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Movies & TV

Giving up on the Golden Globes

Ricky Gervais and Robert De Niro proved it right there on the stage last night: no one takes the Golden Globes seriously.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s annual celebrity awards extravaganza might be great for a few free drinks and a chance to road-test your red carpet skills before Oscar night, but the very idea of pretending that winning a Globe constitutes any actual critical acclaim? Nuts to that these people think The Tourist was a comedy.

Still, the HFPA has been very good at worming its way into the awards-circuit conversation, to the point where its dramatic prizes are considered Academy predictions. If that’s the case, Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Melissa Leo and the men behind The Social Network should be working on their Oscar acceptance speeches – while Annette Bening and The Kids Are All Right have reached the end of their road.

I’m hoping the Academy proves a little more discerning, though. I’m not surprised that the HFPA fell for the overacting contest between Bale and Leo in The Fighter they love big, showy performances, even if they suck all the air out of the movie struggling to contain them. (In his acceptance speech, Bale even seemed to acknowledge that going over the top was the only way he could get anyone to give him an award.)

I’d much rather see more subtle work rewarded on Oscar night, like Armie Hammer’s brilliant work as the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network or Hailee Steinfeld’s commanding turn in True Grit. (And yes, I know Hammer and Steinfeld were the Toronto Film Critics Association’s choices, but what can I say? I agree with my colleagues.)

Firth and Portman now look like Oscar inevitabilities, which seemed clear when The King’s Speech and Black Swan arrived at TIFF last fall. In conversation, they both took pains to downplay any awards talk, and I was happy to see that same modesty and lack of affect in their Globes speeches.

Over in the Comedy/Musical category, I’m still a little puzzled over all the love for The Kids Are All Right. Lisa Cholodenko’s movie is at best a light drama, not a comedy – although, as a few people pointed out on Twitter last night, Annette Bening does enough self-conscious singing in the picture to qualify the film as a musical. But her Best Actress win screws over Emma Stone, the only performer of the five nominees to actually be funny in the film for which she was nominated.

I can’t hold Bening’s award against her – The Kids Are All Right lets her make the most of a showcase that’s increasingly rare for her, and Stone’s young enough that she’ll have plenty of other chances to win awards – but I couldn’t get over the sense that the HFPA wanted Warren Beatty at the dinner, and was willing to make that happen by any means necessary. You won’t see that kind of accommodation at the Oscars … which is why everyone still respects them.

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