HOWEVER, a few thoughts:
1. Slumdog Millionaire is the best movie I have seen in a long time, and any award that the foreign press and/or the toadies at the Academy seek to bestow upon it is well-deserved. What I'm wondering is, will the Academy of MPA&S throw it into the "foreign film" category just because there is some subtitle-age, thereby leaving the best picture category open for more conventional Hollywood tripe like "Benjamin Button" aka "Brad Pitt Really Wants That Oscar It Has Been a Long Time Since Twelve Monkeys, Yo." So if you haven't seen Slumdog - go. The premise/framing device is really great, and just about the time you're getting kinda tired of the device, they drop it and just set the story loose. And I love how they heightened the realism without turning the movie into an exercise in magical brown people. Plus, the acting is great, and geez, I even like the soundtrack, and I normally HATE Indian music (and world music in general) with the burning heat of thousand white-hot suns. So, all that, plus the Indian Regis Philbin. Awesome.
2. 30 Rock brings teh funny, but the ratings are not so good. And I have noticed that every smart friend of mine who "meh"s the show is a dude. What's up wit that? Are they not down with the non-glam female lead, or are they perhaps just disciples of The Hitch and his theory that possession of ovaries = not funny? Whatever. Big ups to the show for all the wins and to my friend Jack McBrayer who should be nominated next time, huh?
3. Ricky Gervais is the new Sasha Baron Cohen. Unfortunately, Sasha demonstrated last night that we have no need for the old one. All I got to say is, Bruno better be funny.
4. In the categories where actors who play real people were nominated for Golden Globes, they won 5-2. Well, actually, 5-1, because I don't think you can really count Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII.
Here's Meyers as Henry VII:
Hey, Jonathan, a dancer on a float in the 1998 West Hollywood Gay Pride Parade called. He wants his pants back.
And here's King Henry VIII
Yeah, I think Meyers might have gone a little overboard with the ab definition. Also, his sword is bigger.
Yeah, that's what she said. And by "she," I mean his fourth wife, the German-born Anne of Cleves, whose strategic marriage to Henry secured an alliance against Charles V.
Anyway...I seem to have strayed a bit from my original point, which is, that outside of a Holocaust movie, playing a real person, especially if that person is mentally retarded, physically disabled, or just not feeling very well, is really the best way to win an award. And if you play a real person in the Holocaust, then you can only be beat by someone who...well... died tragically just before the voting began, I guess.
5. Mickey Rourke. Do not care. Didn't care about his first train wreck, and do not care about the second one that's clearly headed his way. The guy's a drug-addled peacock with SAG card, and his skillz are not all that. Seriously, name me one movie since "Pope of Greenwich Village" in which Rourke was impressive. And if Eric Roberts doesn't get to skate for a quarter of a century on an Eric Roberts vehicle, then neither does he.
And don't say "Barfly," either, because first of all, anyone looks cool portraying Bukowski, and secondly, see that actress over in the corner there, the one who can play something besides drunken bemusement? That's Faye Dunaway, and she just stole the movie from him.
And also, Mickey, I don't care if you are buddies with Bruce Springsteen and you love your dogs, man, don't trash talk your competition. Sean Penn doesn't hate homos, okay? Shut up and keep your head down and you may get another chance to have a career in film. Lord knows there are tons of mediocre actors with bad face lifts who are pretty sure they can stay off the stuff who are dying to take your place.
6. Colin Farrell won best actor in a film musical or comedy for In Bruges?? Really?? Colin, see my comments for Mickey Rourke above, and for chrissake, stay away from the collagen.
