Respect Authority

Television, the one place in which the Golden Globes isn’t a primer for the Academy Awards (rather, just a reprisal of the Emmys), dropped a handful of strong candidates into the pile this year, a welcome reprieve from a far more dismal performance on the cinematic side of things. Indeed, while best movie nominees seemed to all have come in the last months of the year (some hadn’t even been released yet), TV has provided no shortage of potential candidates, particularly with the advent of phenomenal HBO programming. So I was far from surprised to see True Blood’s various nominations – except one.

Anna Paquin, for whom my undying hatred is no secret, was actually nominated for best actress in a television drama, and against all odds – in fact, against all that is right in the world – she won. Let’s repeat: Anna “I bat my eyes and that’s how I act, that’s acting” Paquin actually won a Golden Globe for her performance as a vampire-fucking mind-reading moron on HBO’s True Blood. The show itself lost in the best television drama category to AMC’s Mad Men, which as far as I can tell is pretty much entirely about hair gel and smoking in the office.

Who did she beat, you ask? The corpses on Dexter? The weed in Weeds?

No, actually Paquin seems to have elbowed out some legitimate competition. Sally Field’s performance in ABC’s Brothers and Sisters was nominated and although I’ve never seen – and never plan to see – that show, Sally Field is legit. She played Abby’s crazy mother on ER, and Forrest Gump’s mother, and the thoroughly duped mom on Mrs. Doubtfire, so I have very little doubt about her ability to play a mother better than Paquin plays a 20-something Southern telepath. Mad Men’s January Jones was also nominated, as was Kyra Sedgwick for The Closer. Considering Mad Men took the win for best show, and The Closer seems to have resonated with CSI fans and other people over the age of 45, I’d be surprised if either woman gave an awful performance.

And finally, in the ultimate act of Golden Globe betrayal, Paquin beat out SVU maven Mariska Hargitay, I have to imagine only because fighting vampires is at least mildly more dangerous than fighting serial rapists. Fine, Golden Globes, fine. But if Mariska starred in a show about fighting serial vampire rapists, she would have had this in the bag.

Hold on to your Fandago bookmarks, it’s that time of year again. What? No no, not the Academy Awards. No, those are in February. I’m talking about the red-headed stepchild of cinematic award shows - The Golden Globes.

Indeed, the Golden Globes shoulder their way into pop culture relevance this time each year with little to no regard for the overwhelming reality that, well, no one cares about them. In fact, the GGs are little more than a pre-cursor to the far more important Oscars, to the point that movies tout actors’ or actresses’ Academy Award nominations over an an actual Golden Globe victory. That’s right, the mere possibility of walking away with one of those golden men is enough to trump …whatever it is you get for winning a golden globe, because it’s certainly not a sense of accomplishment.

Making this year’s list of nominations all the more irrelevant is the fact that barely anything hit the silver screen this year worth seeing more than once, let alone nominating for even a halfheartedly prestigious award. In fact, of the five movies tapped for Best Movie - Drama this year, only one has even been released yet, and only in select theaters at that. I shit you not - apparently the first eleven months of the year yielded nothing but crap. Read More ›