wowOwow - The Women on the Web

01/20/2010 6:00 am

Culture

Liz Smith: Did the Golden Globes Glitter?

From Tina to Quentin and Drew to Meryl, our Gossip Girl is here with the post-awards wrap-up.

"IT’S NOT raining; God is crying over NBC!" Even the most major publications cited this Tina Fey remark as the wittiest of many insults hurled at the peacock network during Sunday’s Golden Globes Awards.

And I don’t care what the E! style mavens say – I thought Tina’s dress was deliberately whimsical, just as she is. And the necessary umbrella she employed gave it a downright "Mary Poppins" vibe.

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AWARD SHOWS have become like punctuation marks. Once important, they pass quickly into pop culture oblivion, overtaken by instant blogging and Twittering. But the specter of Haiti did cast a little dose of reality over the proceedings.

The show itself? It moved! I think this was because Hollywood and the press established a real party atmosphere.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Ass’n. was always something of an inside joke but now everybody has grown friendly to the process via their real party. Tables of stars, doing their best to play glamorous "dress-up," close-up reaction shots such as the ones on Quentin Tarantino. ( He won precious little with his hit "Inglourious Basterds," but we had so many looks at him throughout that when the evening ended, we felt we knew this tempestuous energetic director better than before.) Watching stars plow through friends and enemies in high-heels, big gowns and big hair to get to the stage is more interesting than watching rows of Oscar-oriented people sitting upright at the Kodak Theater. This physical movement and close look at them is more than we usually ever see of them unless they are acting onscreen.

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RICKY GERVAIS as host? He was amiable and appeared like a jack-in-the-box, as if he were surprised each time that he was hosting and he certainly wouldn’t do it again. OK, if he added viewers, so much the better, but the Globes probably don’t need a host. Some people were offended by his beer-swilling onstage, but this is a well-known aspect of his stand-up act.

I thought the acceptance speeches of Mo’Nique, Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Bridges and Christoph Waltz were especially touching and real. I liked Drew Barrymore in her childlike history as if she had to explain who she is.

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BECAUSE I am not an "Avatar" fan, I just find the big man of the night, James Cameron, a little hard to take. One can’t really quarrel with the success of his said-to-be-groundbreaking movie and I think his wins at the Golden Globes are a definite presentment of the shape of things to come. Hollywood won’t dare deny him an Oscar. But I simply don’t believe real-life actors will become obsolete in favor of blue-tinged 3-D CGI and I find all that kind of creepy. (By contrast, we had on this same night on TCM, the great Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Miriam Hopkins and Ralph Richardson in the black-and-white Henry James drama, "The Heiress." Sorry, but it makes something like "Avatar" look grotesque.)

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SO MAYBE the best part of the Globes was the red-carpet beginning where stars tried to keep their hemlines from dragging and their hair from going limp in the rain. Many a coiffure simply collapsed.

And it was my girl Mariah Carey who provided the most viewing fun. As soon as she hove into sight, big grapefruit-sized bosoms bared, Ryan Seacrest remarked, "Oh, we’re just going to call you Miss Subtlety."

Mariah didn’t think this was funny. Ryan kept trying to get her to talk about her celebrated appearance at the Palm Springs Film Festival – just how much had she had to drink? Mariah insisted it was just one extra glass of champagne and said people don’t understand the "silly humor" between her and "Precious" director Lee Daniels. Finally, the diva declared, "Let’s not talk about people who’ve had too much champagne, hmmm?" Listen, Mariah is entitled to move on even when the Ryan Seacrests of the world can’t seem to.