2015 Golden Globes

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey's opening of the 72nd Annual Golden Globes was fairly weak but warmed up with their round of "who would you rather." The pair continued to poke fun at George Clooney as they did last year.

The best joke of the night goes to Anna Faris and Chris Pratt, "'We have a mixed marriage. I am CBS.' 'I am NBC but we plan to raise our children HBO.'"

The most likely Oscar forecast to come from the awards ceremony may be Eddie Redmayne's win for Best Actor in a Drama for the Theory of Everything and Michael Keaton for Birdman in a Comedy or Musical. Their nominations for Best Actor Academy Awards seem locked, and a close race between the two for the Oscar statue likely. The many wins for Boyhood also seem promising for the film's Oscar hopes. The Academy Award nominations are announced at 5:30am Pacific time on Thursday, January 15th.

The Cecil B DeMille award was presented to George Clooney by Julianna Margulies and Don Cheadle. Regrettably Clooney did comment and thank his new bride.

The full list of winners follows the red carpet looks.

Jessica Chastain, Atelier Versace 

Amy Adams, Versace

Anna Kendrick, Monique Lhullier 

Jennifer Aniston, Saint Laurent

Sienna Miller, Miu Miu

Salma Hayek, Alexander McQueen

Emily Blunt, Michael Kors

Faris and Pratt, Reem Acra and Tom Ford

Film:
BEST MOTION MOTION PICTURES BEST DRAMA Boyhood
BEST COMEDY The Grand Budapest Hotel
BEST DIRECTOR Richard Linklater, Boyhood
BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA Julianne Moore, Still Alice
BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
BEST ACTOR IN A MUSICAL OR COMEDY Michael Keaton, Birdman
BEST ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL OR COMEDY Amy Adams, Big Eyes
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR JK Simmons, Whiplash
BEST SCREENPLAY Richard Linklater, Boyhood
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM Leviathan, Russia
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE How to Train Your Dragon 2
BEST ORIGINAL SONG "Glory" from Selma, Music and lyrics by John Legend and Common
BEST SCORE The Theory of Everything

Television:
BEST TV COMEDY OR MUSICAL Transparent
BEST TV DRAMA The Affair
BEST ACTRESS IN A TV DRAMA Ruth Wilson, The Affair
BEST ACTOR IN A TV DRAMA Kevin Spacey, House of Cards
BEST ACTRESS IN A TV COMEDY Gena Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin
BEST ACTOR IN A TV COMEDY Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent
BEST MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE Fargo
BEST ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Honorable Woman
BEST ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE Billy Bob Thornton, Fargo
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A TV SHOW, MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE Joanne Froggatt, Downton Abbey
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A TV SHOW, MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE Matt Bomer, The Normal Heart

The Monuments Men

The cast of men in the movie is fantastic. An opening scene when George Clooney's character is hatching his plan with Matt Damon's character is reminiscent of an Ocean's scheme. Except now they will be assembling a crew to recover and preserve art from Nazis. A much more admirable and serious feat. George Clooney wrote and directed the movie. I love that George cast Jean Dujardin; Dujardin beat Clooney for Best Actor two years ago. Bill Murray is at his best and partners off with Bob Balaban humorously and heartwarmingly. John Goodman continues to have a very busy career, appearing in award winning fare like Argo, Flight and Inside Llewyn Davis as well as comedies like the Hangover III over the last two years. Goodman's exchanges with Dujardin have a similar feel to the Murray-Balaban banter.

Hopefully we will be hearing about the Monuments Men again during next year's award season. Maybe I would just like that to be the case. It is historical and the Academy tends to like that. The remarkable story was also unknown prior to the film. The box office has been decent but it had little chance against the Lego Movie. It debuted in second place and was fifth this past weekend at the box office. The film will recoup its 70 million dollar budget and make modest profits. It may not be enough to keep the movie visible ten months down the line. The movie's Rotten Tomatoes and imdb ratings are also not very promising. Movies released in February and March rarely make it into awards season and it may need more popularity to be memorable enough without soaring critical acclaim. Here's hoping because it is a very good flick.

Gravity

Unlike most movies that take place in space, Gravity is not science fiction. Alfonso Cuarón set out to make a "love song to space" and the drama of the film depicts space as a metaphor for human life. The film is based on a story by Cuarón's son Jonás and the two co-wrote the screenplay. Cuarón and his team pre-visualized the entire movie, shot for shot, to create the environment of space. The work took two years to complete before the actors arrived on set. Using an animation technique, each shot was blocked, timed and the actors key-framed prior to filming. The Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki invented a "Light Box" of 196 panels with 4096 LEDs each to create how light from the sun reflected off the Earth would realistically look in space. A computer-controlled camera on a robot arm filmed the action in the more than 20 foot tall and 10 foot wide box. A trademark of Cuarón's films are long, continuous, sweeping shots. The filmmakers began using what Lubezki called "elastic shots" to create extended floating sequences where the camera, actor and scene would rotate and roll around one another giving the feeling and dimensions of space. The use of 3D in the final product is restrained and sophisticated. Cuarón uses technology as a true artist. The technology makes the movie possible but does not dictate it.

The Oscar nominations for Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, Directing and Best Picture are very deserving. With a total of ten nominations, Gravity is tied with 12 Years A Slave for the most nominations. The music of the film is as haunting as the imagery and the nomination for Steven Price's Score is equally fitting. Sandra Bullock faces uncommon acting challenges in Gravity. There are only seven acting credits for the entire film. All but Bullock and George Clooney are voice credits. Her character is mostly alone and the movie takes place in an environment created by technology. Dialogue also had to be perfectly timed to the pre-visualization process. Perhaps she makes it look easy, but the role seems more difficult than her Oscar winning role in the Blind Side. Bullock won Best Actress only a few years ago in 2010. Frontrunner Cate Blanchett won back in 2005 for Best Supporting Actress in the Aviator and has not won for a lead role. George Clooney oozes George Clooney-ness in his brief appearance in the film. It is clear why he did not receive a supporting actor nomination. He is playing himself in a space suit and it is fabulous.

The 85th Academy Awards

Seth MacFarlane danced the line of biting humor and respect for the institution of the Oscars perfectly as host. One of his best jokes from the opening monologue was "Ben, it's not your fault" in a Robin Williams-esque Good Will Hunting voice about Affleck not being nominated for Best Director. The many jokes about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosting were a great homage to how well they hosted the Golden Globes earlier this year. Seth tempting Sally Field with wine and Boniva was delightfully hilarious. Later his joke, "It's Sunday. Everybody is dressed up. This is like church only with more people praying," was priceless.

I was incorrect right out of the gates on the first award, Best Supporting Actor. I had thought that DeNiro had it but I could not have been more pleased that Christoph Waltz took home the statue. His speech was genuine and heartfelt. It has become quite fashionable for actors to thank and name their fellow nominees in their acceptance speeches. Waltz seemed very sincere when he named each of his cohorts. Tommy Lee Jones actually smiled after the clip of his nominated performance in Lincoln.

MacFarlane's jabs at Clooney and Affleck throughout the ceremony were fantastic. The six men of the Avengers amusingly bantered as they presented Cinematography and Visual Effects. The much promoted tribute to 50 years of Bond was disappointing in that it was simply a montage (and they showed T Dalt twice). Having Shirley Bassey sing Goldfinger was pretty cool. The Forrest Gump score popped up multiple times over transitions -- upon rewatching the show I realized this was because of the theme of the awards, music in movies. In this honoring of movie music my only complaint was that the sound team did not disable Russell Crowe's microphone during the Les Miserables performance.

I can not even talk about Anne Hathaway winning Best Supporting Actress or about how awful her dress was. Jennifer Lawrence fell on her way to the stage but she instantly regained her composure. She gave a simple and sweet speech. Daniel Day Lewis was also humbling and sweet in his acceptance speech and then in the next breath hilarious. Michelle Obama presenting Best Picture via satellite was a truly new idea kept a surprise by Jack Nicholson appearing on stage as if to present. I loved it when he asked, "Obama, do you have your envelope" and without missing a beat she replied, "not yet Jack, I'm about to." I was so pleased that Argo won. I loved Ben Affleck's speech. He had the seem frenetic energy that he had when he won for the screenplay for Good Will Hunting.

2013 Golden Globes

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler started the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards with a witty bang. Poehler said that Kathryn Bigelow, director of Zero Dark Thirty, would know about torture because she was married to James Cameron for three years. Then Tina said that when watching Anne Hathaway's nominated performance in Les Miserables, Fey had not seen someone so alone and abandoned since Hathaway was on stage with James Franco at the Oscars. Amy mentioned Julianne Moore's nomination for portraying Sarah Palin in HBO's Game Change. Tina chimed in with, "me too, I used to win prizes for that too" and found that she had lost her ability to impersonate Sarah Palin's voice.

The first award was presented to Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor in Django Unchained. I was thrilled because I loved his performance as an 1850's bounty hunter. It will be interesting to see if this is an Oscar indicator as four of the five nominees are the same for both awards. Julianne Moore won the Globe for Game Change and the movie won Best Mini-Series Or Motion Picture Made for Television.

In an effort to revise the awards show drinking game for 2013, since Martin Scorsese is not nominated, I think the go-to drink will be for when anyone over-pronounces Les Misérables. Tina Fey was the first to and Catherine Zeta Jones was the second.

Damian Lewis won Best Actor in a Drama Series for Homeland and then Homeland won Best Drama. The real life CIA agent Ben Affleck played in Argo presented Argo as a Best Movie Drama nominee with John Goodman. It was delightful to continue to see George Clooney and Ben Affleck seated together throughout the show. Poehler's Boston accent jokes directed towards Affleck were great.

Adele won a Globe for Original Song for "Skyfall." Hope this one is an Oscar indicator as well. Taylor Swift lost and could not seem to put a graceful-loser look on her face when Adele accepted the award. Yeah, that's right Taylor, you are not as talented as Adele, get used to it.

Bill Clinton randomly presented Lincoln's nomination for Best Movie Drama and received a standing ovation. He even did a thumbs up. It was very cool. Immediately after, Amy Poehler appeared to resume her hosting duties in character as Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec and said, "that was Hilary Clinton's husband!"

Kristen Wiig and Will Farrell by far were the funniest presenters. The bit was that they were beyond excited to be there, had watched all the movies the five actresses nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical were in, yet clearly had not watched. They called Jennifer Lawrence, J La, which is fantastic, and she won. Megan Fox and Jonah Hill were also pretty funny as presenters.

One would anticipate Quentin Tarantino to be full on crazy when he accepted the Best Screenplay Globe. He was just standard Tarantino crazy. He thanked his actors and the people he reads his scripts to as he writes, but did not name them.

Another random presenter was Sacha Baron Cohen (third to over-pronounce Les Mis) in the Best Animated Feature Category. Brave's win and also Amour's win for Best Foreign Language Film may be additional Oscar predictors.

I loved Amy Poehler drinking champagne with George Clooney for her nomination shot. After the hosts lost to Lena Dunham for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, they pretended to be drunk and Tina told Taylor Swift, "you stay away from Michael J Fox's son!" 

Robert Downey Jr presented Jodie Foster with the Cecil B DeMille Award. Foster gave a big build-up so as if to come out, then she said she was single. Then she pretty much came out but never said it outright. She was strong and unique in her acceptance of the award and received a standing ovation from her peers.

Ben Affleck seemed genuinely shocked that he won Best Director for Argo. The audience was floored and he received a standing ovation. It would seem that all were pleased that he received the recognition the Academy withheld from him this week. Jennifer Gardner presented Best Actor in a Comedy and thanked two people he forgot, including Argo producer George Clooney. Then Clooney congratulated Affleck on his win when he presented Best Actress in a Drama to Jessica Chastain.

After Daniel Day Lewis won for Best Actor in a Drama for Lincoln, out of the blue Julia Roberts presented Best Picture Drama to Argo. The last line of the show was Poehler saying that she and Fey were going home with Jodie Foster.

A complete list of the winners follows my fashion coverage.
All in all there were a lot of misses on the red carpet at the Globes. Too many high neck lines, too many white or baby blue blah dresses. Kerry Washington who is gorgeous, looked terrible. On another actress the dress Jennifer Lopez wore may have been daring but for her it was run-of-the-mill. Jennifer Lawrence, Claire Danes and Jennifer Gardner looked great in reds and the hosts' red carpet looks and on stage ensembles were wins.

MOVIES
Best Motion Picture, Drama: "Argo"
Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical: "Les Misérables"
Best Actress, Drama: Jessica Chastain, "Zero Dark Thirty"
Best Actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln"
Best Actress, Comedy or Musical: Jennifer Lawrence, "Silver Linings Playbook"
Best Actor, Comedy or Musical: Hugh Jackman, "Les Misérables"
Best Director: Ben Affleck, "Argo"
Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, "Les Misérables"
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained"
Best Foreign Language Film: "Amour"
Best Animated Film: "Brave"
Best Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, "Django Unchained"
Best Original Score: Mychael Danna, "Life of Pi"
Best Original Song: "Skyfall" (music and lyrics by Adele and Paul Epworth), "Skyfall"

TELEVISION
Best Series, Drama: "Homeland," Showtime
Best Series, Musical or Comedy: "Girls," HBO
Best Actress, Drama: Claire Danes, "Homeland"
Best Actor, Drama: Damian Lewis, "Homeland"
Best Actress, Comedy or Musical: Lena Dunham, "Girls"
Best Actor, Comedy or Musical: Don Cheadle, "House of Lies"
Best Miniseries or Movie: "Game Change"
Best Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Julianne Moore, "Game Change"
Best Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Kevin Costner, "Hatfields and McCoys"
Best Supporting Actress: Maggie Smith, "Downton Abbey"
Best Supporting Actor: Ed Harris, "Game Change"

The Descendants

This is my favorite movie of Oscar season. Knowing what other movies are out there to see, I imagine this will remain the case. There is always at least one gem of a movie I did not know much about before and really love so I have that to look forward to, not sure what it will be. As far as the big dogs go, Best Picture and acting contenders, the Descendants is it.

Clooney is fantastic as Hawaiian native, attorney and self-described "back-up" parent. The movie deals with very difficult and emotional issues yet is laugh out funny throughout. The movie was directed and written by Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election). Fun fact, Payne is one of very few directors who has final cut over his films.

Shailene Woodley gives a breakout performance as Clooney's eldest, rebellious daughter. Judy Greer is phenomenal in the most serious role I have seen her in (redeems a year when she was cast as the wife/ex-wife of Ashton Kutcher's man-child character on Two and a Half Men. You're better than that Judy!). Matthew Lillard is also seen in his most dramatic role to date -- Shaggy did good. Nick Krause rounds out a strong supporting cast as Clooney's oldest daughter's friend Sid. Beau Bridges also has a brief but significant role.

The movie was filmed on location in Hawaii and is beautiful. Much of the movie takes place in Oahu. I was lucky enough to stay on Oahu for two weeks the summer before my senior year of high school. I was also lucky enough to really experience Hawaiian life by staying at the home of my friend's grandfather, not at a resort, not in Honolulu or Waikiki. My tourist-y activities were limited, and wonderfully, to one day. The culture as portrayed in the movie is strikingly accurate.

An excellent, excellent movie all around.

The Ides of March

My kick-off week to Oscar season continued by seeing the Clooney/Gosling political drama this Sunday afternoon. Anyone who knows me would probably have thought that I would have rushed to see this movie when it came out the first week of October because of the subject matter, the actors and the related Oscar possibilities. I was surprised at my lack of motivation to see the Ides of March but that did not get me to the theater. I am glad that Katy and I were talking about how attractive Ryan Gosling is and pondered why we had not see it yet last night.

Clooney directed a thoroughly well written film. The trailers were skillfully crafted to lead the audience in one direction. I honestly had no predictions for what was going to happen or how the movie would end. There is also an excellent score and randomly Leonardo DiCaprio was an executive producer.

Thus far the rumored Oscar movies are still very much a part of early buzz; how the nominations will fall is not yet predictable. This usually prevents me from starting too early but for whatever serendipitous reason I have already seen a few. I aim to start earlier each year and do something new. Maybe seeing more movies sooner is my way of doing both this year.

Happy 31st birthday weekend to Mr Gosling. Man can wear a coat like no other.