MOVIES

Friday Film : Golden Globes -some thoughts

The Golden Globes is a divisive awards show. If your favourites win, it’s a credible precursor to the Oscars. If they don’t, the Globes are a bought and paid for joke.

I had no particular emotional investment in the awards this year, so I can probably be reasonably objective:
1. I rarely watch television, so the interminable TV categories don’t interest me.

2. Aaron Taylor Johnson winning best supporting actor is only a shock to those who can’t recognise a very good performance. I saw Nocturnal Animals very early on, long before awards season and I thought it was a pretty but ultimately hollow film. However, I did think that ATJ would be an awards consideration. Previously regarded, by me, as a pretty boy who can’t act, I was pleasantly surprised by how he tackled the role of a villainous, red neck rapist with obvious relish. Some young actors might not have gone there with such a negative role but ATJ did and with some gusto. Good for him.
He won’t win the Oscar though. That will go to Mahershala Ali. Again I saw his film Moonlight, very early on and his perfectly nice but unremarkable performance barely registered with me let alone as an all conquering awards winner. However, trolls on social media have dubbed his loss as a victory for ‘white mediocrity’ ie Taylor Johnson. Imagine the uproar if anyone dubbed a black victory as a reward for ‘black mediocrity’.
This hypocritical, divisive double standard nonsense must stop.

3. So must the politics at awards shows. Movies bring people together. Hollywood’s elite seem determined to alienate half their audience and cause division. It will be interesting to see the ratings for the show.

4. Casey Affleck’s win for best actor in drama pretty much confirms him (even more) as the front runner for best actor at the Oscars. His quietly devastating, multi layered performance in Manchester by the Sea is a tour de force. In lesser hands it might have been a whirlwind of histrionics. In his, it is a powerful study of grief, guilt and suppressed rage.

5. Kenneth Lonergan will probably, rightly, win the best original screenplay at the Oscars but I can’t criticise Damien Chazelle’s victory for it here. LA LA Land is a joyous triumph. It succeeds in being what so many movies fail to be -fantasies that transport you to another world but somehow still seem totally relateable.
LA LA Land won all seven categories it was nominated in. The best ever haul for any film at the Globes. I hope it wins best picture at the Oscars and the Baftas.

6. I haven’t seen Elle so I can’t say whether or not Isabelle Huppert deserved her best actress win. What I can say is that the thought of Natalie Portman winning anything and giving one of her excruciatingly cringeworthy speeches is enough to make Huppert’s victory a welcome one.
However, the female Leonardo Di Caprio (until last year) Amy Adams went home empty handed again. And that’s enough to give anyone the sad because she is so classy, so elegant and so damn nice. Amy for the Oscar!

7. The enthusiastic welcome for Brad Pitt when he came on stage to present an award might have told us all we need to know about what Hollywood thinks of Angelina Jolie…….

For the full list of winners check here:

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