Winslet, Rourke in surprise wins

 

Amazed, amazed, amazed at Kate Winslet for best actress for "Revolutionary Road," and think the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. has done what the Oscars will not.

As we said earlier, we preferred the "Revolutionary Road" performance over "The Reader." Little did we know it would be both that caught the fancy of the HFPA. A good night to be Kate, indeed. (OK, we were going out on a limb by picking Kristin Scott Thomas in "I've Loved You So Long" for best actress in the little seen French language flick, but that was one of our wild cards. Forgive!)

Amazed, also, at Mickey Rourke's win for best actor in "The Wrestler," the biggest comeback story of the year. (Well, we thought Rourke came back in "Sin City," but that wasn't an awards flick by anyone but fanboy standards).

Congrats, Mickey. Loved the performance more than we loved the movie, but both haunted us for days and weeks.

Sean Penn, it's still your Oscar to lose. That's the opinion of zillions and we're sticking with it. Until, that is, we change our minds and vote for Rourke.

If you'll recall (and why would you?), we did pick Colin Farrell for best actor in "In Bruges," one of our Fave Five movies of the year. And then we wussed. Caved to peer pressure. Had second thoughts. Did a double take. Whatever you want to call it, we missed the boat. (We went with the more conventional choice, Javier Bardem for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"). 

Hats off to you, Farrell, and your cheeky acceptance speech (sans chewing gum). 

Unrelated, and yes, we're trying to distract you from what turned out to be a non-dope evening for Gold Rush predictions, indulge us in a few observations from the evening.

Because we're just petty like this, we have to ask: Could Drew Barrymore's stylist have smoothed that bouffant a tad? How did the upcoming "comedy" with the trailer-on-a-loop "He's Just Not That Into You" ever get a star cast and financing? And is Showtime darling David Duchovney too smart for the room or just too dry or inappropriate or unfunny? Or all of the above. You decide.

Globes meet Oscar

And will the next Oscar winner please take the stage at the Globes?

This time it's Simon Beaufoy for the screenplay for "Slumdog Millionaire." (See also: "WALL-E" and "Waltz with Bashir").

This little film that almost didn't get distribution -- through no fault of its own but because of the implosion of boutique and indie studios that happened in '08 -- has become the movie to beat. But Beaufoy really seems to be a lock.

Another TV winner: Alec Baldwin for "30 Rock." And the praise to Tina Fey just keeps coming -- yes, it's foreshadowing.

Linney, Ledger get Globes

Not to be cocky, but hey, happy to point out that we've actually nailed a few winners here.

Bathroom break!

Here's the rundown: Laura Linney for "John Adams" (well, she wasn't John Adams, she was Abigail), and Heath Ledger for best supporting actor for "The Dark Knight." Both quite predictable, but then again, the HFPA likes to throw curve balls.

The show is clipping along -- though we really must say that the three-hour running time is a bit pretentious, don't you think? -- with Christopher Nolan's gracious, heart-felt acceptance of the late Ledger's award being one of the highlights.

Finish your thought, Sally Hawkins

This could be the time to note that the Golden Globes don't cue the music when a winner gets a little tongue tied, emotional, un-sound-bitey.

Sally Hawkins, freshly minted Gold Rush Q&A victim, you go right ahead and tell us how much you love your castmates, producers, crew, family, wardrobers, etc etc etc.

We love you right back! (Note: Her win is helping our so-far kind of lame batting average).

In this respect, the Globes have it all over the Oscars, where those really awkward moments invariably happen. Someone, having the night of their lives, gets swept away from the microphone with a symphonic flourish. Rude!

Isn't it all about the people, people? This is why we watch awards shows to begin with -- to hear what the winners have to say. Those spontaneous bits, the tears, the authenticity. Sally had that in spades.

Good on you, Globes.

The Boss takes a Globe

 

Who says The Boss will never compete with Clint Eastwood again?

He did.

Bruce Springsteen picked up the best original song Globe -- sorry Miley! -- and said it felt darn good to win against film icon Eastwood, who was nominated for his "Gran Torino" work.

Sooo, if you're dying to know how we're doing so far in our prognosticating, the answer is, about the same as usual. (That would be, you know, fairly crappy). Bruce and Tom Wilkinson for supporting actor the Emmy winningest "John Adams." Check.

Others, not so much: Laura Dern for "Recount" (we picked Dianne Wiest for "In Treatment") and Anna Paquin for "True Blood" (we'd hopefully gone with January Jones in "Mad Men." She tore it up this past season). But can't be unhappy with Paquin, "True Blood" fangatics that we are.

Crushing blow -- Jon Hamm just lost! But Gabriel Byrne is an excellent choice, and we've been a proponent of "In Treatment" since Day 1.

Winslet's Globe make-good

Welcome to Sunday everyone, the Golden Globes, and the first Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. make-good of the night -- Kate Winslet for her "supporting" role in "The Reader."

Some critics had predicted this would happen. Not us! Just couldn't get behind the statutory rape story, its literary pedigree and artful lighting aside.

But Winslet won't win in the lead category (we don't think), and in a number of critics/guild kudos she's been roundly shut out for her amazing "Revolutionary Road" turn. We would much rather see her honored for that role.

Also wondering what this means for Penelope Cruz and her formerly runaway Oscar train. Derailed?

Just a note about the telecast -- we're stationed at the Showtime party where we keep seeing a lot of vaguely familiar looking folks, but aren't sure if we really know them: Hooray for the no-host awards show! Underrated! This is going to work out well, people. Just a parade of presenters handing out newly-redesigned Globe trophies.

We won't have to borrow the immortal words of Sean Young: Get on with it! They're getting on with it!

Pop back in for periodic updates tonight, emphasis on periodic. Hey, is that a crab cake?

Globes on TV

 

Members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. were early adopters of "Mad Men," the uber-cool AMC drama, and its suave star, Jon Hamm, giving both Golden Globes at the sterile press conference that stood in for the awards ceremony last year.

Since it was the thick of the writers strike, it wasn't much of a time to celebrate. Imagine how tough that must have been for the "Mad Men" crew, who've shown us all a new/old way of swilling cocktails for business and pleasure.

Chances are they'll get to make up for lost time on Sunday. Round of highballs, please!

"Mad Men," Hamm and his co-star January Jones are tops on our list of Golden Globe predictions. (See our film picks here). As usual, the choices are a combination of what we'd like to win and what we think will win, with some wild cards thrown in there for good measure. (The HFPA did, after all, pick "Sweeney Todd" last year as the best comedy/musical at a time when the fantastically gory Johnny Depp drama was ignored by most other critics and industry groups). 

Come back tomorrow night for our impressions of the Globes (airing at 8 p.m. on NBC), the view from inside the Showtime party and an Emmy-like tally of our sooth-seer skills. (Read: We nailed a few).

Here are the nominees and our picks. 

DRAMATIC TV SERIES

"Dexter"

"House M.D."

"In Treatment"

X "Mad Men"

"True Blood"

 

BEST ACTOR, TV DRAMA

Gabriel Byrne, "In Treatment"

Michael C. Hall, "Dexter"

X Jon Hamm, "Mad Men"

Hugh Laurie, "House M.D."

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, "The Tudors"

 

BEST ACTRESS, TV DRAMA

Sally Field, "Brothers & Sisters"

Mariska Hargitay, "Law & Order: SVU"

X January Jones, "Mad Men"

Anna Paquin, "True Blood"

Kyra Sedgwick, "The Closer"

 

TV SERIES, MUSICAL OR COMEDY

"Californication"

"Entourage"

"The Office"

X "30 Rock"

"Weeds"

 

BEST ACTOR, TV MUSICAL OR COMEDY

X Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock"

Steve Carell, "The Office"

Kevin Connolly, "Entourage"

David Duchovny, "Californication"

Tony Shalhoub, "Monk"

 

BEST ACTRESS, TV MUSICAL OR COMEDY

Christina Applegate, "Samantha Who?"

America Ferrera, "Ugly Betty"

X Tina Fey, "30 Rock"

Debra Messing, "The Starter Wife"

Mary-Louise Parker, "Weeds"

 

BEST MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

"Cranford" 

"Bernard & Doris" 

X "John Adams"

"A Raisin in the Sun"

"Recount"

 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Judi Dench, "Cranford"

X Laura Linney, "John Adams"

Catherine Keener, "An American Crime" 

Shirley MacLaine, "Coco Chanel"

Susan Sarandon, "Bernard & Doris"

 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Ralph Fiennes, "Bernard and Doris" 

X Paul Giammatti, "John Adams"

Kevin Spacey, "Recount"

Kiefer Sutherland, "24: Redemption"

Tom Wilkinson, "Recount"

 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Eileen Atkins, "Cranford" 

Laura Dern, "Recount"

Melissa George, "In Treatment" 

Rachel Griffiths, "Brothers & Sisters" 

X Dianne Wiest, "In Treatment"

 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Neil Patrick Harris, "How I Met Your Mother" 

Denis Leary, "Recount" 

Jeremy Piven, "Entourage"

Blair Underwood, "In Treatment" 

X Tom Wilkinson, "John Adams"

 

Oscar's foreign rules

 

Been wondering why "The Class" instead of, say, "A Christmas Tale" or "I've Loved You So Long," is in the running for a foreign-language Oscar? Well, friends, then you have entirely too much time on your hands.

Luckily, in this case, so does THR's Steven Zeitchik, who digs into the Academy handbook in the foreign film race and comes up with some answers for idle inquiring minds.

Rules, rules, rules, that's what it all comes down to, and each country is allowed to submit only one film. Hence, France had to decide between those aforementioned flicks, and it picked the Palme d'Or winner from Cannes over the dysfunctional-family-on-holiday story and the Kristin Scott Thomas just-sprung-from-prison tale.

Once the countries decide which films they're tossing into the ring -- and this year there were 67 entries, a new record -- committees within committees and subsets of other committees go through the weeding process to get to the short list of nine Oscar contenders expected to be announced next month. There's an ongoing attempt to right the wrongs of the past and blunt a steady stream of criticism because controversial films have been overlooked, as were some that just weren't foreign enough (too much English!). 

Go here for some idea on how the sausage is made, and to get a vague idea if Germany's "The Baader Meinhof Complex" has a chance against Sweden's Golden Globe nominee "Everlasting Moments" or Israel's genre-bending "Waltz With Bashir" (pictured).

And for helpful descriptions of each country's official entry, go here.

Meanwhile, "The Class," which is showing in Los Angeles now during its one-week Oscar qualifying run, just racked up four nominations from France's version of the Golden Globes. More on those nods here.

'The Wrestler' busts out

Darren Aronofsky didn't set out to make an homage to professional wrestling in all its choreographed, performance-art-that-can-maim-you glory. But that's what happened, the filmmaker said Tuesday night at the premiere of "The Wrestler," a drama that looks likely to score star Mickey Rourke an Oscar nomination.

"My main goal was to do something all about acting," Aronofsky said.

And, he said, something that was close enough to reality that it didn't make the muscle-bound grapplers in the audience want to kick his arse.

For the record, one of the sport's legendary figures, Rowdy Roddy Piper, has already endorsed the film and repeated the praise -- it's well researched, it's a true representation of the hard-knock life -- to your resident Gold Rusher at the post-screening cocktail party. And then he clothes-lined us for slowing down the buffet line. Just kidding.

There was a solid wrasslin' contingent at the event, with Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, Brutus Beefcake, Rick "The Nature Boy" Flair, and Diamond Dallas Page flinching a lot less than the rest of us while Rourke's character was barb-wired, staple-gunned and beaten bloody in the bleak New Jersey-set movie. They're used to the these occupational hazards, after all. The emotional gutting that Randy "The Ram" Robinson took might've hit them just as hard. Tough to say because, well, they're tough guys.

Luminaries of the non-beat-down variety were there, too, like Oliver Stone, Aronofsky's wife Rachel Weisz, 50 Cent and everybody's favorite porn king, Ron Jeremy. (Don't think we didn't start a conversation. More on that later).

After winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, "The Wrestler" has been on a roll with U.S. critics groups and best-of lists. Rourke, playing a wrestler 20 years past his prime, has a Golden Globe nod under his belt already, as does co-star and past Oscar winner Marisa Tomei for her stripper who could've fallen for the big lug. Both have Oscar potential.

That has to be music to the ears of Fox Searchlight honcho Peter Rice, who called it the quintessential American indie film that the corporate purse-strings-holders gave him the go-ahead to buy and distribute during an inhospitable climate for such fare.

The New York Times review is one of the most astute we've read on "The Wrestler," pointing out its flaws but coming to the conclusion that "like its hero, the movie has a blunt, exuberant honesty, pulling off even its false moves with conviction and flair." Couldn't agree more. It's a must-see.

Nobody dies in 'Yes Man'

Never accuse Jim Carrey of not being a good movie-marketing soldier. Remember the ridiculous elephant ears and trunk he sported on "American Idol" earlier this year to hype "Horton Hears a Who," not to mention the onstage improv with a curt, humorless Ryan Seacrest?

Painful, but hey, the tradeoff for a Fox-forced synergistic skit fallen flat was a $45 million opening weekend.

For "Yes Man," which looks a whole lot like "Liar, Liar," Carrey showed Jay Leno and his "Tonight Show" viewers last night that he's well aware of the downer flicks hitting the multiplex here at Important Awards time. And he came up with the perfect antidote/"Yes Man" tagline:

"It's the only movie this weekend where nobody dies in the end."

And then a hearty, "Sold!" came from all over America.

What followed was a clip, which looks a whole lot like a Red Bull commercial, and more mania from Carrey, a prior Golden Globe winner, who chattered on about girlfriend Jenny McCarthy, Scorpios and ovulation, kind of in that order. Now that's a sugar and caffeine high. Or something.

Watch his festive, musical entrance below and see him selling the movie "in his sleep" here at the YouTubes.