Yahoo News The Revamped Golden Globes Didn’t Work as a Show; as an Oscar Booster, It May Have a Shot
There were few surprises at the Golden Globes, brought back to shuddering life by the Hollywood awards complex. The show did provide a boost to movies on the road to Oscar glory, but that process made many at the afterparties Sunday night unsure that reanimating the Globes was a good thing.
In hopes of returning to a network home next year, this was not the upbeat revival the 81st Globes needed. Viewers in the room were horrified by host Jo Koy, who has played arenas full of his fans but had no clue how to play to a room in Hollywood. Even the show’s producer-director Glenn Weiss, who did the honors at the Oscars last year, was downcast at an afterparty.
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He said there were too many tables in a crowded room for people to navigate to the stage. The audience wants to relate to human beings, not people reading from teleprompters, pointed out presenter Jon Batiste, who was a highlight with old pal Andra Day. Veteran Helen Mirren, who looked like she was enjoying herself with “1923” costar Harrison Ford at the show, admitted later that they acted like they were having a good time. That’s what actors do.
By contrast, NBCUniversal studio chief Donna Langley was all smiles at Tommy’s in Beverly Hills. Not only did her volume strategy yield the number-one market share among the studios, beating out DIsney for the first time since 2016, but greenlighting “Oppenheimer” right after reading the script yielded a blockbuster heading for $1 billion at the global box office.
Lest anyone forget, this was not an obvious play. Cillian Murphy was being discussed, and Nolan hinted that he would cast stars in many of the roles, but finally the executive had faith that Nolan would not deliver a boring history lesson. He didn’t, and wound up with five Golden Globe wins on Sunday, solidifying the Oscar frontrunner position for “Oppenheimer” heading into final Oscar voting January 11-16. Is there anything that can beat it?
It won’t be Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” which lacks the gravitas that often accompanies a Best Picture Oscar win. (Billie Eilish is a strong Oscar contender for Globe-winning Best Song “What Was I Made For?”) In the comedy categories, the 300 international Globes voters went with Yorgos Lanthimos’ Searchlight comedy “Poor Things” and Best Actress Emma Stone, getting a needed push. “Barbie” had to settle for a win with the silly new prize, Cinematic and Box Office Achievement. We already have a handy metric for measuring theatrical success: “Barbie” dominated the worldwide box office with a $1.4 billion gross.
As often happens in the Oscar race, patterns are emerging. At Tommy’s, Universal subsidiary Focus Features execs were also grinning Sunday night because “The Holdovers” Globes winner Paul Giamatti is now a likely Best Actor Oscar nominee, and his costar Da’Vine Joy Randolph is the likely Supporting Actress Oscar winner. She’s winning everything: Gothams, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics, and New York Film Critics Circle. The Oscar is hers to lose.
Another likely Oscar winner is Lily Gladstone, who became the first indigenous actress to win Best Actress in a Drama at the Globes, for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” This is shaping up to be the most likely Oscar win for the AppleTV+ movie. And Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” scored a needed win in a close race for the Best Animated Feature Oscar with “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”
Again, the awards revealed the voters’ international bent. They awarded French Palme d’Or-winner Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” Best Screenplay as well as Foreign Language film. Neon and Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux were celebrating, but this may not repeat at the Oscars: The movie is not the official French Oscar submission and competes in Original Screenplay with “The Holdovers” and “Past Lives.”
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos celebrated three Globe wins for “Beef” on the TV side at his Spago party, but films “May December,” “Nyad,” “Rustin,” and “Maestro” came up short at the Globes.
“May December” breakout Charles Melton, an early favorite for Best Supporting Actor, inevitably lost to “Oppenheimer” star Robert Downey, Jr., who seemed to regard his restrained role as a needed career correction. At Tommy’s, Downey and wife Susan, Chris Nolan and Emma Thomas, Matt Damon, Cillian Murphy, and Emily Blunt and John Krasinski were having a great time.
At the afterparties, Jon Hamm noted that the nipple rings in “Fargo” were scripted. Kevin Costner is looking forward to two three-hour “Horizon: An American Saga” westerns arriving from Warners this summer, he’s trying to raise financing for a third. Gerwig and Noah Baumbach are still high from their recent marriage at New York’s City Hall.
At this stage, the trick for Oscar campaigners is to figure out the narrative that yields a win on Oscar night. Globe winners’ speeches will be parsed and analyzed, as everyone tries to find their footing in the final stretch.
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