Last night, NBC broadcast the announcement of the Golden Globes winners. I would guess that many people skipped watching the show this year after the actors and actresses declined to attend in support of the writers' strike. However, this was the best awards show I have ever watched. It was direct and to the point. It told me exactly what I needed to know, the winners, and that's it. No extra fluff. No medley about who kicked the bucket this year (which would probably be presented by the starts of the The Bucket List). No thanking moms and dads and agents and directors and the Big Guy upstairs. No musical montage starring Bjork or Celine Dion.
Billy Bush and the blond eye candy from Access Hollywood (whose name escapes me) talked for a few seconds about the category, announced the nominees with a short clip of each and then announced the winner. They talked for maybe another minute or two about whether the winner acutally deserved the award and then moved on to the next category. The whole show was done in 60 minutes. Perfect. More shows should use this format.
I did have a few issues with the awards presentation, however.
First of all, I haven't actually heard of several of the movies that won. As an infrequent movie goer, I didn't expect to actually see many of the award winners. However, I should at least have heard something about the movie before the award was presented.
Second, several nominees were in the wrong categories. For example, there were several dramatic performances in comedic categories. I don't get where they draw the line. Even the show hosts seemed a bit puzzled.
Third, the awards for best actor/acress in a comedy is a farce in itself. These shows are all scripted so acting in them is not as challenging as acting in a drama. The comedy award should go to a tandem of actor and writer. Occassionally, there is a character that comes along that actually involves true acting (Adrian Monk from Monk, Shawn Spencer, the lead character in Psych). However, Alec Baldwin does nothing that warrants a nomination so save your praise for someone who deserves it.
1 comment:
I don't agree, but won't argue with you and the Academy (which only has one category and rarely rewards comedic performances), that comedic acting is not as challenging as dramatic acting. To me, that's like saying it's more difficult to hit a home run than to throw a strikeout -- different skill sets, certainly, and very few people excel at both, but awfully hard to say one is more or less than the other. In any case, I don't follow how/why writers in comedies should be more credited than writers in dramas unless you believe any Joe Shmoe could do as good a job in a well-written comedy as say Steve Martin (I don't). Have you never seen or heard a funny joke that was made not funny at all by bad delivery? Plus, don't the writers have their own awards? Let the actors have theirs, too, if they feel the need.
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