?

Not people pulling spazz faces, which is obviously comedic genius.

One person casting a vote, who goes by the name of Judy Solomon, said:

“My worry was that he was insulting, and when I invite someone to my house, they don’t insult me, but this is show business. I guess I’m old-fashioned.”

She likes jokes about what it’s like to be a Jew probably. Hollywood loves those comics don’t they? ‘I’m a Jew! This is what it’s like being a Jew! Cuh! My mother is so Jewish! She Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew and oh, JEWJEWJEWJEW!‘

They don’t like it when Gervais praised the not-nominated “I Love You Phillip Morris” as being a movie in which two heterosexual men play two gay men “so the opposite of some famous Scientologists.”

Maybe he should adapt his mong jokes so they’re about Jewish spazzes. That’d be great wouldn’t it? THAT WOULD BE THE BEST JOKE EVER TOLD.

Oh God. Saying ‘mong’ is awful isn’t it? How dreadful we now feel. It’s not a nice word. It’s terrible. We’re crying here. Look. This is remorse.

Can we host an award ceremony in America now? Is this how it all works? We’ve grown as people, honestly we have. Go on. We’ll ask for much less money than Gervais AND we won’t need a man girdle to hold us in our suits.

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Americans either have a sense of humour or, maybe, they just like the press they get from controversy (that could well explain Sarah Palin’s baffling rise in power). We say this because apparently, Ricky Gervais has been asked to host the Golden Globes again.

Of course, you’ll remember that he upset some humourless dullards with a series of jokes that made everyone else laugh.

Dry heaving while pretending to wank-off Hugh Hefner? That’s exactly the sort of thing that will see hecklerspray jumping to our collective feet for a standing ovation. Not to mention ripping celebrity Scientologists a new one.

While smart slebs laughed along (a particular doffing of the cap must go to Robert DeNiro who looked like he was going to shit his pants he was chortling so hard), the Hollywood press decided that they didn’t like some Limey turning up and tearing strips off their hallowed Hollywood.

They took great glee in assuming that he wouldn’t be asked back to the Golden Globes, probably giving Billy Crystal the sly thumbs-up for the gig.

What they didn’t reckon on was the Golden Globes fondness for the money that comes with increased interest over imagined worldwide outrage. The largely insignificant award ceremony became the talk of the town and, should Gervais get next year’s gig, it’ll probably be transmitted live all over the world while they encourage him to go in with studs showing.

This, in fact, could be a turning point for the Golden Globes as they turn it into a comedy roast instead of some backslapping event that no-one outside of LA give two hoots about.

Gervais said:

“I don’t know what I could do better. I certainly couldn’t get more press for them, that’s for sure. The response was staggering.”

“It was discussed on every news channel and chatshow for weeks.”

And now it’s rumoured that he’s going to be asked to host it again. However, we know that Gervais doesn’t like to tread water.

In fact, he’ll probably turn it down and they’ll get Sarah Silverman to do it and… well… she’s about as funny as a blazing school full of children (which isn’t funny at all, should you need the staggeringly obvious pointing out to you).

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Like we noted yesterday, America can occasionally forget what a sense of humour is, despite the fact they’ve produced some of the most acerbic comics in history and invented the notorious advent of the comedy roast.

Yet, when on the receiving end of abuse from a British comedian, they can get a bit huffy and wounded. The great big touchy soft shits.

This has left Ricky Gervais having to defend his studs-showing stint which he delivered while hosting the Golden Globes, even though he shouldn’t have to. Gervais came armed with jokes, not guns, eh America?

Of course, us Limeys pride ourselves on our innate sense of satire and constantly chide America for not understanding sarcasm properly… unless of course, Sarah Palin is a gigantic slab of satirical comedy and no-one has cracked up through their poker face yet. If that’s the case, well done America; you had us for a moment then.

Anyway, jokes aren’t as funny when you have to either explain them or justify them. However, such is the hissy-fit being thrown in some quarters, Gervais has taken to his blog to stick two fingers up and, essentially, to tell everyone to piss-off and grow-up.

He wrote:

“I enjoyed the Globes more this year. I think I had better gags. More along the lines of the Mel Gibson one last year”

And what about the rumours about him getting taken backstage to be shot/told off?

“Obviously the rumour that the organisers stopped me going out on stage for an hour is rubbish.”

“I did every link I was scheduled to do. The reason why the gaps were uneven is because when I got the rundown I was allowed to choose who I presented to.

“I obviously chose the spots that I had the best gags for. They couldn’t move around the order but I could move around however I wanted.”

So, not only is the very notion of joking being dissected, but now, we’re being shown the admin of an awards ceremony. Thanks America. Your lack of humour has dragged us all into a scheduling hell. In triplicate.

Gervais added:

“All the same conspiracy theories as last year too … ‘so and so was offended’ … ‘hasn’t been invited back yet’ … exactly the same as last time. ‘Paul McCartney was furious’ … no he wasn’t. And nor was Tim Allen and Tom Hanks. I was drinking with them after.”

So there you have it. The only people offended are those with no funny bone. And Scientologists. And people who thought Gervais wasn’t that funny and expected better.

Happy now? Good. Now shut your traps.

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The 68th annual Golden Globes happened last night and, once again, hecklerspray‘s invite was lost in the post despite having previous when it comes to getting hold of really pure cocaine for very competitive and good prices.

Maybe we have to pretend to be Scientologists or something? Either way, we weren’t there, which means we have to rely on hearsay and reports. Please note – the former doesn’t mean we got a text from Suzanne Shaw, now starring in Emmerdale.

Anyway, apart from the winners, which no-one really cares about, the big story of the show focused on the host, Ricky Gervais who reminded us all that, sometimes, Americans don’t understand humour. Or they don’t find English people funny. One of the two.

The ceremony was buzzing with questions as Gervais went missing for nearly an hour.Rumours abounded that, after going in for the jugular almost from the off, Ricky had been fired backstage by the bosses of the show. Some idiots even speculated that he’d been taken to a parking lot and shot through the face with a great big gun (not that America has a fixation and problem with guns. God no. Not them. Or Sarah Palin. Guns don’t kill people – the bullets that guns fire into human flesh, do).

Anyway, Gervais kicked things off by ravaging Charlie Sheen, Scientology, Mel Gibson, Lost and Hugh Hefner. He also introduced Bruce Willis as “Ashton Kutcher’s dad”. The wag. He also joked that he had to help president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Philip Berk, to go to the toilet and “put his teeth back in”. We bet he was thrilled, especially as Gervais made jokes about them accepting bribes.

What did anyone expect? A nice, safe routine? Either way, what everyone got wasn’t too far from the level of comedic abuse you see at a Comedy Roast.

After pulling everyone’s noses, Gervais then vanished, leaving people to speculate about him being sacked or killed. Either would have been a good story to write this morning (in the case of the latter, a really brilliant story, once you’d got past the ‘tragedy’ element of it).

When Gervais returned to the fore, it was clear he wasn’t dead, however, observers muttered that he looked rather subdued, with the always pleasant and reasonable Piers Morgan (America – we’re sorry for him, okay?) noting that Gervais looked “haunted”.

So what did they do to him backstage? Suffice to say, whatever happened didn’t make Ricky Gervais laugh because, well, lets face it, if he did laugh, he would have woken the whole world up with it because, as you know, he’s got the loudest, most irritating chortle in the universe.

Either way, despite being rather funny (what? Praise from hecklerspray?), it certainly appears that Gervais won’t get a third stab at hosting the show. Next year, brace yourself for a routine from someone from the ever-appalling Big Bang Theory or something.

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Hey! It’s the Golden Globes! No, that’s not C3PO’s testicles, but rather, yet another stupid awards ceremony that will appear on the stickers of DVD releases next year in an attempt to make us part with our cash.

Us Limey bastards can show fleeting pride too as The King’s Speech – which stars more Limey bastards – got Quite A Few Nominations.

Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter play blueblooded lizard shits George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in the film which no-one you’ll have met has seen.

Of course, there are a whole bunch of people nominated for seemingly endless awards. If you can stay awake long enough, the entire list is lovingly written out for you below.

You’ll also see that, in the category for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, Johnny Depp is nominated twice. We’re hoping that it goes to a sing-off or something.

Sadly, the Golden Globes doesn’t have a category for the one genre that is most watched concerning celebrities – Best Sex Tape Or Leaked Photographs. That would be hotly contested and really show how gaspingly desperate celebrities are for our attention.

Shame.

Anyway, here’s a really long list of stuff that’s nearly as boring to read as the experience of going to the cinema itself. Enjoy it or something. We don’t actually give two shites.

MOVIES:

Best Motion Picture – Drama

The King’s Speech
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Social Network

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Alice In Wonderland
Burlesque
The Kids Are All Right
Red
The Tourist

Best Director

Tom Hooper – The King’s Speech
Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
Christopher Nolan – Inception
David O. Russell – The Fighter
David Fincher – The Social Network

Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama

Colin Firth – The King’s Speech
Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Mark Wahlberg – The Fighter
James Franco – 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling – Blue Valentine

Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

Johnny Depp – Alice In Wonderland
Johnny Depp – The Tourist
Paul Giamatti – Barney’s Version
Jake Gyllenhaal – Love and Other Drugs
Kevin Spacey – Casino Jack

Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama

Halle Berry – Frankie and Alice
Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine

Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right
Julianne Moore – The Kids Are All Right
Anne Hathaway – Love & Other Drugs
Angelina Jolie – The Tourist
Emma Stone – Easy A

Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture

Christian Bale – The Fighter
Michael Douglas – Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Andrew Garfield – The Social Network
Jeremy Renner – The Town
Geoffrey Rush – The King’s Speech

Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture

Melissa Leo – The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter – The King’s Speech
Mila Kunis – Black Swan
Amy Adams – The Fighter
Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom

Best Screenplay

Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy – 127 Hours
Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg – The Kids Are All Right
Christopher Nolan – Inception
David Seidler – The King’s Speech
Aaron Sorkin – The Social Network

Best Original Score

Alexandre Desplat – The King’s Speech
Danny Elfman – Alice in Wonderland
A.R. Rahman – 127 Hours
Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross – The Social Network
Hans Zimmer – Inception

Best Original Song

Bound to You (written by Samuel Dixon, Christina Aguilera, Sia Furler) – Burlesque
Coming Home (written by Bob DiPiero, Tom Douglas, Hillary Lindsey, Troy Verges) – Country Strong
I See the Light (written by Alan Menken, Glenn Slater) – Tangled
There’s a Place for Us (written by Carrie Underwood, David Hodges, Hillary Lindsey) – The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me (written by Diane Warren) – Burlesque

Best Foreign Language Film

Biutiful
The Concert
The Edge
I Am Love
In a Better World

Best Animated Film

Toy Story 3
The Illusionist
How to Train Your Dragon
Despicable Me
Tangled

FOR TELEVISION:

Best Drama Series

Boardwalk Empire
Dexter
The Good Wife
Mad Men
The Walking Dead

Best Comedy Series

Glee
30 Rock
The Big Bang Theory
The Big C
Modern Family
Nurse Jackie

Best Actor in a Television Drama Series

Steve Buscemi – Boardwalk Empire
Bryan Cranston – Breaking Bad
Michael C. Hall – Dexter
Jon Hamm – Mad Men
Hugh Laurie – House

Best Actress in a Television Drama Series

Julianna Margulies – The Good Wife
Elisabeth Moss – Mad Men
Piper Perabo – Covert Affairs
Katey Sagal – The Closer
Kyra Sedgwick – The Closer

Best Actress in a Television Comedy Series

Toni Collette – The United States of Tara
Edie Falco – Nurse Jackie
Tina Fey – 30 Rock
Laura Linney – The Big C
Lea Michele – Glee

Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series

Alec Baldwin – 30 Rock
Steve Carell – The Office
Thomas Jane – Hung
Matthew Morrison – Glee
Jim Parsons -The Big Bang Theory

Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television

Carlos – Sundance Channel
The Pacific – HBO
Temple Grandin – HBO
You Don’t Know Jack – HBO
Pillars of the Earth – Starz

Best Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television

Idris Elba – Luther
Ian McShane – Pillars of the Earth
Al Pacino – You Don’t Know Jack
Dennis Quaid – The Special Relationship
Edgar Ramirez – Carlos

Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television

Hayley Atwell – Pillars of the Earth
Claire Danes – Temple Grandin
Judi Dench – Return to Cranford
Romola Garai – Emma
Jennifer Love Hewitt – The Client List

Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television

Scott Caan – Hawaii Five-O
Chris Colfer – Glee
Chris Noth – The Good Wife
Eric Stonestreet – Modern Family
David Strathairn – Temple Grandin

Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television

Hope Davis – The Special Relationship
Jane Lynch – Glee
Kelly Macdonald – Broadwalk Empire
Julia Stiles – Dexter
Sofia Vergara – Modern Family

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The Golden Globes took place last night, and over the course of the evening there was a little something for everyone.

Like being told what stuff to enjoy? Then you’ll be pleased to know that Avatar, The Hangover, Robert Downey Jr, Meryl Streep and Glee all won awards. Like the old Golden Globes traditions? Then you’ll be pleased to know that the camera kept cutting to Jack Nicholson‘s face, even though he continues his slow transformation into a rascally sphere of pulsating cholesterol.

And then there was the Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais. If you like Ricky Gervais, you’ll be pleased to know that his performance was nothing short of a comic masterclass. Don’t like Ricky Gervais? Then you’ll be pleased to know that he was absolutely rubbish. Apparently.

The Golden Globes has a reputation for being a loosey-goosey cousin to the Oscars. Sure, it might act as an important bellwether for anyone keen on predicting Oscar winners, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously – acceptance speeches are drowned out by the sound of millionaires drinking champagne, Jack Nicholson will inevitably get his bum out and Sharon Stone can often be seen wafting about looking unsure of how to interact with anything. Which tends to be the case anywhere Sharon Stone goes, admittedly, but at the Golden Globes at least she does it in a pretty dress.

But ahead of last night’s Golden Globes, there were two main questions on everybody’s lips – who would win, and would Ricky Gervais be amazing or terrible as host? Let’s address those one at a time.

1 - Avatar ended up winning Best Drama, The Hangover won Best Comedy, Robert Downey Jr won for Sherlock Holmes, Sandra Bullock won for The Blind Side, Jeff Bridges won for Crazy Heart and Meryl Streep won for Julie & Julia. That last prize was in the coveted Boring, Needlessly Complicated Films About Unlikeable People Doing Mediocre Things, Often In A Silly Voice category. Presumably.

2 - He was both.

No, really, Ricky Gervais was amazing and terrible. It just depends who you listen to. Take Radar, for instance – this is how it described Ricky Gervais last night:

British funnyman Ricky Gervais, was on fire Sunday bringing the laughs from the audience with a risque and hilarious introduction, taking time to make digs at NBC and their ongoing Leno/Conan fiasco, a theme of the night at the awards show and on the red carpet.

While ABC, on the other hand, opted for a different stance. Working under the headline Ricky Gervais Falls Flat At Golden Globes, it said:

Gervais’… opening minutes were disappointingly toothless. He tackled predictable subjects: satirizing self-promotion by plugging DVDs for his own creations; tossing off banal generalities about the unimportance of actors; small-penis yuks, and of course, NBC potshots. But Gervais flew through all of them so fast he didn’t land a blow, let alone draw blood.

So there you have it. Ricky Gervais was hilarious and crap at the same time, often during the course of the same joke. So now you know what to say when anybody asks you what you thought of him. Alternatively, you could have just watched the Golden Globes ceremony in its entirety and formed your own opinion about him. But you’re not an animal, are you?

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There’s a theory going around saying that the more of Jennifer Lopez’s skin you see, the closer she is to a divorce.

It’s true. It’s why everyone is predicting Jennifer Lopez’s imminent divorce from Marc Anthony because she turned up to the Golden Globes on Sunday wearing three scraps of gold lame that left her back naked. Obviously the divorce can’t be confirmed until we’ve seen at least one buttock and partial sideboob, but it’s enough for now.

Plus, you know, Jennifer Lopez wasn’t wearing a wedding ring at the Golden Globes either. That probably helps too, in retrospect.

Jennifer Lopez, it’s fair to say, is rubbish at keeping secrets. She tried to keep her pregnancy secret, remember, even though she spent months waddling around like a badly inflamed Weeble. And all that stuff about her still being Jenny from the block? If that’s not a cackhanded cover-up to disguise the fact that she’s a rampantly egotistical millionaire control freak then we’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

The latest of Jennifer Lopez’s woefully-kept secrets, however, is the perilous state of her marriage to rat-faced Latin star Marc Anthony. If reports are true, then Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony will announce their divorce on Valentine’s day, presumably because they’re both actually insane.

But that’s just a rumour. It’s not as if Jennifer Lopez has done anything to fuel the fire, is it? She hasn’t, say, turned up at an internationally-broadcast awards ceremony without her wedding ring while dressed in a frock so barely-there it may as well be a sandwich board reading ‘Are you the next Ben Affleck? Apply within’, has she?

Oh wait, now we come to think of it, that’s the exact thing that Jennifer Lopez did during Sunday’s Golden Globes. Silly us. Still, at least her dress didn’t have gold-on-gold tiger-style accents. That really would be the kiss of death to her marriage. The New York Daily News reports:

Since her 2004 marriage to Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez has gone conservative (by her standards), ditching her notoriously flashy clothes for duds with more coverage. But at the Golden Globes, good ol’ Jenny from the block was back with a vengeance. Lopez sauntered down the red carpet in an extremely low-cut, backless Marchesa gown blinged out with gold-on-gold tiger-style accents.

NOOOOOOOO! It’s over! It’s all over! Jennifer Lopez is definitely getting divorced from Marc Anthony! There’s no way around it!

But, come on, let’s all pull ourselves together. Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony are getting divorced, but what does that mean? Well it means we’ll have to say goodbye to the Jennifer Lopez/ Marc Anthony joint tours and the hopeless Jennifer Lopez/ Marc Anthony movie biopics of people who nobody cares about. Somehow we think we’ll cope.

But it’s not all bad news. After she divorces Marc Anthony, the old Jennifer Lopez is bound to resurface. You know, the one who dresses like a chav at a wedding, makes endless identical romantic comedies that all seem to co-star Matthew McConaughey and releases album after album of reedy, watered-down R&B music that she assumes the kids will like even though she’s old enough to be the kids’ mother now.

OK, it is all bad news. Sorry for misleading you.

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The Golden Globes are like the fun Oscars, mainly due to a lack of Rob Lowe singing duets of Proud Mary with Snow White.

But last night’s Golden Globes had an unavoidably sad shadow looming over them. Was this because it was the first major awards show to honour the late Heath Ledger‘s role in The Dark Knight by giving him the award for Best Supporting Actor? In part, yes.

But mainly it’s because Mickey Rourke decided to use his Golden Globes acceptance speech to eulogise some of his dead pets. And because Rumer Willis‘ face gives us the creeps.

There was a time when the Golden Globes only really existed as an excuse for Jack Nicholson to turn up, listen to four jokes about himself, laugh loudly and then presumably get drunk enough to knock stuff over afterwards. But over the last couple of years, the Golden Globes have become a much gloomier affair.

Last year this was because the Golden Globes coincided with the writers’ strike, which meant that – if memory serves correct – it was conducted within the space of ten minutes from a pasting table set-up in the car park of the Bognor Regis branch of Matalan.

This year, though, the Golden Globes were gloomy because of the unavoidable fact that one of the year’s most effervescent screen performances was given by a dead man. That’s right, we’re talking about Kate Winslet and her role in Revolutionary Road.

Oh, and Heath Ledger too. Although his posthumous Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight had always been a given thanks to both his remarkable performance and his untimely death, whether or not he’d actually win any of the awards was a different matter.

But, as the New York Daily News reports, last night he did – and his director Christopher Nolan was there to collect the award:

The announcement of Ledger’s name by presenter Demi Moore was met with a standing ovation by the crowd, followed by “Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan’s short but moving speech. “I accept this with an awful mixture of sadness and intense pride,” said Nolan, adding that Ledgers’ death a year ago at age 28 meant “a hole had been ripped in the future of cinema.”

Elsewhere, Golden Globes were won by Mickey Rourke – who did his weird dog-dedicating thing – along with the miniseries John Adams, 30 Rock, Slumdog Millionaire and the well-deserved double Golden Globes win by Kate Winslet for her turns in The Reader and Revolutionary Road. We say well-deserved, but obviously we’re talking about us, because hopefully this means we won’t have to listen to her bleating on about how she never wins anything any more. And that’d be a relief, frankly.

However, last night’s Golden Globes belonged to one person, and that’s Heath Ledger. It’s just a shame he wasn’t around to see it.

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You know what’s happening this Sunday? It’s the Golden Globes! Yay! All the length of the Oscars with none of that boring critical significance!

But even though most of the world would rather crap out it’s spinal column than watch the Golden Globes, at least there’s one person who’s looking forward to it - Anne Hathaway. Anne’s up for an award and she’s JACKED about it!

And we know that this is our third Anne Hathaway story in two days. It’s just a quiet news day. That’s all. We’re not stalking her. There are papers saying we can’t to do that any more.

There’s more to Anne Hathaway than creepy criminal ex-boyfriends, a party-dampening mistrust of beloved public figures and a gaping loneliness so vast that she has to crawl to middle-aged lesbians for romantic guidance, you know. She’s also, apparently, an actress.

And not just an actress who only stars in gormless-looking red-font comedies about hilarious weddings, either – Anne Hathaway is a serious actress who occasionally stars in very serious films about grumpy people who mumble a lot. After all, that’s the way to win awards, we heard.

Which is why Anne Hathaway is up for a best actress Golden Globe for her role in Rachel Getting Married, which is an important film because a) it’s got a bad-tempered woman who hardly wears any make-up on it and b) we couldn’t even watch a two-minute preview of it without getting bored, losing track of what was going on and wondering what we’d have for tea.

But at least it’s earnt Anne Hathaway a Golden Globe nomination, which is either a tantalising portent of an Oscar victory or an impractically-shaped wedge of metal handed to you by some journalists with funny accents, depending on how you look at these things. Anyway, Anne’s totally PSYCHED about it, as she told the LA Times:

“I haven’t attended that many award shows in my life. The Golden Globes: I’ve [only] been [there as] part of film that’s been nominated – that’s actually the only time I’ve gone. It’s very exciting to be singled out for an individual performance. That hasn’t happened to me very much in my career.”

Well, we’re just thrilled for Anne Hathaway. But not as thrilled as we suspect the Golden Globes organisers are – this is the first recorded instance of someone expressing an interest in the show for over three decades. Honestly, if you took everyone on the planet who cared about the Golden Globes and bundled them into the boot of a car, it’s estimated that nobody at all would notice. Not even those people’s parents.

Anyway, just for her exuberance alone we hope that Anne Hathaway wins her Golden Globe, and then goes on to win an Oscar as well. And we’re saying that only because we want to see what she’s like in a relentless succession of bone-dry films about complex real-life international issues that nobody would ever dream of paying to watch. That’s how it works, isn’t it?

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You know how this awards season is all about populism and less about three-hour sobathons starring Very Serious People?

Yeah, it’s not. We got that wrong. Sorry. Although WALL-E won Best Picture at a recent awards ceremony, the nominations for next year’s Golden Globes were announced yesterday, and they seem to indicate that it’ll be another good year for dreary films about troubled people who stare into the middle distance a lot.

Golden Globes front-runners include Doubt, Frost/Nixon and Revolutionary Road. So far so miserable. But Batman got a look-in too, with one nomination for, oh, the dead chap. Joy.

Hey, you there! Do you often find yourself getting annoyed because the Oscars don’t go on for as long as you want, what with the nominations, the luncheons, the six-hour red carpet specials and the actual ceremony itself, full of smug introductions and damp-eyed acceptance speeches and the obligatory 400-song performance by shitting Enya?

No, neither do we. Neither does anyone. But, anyway here are the Golden Globes nominations, which are significant because there’s a minuscule chance that they might influence the Oscars in some barely-noticeable way! Hooray!

And the Golden Globes are going to damn well make sure they don’t screw anything up this time – not like their last strike-crippled ceremony, which involved a man sitting at a table reading out names for half an hour. So forget the fact that WALL-E was recently named as the best film of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association – this year the Golden Globes are getting SERIOUS! Only the dreariest, most quietly depressing movies are being made this year. No fun allowed, you hear?

That’s why, as yesterday’s Golden Globes nominations revealed, The Dark Knight and WALL-E were effectively pushed out of contention in favour of lots of films that only drama teachers will pretend to like. The New York Times reports:

A gloomy Hollywood on Thursday put aside a dismal economy and the threat of an actors’ strike, focusing instead on Golden Globe nominations that thrust “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Frost/Nixon” to the award season’s center stage with five each, with both nominated for best dramatic picture. “Doubt” also received five nominations.

Although WALL-E was nominated for Best Animated Feature and The Dark Knight picked up a nod for Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger – a category that also bizarrely recognises Tom Cruise‘s weird little turn in Tropic Thunder – that’s about it. The big films to be named in the Golden Globes nominations were:

Revolutionary Road (Kate Winslet sobs because she’s trapped in a suburban hell)

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt sobs because he ages backwards and is a bit like Forrest Gump)

The Reader (Kate Winslet sobs because of the Holocaust and whatever)

Doubt (Philip Seymour Hoffman sobs because Meryl Streep caught him bumming a boy or something, and probably sobs about it too, we expect)

Frost/Nixon (Nobody sobs, but there are lots of heavy pauses and meaningful looks, which are almost as good)

Slumdog Millionaire (An uplifting film about… hey, did we just say ‘uplifting’? How did this get on the list? Someone’s head will roll for this, you hear? ROLL!)

The Golden Globes will be held on January 11. Please let this information affect you however you choose.

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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?

Read more:

Atonement leads glitz-free Globes – Associated Press  

Thanks to the ongoing writers' strike, shows like 24 have been indefinitely postponed much to everyone's disappointment – but on the other hand the Golden Globes might be cancelled too, so it all evens out.

The Golden Globes – the all-singing, all-dancing, glitzy, foreign-voted cousin to the Oscars – is set to take place on Sunday, but the writers' strike means that it will be boycotted by all the nominees if it gets televised by NBC as planned. And now the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is pushing NBC to not broadcast the awards at all so that the stars won't face picket lines on their way in. Of course, without cameras there to capture them in their pretty dresses and painstaking make-up jobs, there's a good chance that the cast of Desperate Housewives will disintegrate into clouds of dust at some point during the ceremony, but that's the chance they'll have to take.

We take everything back about awards season. Everything at all. We know we've been laying into it for a couple of months now, saying that the whole thing is nothing more that a series of excuses for actors to publicly congratulate each other for being so brilliant at repeating a handful of words off a piece of paper at a time in funny costumes, but in reality this might just be the best awards season ever.

And that's all down to the striking writers. Sure, the Writers Guild Of America strike has meant that your favourite TV shows – and Heroes – aren't getting made properly, that the sequel to The Da Vinci Code has been postponed and that Jay Leno has been told off for telling a bunch of lame jokes off the top of his head, but it also means that the Golden Globes might not be on TV this year.

You know the Golden Globes – the award ceremony that's like the Oscars except Sharon Stone gets to do a nauseating retrospective highlight show filled with preposterously unconvincing fake laughter beforehand. This year it looks like Atonement might win a lot of Golden Globes, only you probably won't see it because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, organisers of the Golden Globes, wants NBC to drop the broadcast of the ceremony to stop it turning into a no-star farce.

You see, if the Golden Globes are televised, then nobody from the Screen Actors Guild will show up. And that means that there'll be nobody to present the awards and nobody to receive them. According to SAG president Alan Rosenberg:

"After considerable outreach to Golden Globe actor nominees and their
representatives over the past several weeks, there appears to be
unanimous agreement that these actors will not cross WGA picket lines
to appear on the Golden Globe Awards as acceptors or presenters."

So today NBC will make the decision whether to go ahead with the Golden Globes broadcast even though it'll consist of an empty plinth in front of rows and rows of empty chairs, whether to delay it for a few weeks while it negotiates with the WGA or whether to drop it from the schedules completely and let the ceremony take place away from television.

Fingers crossed that it won't be the last option, because we don't know if we'd be able to cope knowing that somebody was handing out awards to actors behind our backs. To think, it's a possibility that this time next week the only way we'll know the Golden Globes even happened is by the four billion newspaper pictures of Cameron Diaz twatting about on the red carpet in a dress that she's clearly 15 years too old for. And what a kick in the nuts that'd be.

Read more:

With stars dimming NBC may unplug Globes – Reuters 

The striking writers of Hollywood have decided that nobody is to write next year's Golden Globes and Oscar ceremonies, meaning that all we'll have to laugh at is whatever shriekingly awful dress Sarah Jessica Parker turns up in.

Although the Writers Guild Of America strike currently just means that Ellen DeGeneres' infantile dog-based on-air tantrums are ad-libbed instead of tightly-scripted, the Guild has now decided to reject offers of an interim agreement allowing writers to work on next year's Golden Globes and Oscar ceremonies. That means that either this awards season will culminate in two long, awkward, unfunny, massively unentertaining shows or that the Golden Globes and the Oscars hire non-union writers from Lithuania to shape the ceremonies – fingers crossed for the latter, because LNK TV show Žinios. Verslas. Kriminalai has gone without a slick satirical Hollywood skewering for too long now.

The Golden Globes and the Oscars provide a chance to do several things at once. Not only are awards handed out to mark high achievement in the world of filmmaking, but the gatherings also mean that all the famous actors in the world can get together and say how brilliant they are for making serious films that nobody would ever dream of watching. But much more than that, they are a chance to sing smug, sharply-scripted songs about how old Jack Nicholson is looking these days. 

But not this year. Although the fact that Atonement has more Golden Globe nominations than anyone else would usually be cause for writers to rush off to their notepads and start scribbling down jokes about what a skinny posh wanker Keira Knightley is, this year there's none of that because the ongoing Writers Guild Of America strike is going to render both the Golden Globes and the Oscars jokeless.

Not that the awards shows aren't trying, though – to save face, the Oscars and the Golden Globes had been trying to fix some sort of interim agreement with writers to make sure that either ceremony didn't fall on its arse, but the Writers Guild has swatted the proposals away. Not only that, but the WGA has also banned the Oscars from using clips of movies or past ceremonies. And the organisers of the Golden Globes are understandably a little bit peeved:

"The Golden Globe Awards, which has a long and friendly relationship with the Writers Guild of America, is obviously disappointed that the WGA denied its request for a waiver, [but] encouraged by the fact that the WGA has announced that it plans to negotiate agreements with independent production companies."

So there's hope yet that the Golden Globes will be a mess of flubbed pre-prepared jokes instead of a mess of flubbed spontaneous jokes. And as for the Oscars – well, it's Jon Stewart that we feel sorry for. He's been given a second chance at hosting the Oscars after his first shot drew mixed reviews for being too clever, and now it looks like he'll be spending three hours scuffing his feet in a near-empty auditorium telling half-remembered jokes and not showing any clips of any of the nominated movies whatsoever.

Still, it's thought that this will still be better than Billy Crystal ever was.

Read more:

Hollywood Writers Reject Award Shows – Associated Press