And the Award for Best Idiot goes to...

Written by Alex McIntyre

It’s that time of the year again, as the 68^th Golden Globe Awards trotted out last night to reward those hard working celebrities for all their acting efforts over the past year.  This ceremony is the Duplo to the Oscar’s Lego; the smaller warm up to the big awards come February.  The nominations have already seen their fair share of raised eyebrows with some questionable choices in the Comedy/Musical Category.  ‘The Tourist’, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Red’ may have been fun, but none seemed award worthy.  Regardless it was an enjoyable evening of television that had something for everyone.  Controversy helped too, mind.

The best actor/actress category was full to the brim with some truly fantastic performances, and it didn’t seem like they were scrambling to find enough nominations this year (I’m looking at you, Kiera Knightly).  Natalie Portman was crowned swan queen once again which brings her award total up to five so far for her chilling performance.  I was thrilled she’s finally getting the recognition she deserves and I hope this will be the same for the Academy Awards.  The other actresses nominated are all strong too, but in all fairness it is Portman’s turn.  The only person I feel sorry for is poor Jennifer Lawrence, whom I fear will be sidelined at all the big award shows in favour of more profitable films.  Colin Firth’s win was a little predictable, but still good news nonetheless.  Firth and Portman are experiencing career highs right now, and these wins should anchor them in the spotlight for some time. 

The best motion picture awards were crowned to ‘The Social Network’ and ‘The Kids are All Right’, which were fairly respectable choices.  ‘Kids’ was the only decent feature in the comedy/musical category so that was a given, but it was nice to see ‘The Social Network’, a film released outside of awards season (way back in October) to be getting recognition.  Perhaps the voters don’t have goldfish-brains after all.

Now on to Mr. Ricky Gervais, the man of the hour.  His jokes did make me chuckle, but it’s the kind of jokes you could only crack when nobody else is in the room.  Last night, everybody was in the room.  And it was super awkward. 

This may come across as a one-sided rant (and for that I do apologise) but you CANNOT joke about how much of a failure ‘The Tourist’ was INFRONT OF ANGELINA JOLIE.  You also can’t slam Cher during a telecast in which Burlesque is nominated!.  Even the Lost finale joke ended with “I thought the fat one ate them all”, which was poor by his standards.  Mentioning the rumours about bribery was also recieved by dead air; these things are covered up for a reason.  To be fair Ricky Gervais promised bad taste, and he certainly delivered.  He pushed everything to the absolute limit and it soon became an unbearable experience to watch.  His jokes were funny, but it’s the audience who made the opening monologue painfully uncomfortable.  No genuine roaring laughs to be heard.  Anywhere.  Just groans, cringe-inducing groans.  The kind that makes you wish it would all be over.  The kind that actors mumble because they don’t want to agree (brilliant close up of Steve Buschemi at 3:50 proves this).  3:20 is just one of the many awkward moments throughout that clip.  Gervais was brave to deliver such an attack upon tinsel town, but he is definitely going to pay for it in the next few days.  He's already had his fair share of bad press, and something tells me this won't be soon forgotten. 

All in all it played out like awards season for dummies, a quick recap of the best in cinema this year before the big leagues in February.  Same time next year then?