On Sunday evening, the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards were held in Los Angeles, Ca. Hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Globes honors outstanding achievement in various categories for film and television, both domestic and foreign. This year’s ceremony was hosted by British comedian Ricky Gervais, known for his rather, curt, views on the Hollywood lifestyle. All in all, 93 awards were handed out during the course of the night. Like most awards shows, the winners weren’t exactly unprecedented and the most entertaining portion of the ceremony were reaction shots or speeches. Here are some highlights:
To the shock of no one, Meryl Streep won Best Actress in a drama for her performance in The Iron Lady. Later that night, the Hollywood Foreign Press announced that Streep was the first nominee of 2012 for her performance in Meryl Streep is the Only One Surprised Meryl Streep Won an Award.
Michelle Williams took home Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy for taking on the role of the legendary Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn. In her acceptance speech, she thanked her daughter and apologized for reading her bedtimes stores in Monroe’s sex kitten purr for six months straight. George Clooney’s comedy/drama/mystery The Descendents, starring Clooney and that one chick from that ABC show about all the pregnant teenagers, won for Best Picture in the Drama category. The perpetual bachelor also took home the Best Actor in a Drama award. During the allotted four-minute speech window, Clooney spent approximately three and a half minutes praising fellow nominee Michael Fassbender’s phallic area, leaving 30 seconds to thank everyone else in the room.
Perhaps the most memorable event of the night stemmed from one of the most boring awards, Best Original Song. During a preshow interview, nominee Elton John demonstrated a reductive (look it up) grasp on tact when he said fellow nominee Madonna didn’t “stand a f***ing chance” in winning.
Low and behold, Madonna’s “Masterpiece” won Best Original Song. When asked about John’s comments during a her post-award interview, the pop legend said, “Elton John is great and I’m sure he’ll win something soon.”
Nothing too eventful happened with the TV awards. Modern Family took home a GG for Best Comedy while Downton Abbey won for Best Mini-Series or TV Movie. The most shocking part of the television awards was when Matt LeBlanc won the Best Actor in a Comedy award. Credit to you if you knew Matt LeBlanc was currently on a television show.
All in all, a good time was had by everyone at this year’s Golden Globes. The only people that need be worried are Lea Michele’s agents because she hardly got any screen time to dole out a dose of her best “I just got stabbed in the stomach” reaction face for every award Glee lost/won.
Evan Birsic can be reached at evan.birsic@spartans.ut.edu