Friday, December 12, 2008

Golden Globules - The Flashy Pimp Of Awards Season (or, snark about things I, for the most part, haven't seen)


I'm fond of the Golden Globes, and I have no sense of their history nor can I even recall past winners. I do know that they're the most likely to produce yammering, hammered antics from their principal innovation that really should be standard for awards ceremonies of any type: free booze. In fact, free shit seems to be the obvious magic touch that keeps these laughable awards, given out by the tiny, irrelevant Hollywood Foreign Press, going, and there's something a lot more fun and honest about that. Nobody takes awards seriously anyway, there is something appealingly, openly disreputable about the Golden Globes parade. Lets take a look at this year's nominees, which I do not care about in the least. Oh, blogging, you're such an ephemeral medium it makes me hard.




Best Motion Picture - Drama

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
David Fincher is bringing alliteration back.

Frost/Nixon
Can Ron Howard make this less interesting than the title? I bet he can!

The Reader
Really bad title for a MOVIE. I know this has a plot full of incidence and whatnot, but I still just picture Kate Winslet slowly thumbing through a book, occasionally moving her eyebrows to almost indicate reactions. I am willing to write up a treatment if anybody wants to see that movie.

Revolutionary Road
More alliteration. Winslet and DiCaprio for another epic of...caucasian marital malaise! Period caucasian marital malaise! Because that's what Obama's America finds so goddamn fascinating.

Slumdog Millionaire
I actually do want to see this one, but I wonder if Danny Boyle's not just getting payback for the egregiously overlooked Trainspotting and 28 Years Later. And of course The Beach, which I'm fairly sure was Leo's most successful movie ever, both in terms of money and what Hollywood's really after, hearts and minds.


Best Actress - Drama

Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
First movie I've seen on this list! And Hathaway was awesome. While Lindsay Lohan followed up being a Disney princess by transforming herself into a tragic junky whore, Anne Hathaway figured out that her profession allowed her to safely explore such sides of her soul through...wait for it...acting.

Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Really should be the title of her first album, and then Changeling should have a mud fight with Sasha Fierce.

Meryl Streep - Doubt
But there's no doubt about Streep being the finest screen actress of hers or any generation! I would really like to get hired as one of those fake blurb writers. Unfortunately, I'm real. Which is how I explain the string of failures that constitute my life without forming a coherent narrative with a tight focus.

Kristen Scott Thomas - I've Loved You So Long
I don't trust any Prince conquest that didn't produce an irresistable synth-funk single under his tutelage in the 80s. When she wants to get back Under The Cherry Moon, I'll give her a chance, but until then I'm going to stick tight to my English Patient rule- award winning movies with Kristen Scott Thomas suck.

Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road
This is going to be one of those movies I'm going to have to see to decry it. Once again: is anybody interested in unhappy rich white Americans? There's a reason I don't talk to my friends about divorce.


Best Actor - Drama

Leonardo DiCaprio - Revolutionary Road
He's very talented, I know, but why does he keep getting miscast as grown men?

Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
I hear he's great, but if he wins award one for this I personally need to see him fight Anthony Hopkins in some type of Hollwood Babylon/Thunderdome pay-per-view event, perhaps as a lead-up to the Angelina Jolie/Beyonce Knowles fight to the death.

Sean Penn - Milk
Always a buzzkill at these shows, it would be a nice coup for Sean Penn to drunkedly make out with James Franco a la Adrien Brody attacking Halle Berry at the Oscars. Smells like victory.

Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Now that I've decided that I want all A-List male Hollywood actors to turn magically homosexual, ponder what kind of funny combination name the tabloids would have to come up with if Brad Pitt started dating Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky makes The Wrestler starring Mickey Rourke as The Wrestler. I'm just going to call this the best movie ever until the actual movie has a chance to discredit that statement. I can think of so many ways for this one to go, all of them awesome. And all of them prominently featuring Mickey Rourke rasslin. Anyway, isn't he owed an award not only for his role as the most tragic waste of talent on the planet, but also his committed masquerade as a minor professional boxer?


Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical

Burn After Reading
Second movie I've seen! Whoo! A middling entry in the filmography of two of my favorite directors. Malkovich is hilarious.

Happy-Go-Lucky
Ooh, look at me, I'm Mike Leigh. I love actors so fucking much, I'm going to let them annoy the shit out of you for like two and a half hours! I'm so damn brilliant, and I loooove actors! You know what, Mike Leigh? I know actors, and they'll do that shit for free.

In Bruges
I still really want to see this one. Ralph Fiennes has yet to play a psychopath in a bad movie.

Mamma Mia!
Haven't seen it, don't need to. Because the trancendent music of Abba is not for setting a fictional story to, unless that story is Muriel's Wedding or the fictional adventures of Alan Partridge. The music of Abba is for listening to and passionately pantomiming as you apply the events of your own life to the immaculate compositions that manage to address every core issue of the human condition. I know this, I often do this. The only thing that could make me NEED to see this film is if a key role was played by the undisputed queen of American stage and screen, Meryl Streep. What?! It does?! Well then Mamma Mia! This is the movie to see-a! Meryl Streep, if you're reading this, I really, really want to be your publicist.

Vicky Christina Barcelona
Woody Allen made a movie that doesn't suck this year? Better give him some kind of award for not sucking when it is obviously hard for you not to suck at this age of your life. Porn scenarios on a PG-13 psuedo-philosophical Woody Allen scale. Great actors compensate for Scarlett Johansen playing a role that suits her dingbattery. Beautiful scenary and intermittent humor. Third movie I've seen so far! Alright!


Best Actress - Musical/Comedy

Rebecca Hall - Vicky Christina Barcelona
It is a tribute to Woody Allen's applied lechery that Scarlett is not only the least talented among the three female leads, but also the least beautiful. And her album was dumb.

Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Wazzoopeschplazmm! Look at me, gov'nah! I'm acting up a storm I am! All up in your face! Chim chim cheree!

Frances McDormand - Burn After Reading
Perhaps its no surprise that McDormand is great in this film. Perhaps it is a surprise that this is the best performance she has ever given in a Coen Brothers film, with the possible exception of every other Coen Brothers film she has appeared in. And Curtis Hanson's Wonder Boys.

Meryl Streep - Mamma Mia!
I have only three words to say about Meryl Streep: Mamma Mia!

Emma Thompson - Last Chance Harvey
Has anybody ever seen or heard of this movie? I think Emma Thompson is really the safety answer for any awards category if you haven't done your homework. That would explain her win a few years ago for Sound Effects Editing.


Best Actor - Comedy/Musical

Javier Bardem - Vicky Christina Barcelona
I remember him being good in this one, per usual. I think he played "Barcelona".

Colin Farrell - In Bruges
I could get lost in his eyes. He was entrancing both in The New World and Miami Vice. Someday, I will complete my mash-up of these two masterpieces. It involves Sonny Crockett taking a motorboat-shaped time machine in order to smuggle a never-named Pocahontas to Cuba for Mojitos. Then lots of guns and poignant cultural tragedy.

James Franco - Pineapple Express
Alright, fourth movie I've seen! I really loved David Gordon Green's Pineapple Express, and particularly James Franco's performance as weeeed Jesus. Franco's Christ here kicks Jim Caveziel's depiction in The Mixed-Up Files of Messiah Jesus H. Christ out of the water. Franco's Jesus takes that other one and graphically, fetishistically tortures it for over two hours.

Brendan Gleason - In Bruges
I could get lost in his fat. Come to think of it, I could get lost in Ralph Fiennes' capacity for evil insanity in movies. While I've never seen nor read any of Martin McDonagh's work, I have heard that one can get lost in his word mastery. If I ever do see In Bruges, I'm tying a rope to myself because I'm getting lost.

Dustin Hoffman - Last Chance Harvey
Did Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson just invent a fictional motion picture to garner more nominations because that is what they vampiristically thrive on? I have no reason yet to think that's not the case




1 comment:

Brandy said...

Booker, my status as your #1 fan has only been amplified by your shitting on Scarlett Johansson. She is the most overrated actress EVER. And you are the first friend of mine to understand that. Woody Allen just wants to do her.