Review - 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards (2011) - Live Blogging

Update: Apparently the people who run the Golden Globes didn't know what Ricky Gervais's humor is like.

Introduction

The following is what I thought of the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards show on January 17, 2011. I didn't edit anything other than an occasional spelling fix, such as people's names, and the addition of pictures. The pictures are why this wasn't posted immediately after the show.

The 37th People's Choice Awards were on recently, so there's definitely some comparison bias below.

The Event

Ricky Gervais was hilarious. He is bashing everything. He ended with, "I warned them."

Gervais 1 — He may as well have said, "You're all my bitches tonight."

From the way the awards are announced, it already seems there is a lot more dignity to the Golden Globes than the People's Choice Awards. The venue is small, but I'm OK with that.

Golden Globe Venue

During Christian Bail's acceptance speech, they showed that there is a monitor that counts down how long everyone has to give a speech. This is organized. Thankfully, there's no comparison to the People's Choice Awards.

Venue Countdown — 21 seconds until the music is turned so loud, no one can hear you scream.

Katey Sagal won an award. I think it's kind of funny that they showed Ed O'Neill's reaction as if they've worked together in the past decade. She also took forever to get to the stage from the back of the room.

Sagal Journey — Sagal had to journey all the way to the stage through a ton of people in a narrow path. Luckily, she has two eyes in real life to help her navigate.

So far there isn't any shitty product placement. I'm happy with the show so far.

Ricky Gervais is listing off all of Bruce Willis's bad movies to introduce him. (I liked 5th Element, though.) He was introduced as "Aston Kutcher's dad." Bruce Willis read off the nomination for Red. I though he meant Red: Werewolf Hunter at first and laughed, but he meant the good Red.

Willis 1 — After hearing the introduction, McClane put on his "I'm going to have a voluntary Nakatomi Plaza flashback" face.

A guy from Glee won an award for aiding in the butchering of classic songs. They played their terrible rendition of "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey.

Surprisingly, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (both of rock band Nine Inch Nails) beat Danny Elfman (too many to list here) and A. R. Raman (same, but most people may only know Slumdog Millionaire) for best musical score.

Justin Bieber didn't do anything wrong, but his existence irritates me. The guy who won from Toy Story 3 joked, "Wow! Were you two even born when the first Toy Story came out?"

The commercial bump is all about what's next after the commercial. It's not a shoehorned ad for CVS or a shitty cell phone.

Ricky Gervais hilariously introduced Tina Fey and Steve Carell. They're great together. As a matter of fact, stop reading this review. Go watch Date Night instead. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Fey - Carell — Seriously. Go watch Date Night.

When they announced, "Julia Stiles," they showed the wrong actress. It was kind of funny. The comedy was lost when Jane Lynch won, and Glee's terrible rendition of Journey puked its way from my TV's speakers into my ears.

I'm happy that Kaley Cuoco (Penny from Big Bang Theory) read that Jim Parsons (Sheldon from Big Bang Theory) won best actor in a comedy.

Cuoco - Parsons — This is the face of truly being happy for someone else.

The Cecile B. DeMille Award went to Robert De Niro. I didn't realize how many De Niro movies I like until I saw the montage. He thanked the judges for judging him as the victor before Little Fockers came out.

I may sound biased when I say this: Fuck Glee and their crucifixion of Journey songs. It's starting to make me want to clean my ears out with an ice pick. Stop the auditory assaults, Glee!

Charles Schwab commercials fall into the uncanny valley.

The show has been going on without much worth mentioning other than who won what. However, one thing always bugs me; Sandra Bullock looks like Michael Jackson.

Bullock - Jackson — Miss Congeniality, or the Man in the Mirror in disguise?

The Social Network won best dramatic movie. If you didn't see that coming, you weren't around in 2010. I can't believe how highly rated this movie is. It was even re-released in theaters recently.

Conclusion

This was a pretty uneventful show. It just listed off who and what the Hollywood Foreign Press Association thought was best in 2010. There isn't much to say. Gervais was pretty funny.

De Niro's speech had one or two off-color jokes that made everybody groan. My favorite part was when De Niro basically said that he did Little Fockers for a paycheck; not everything is art. You can only try to keep your kids in private school and hope they turn out OK. It was a little pretentious, but mostly forgettable. I think he started winging it a bit after his jokes started falling flat.

Final Verdict - 3/5

It was a perfectly average show. If you missed it, don't bother looking up anything besides Ricky Gervais and the Tina Fey/Steve Carell segment.