The Golden Globe awards may have recaptured their party spirit on Sunday after last year’s strike-induced cancellation, but by the end of the evening the awards flirted dangerously with national irrelevance – rewarding one small film seen by few moviegoers, and indulging long, earnest speeches by well-lauded celebrities.
“Slumdog Millionaire,” a raucous, inspirational tale of love from India, came the closest to being the star of the moment, winning Best Picture, Best Director for Danny Boyle, Best Screenplay for Simon Beaufoy and best score. The film was distributed by Fox Searchlight.
But the film won no acting awards, had no known movie stars in it and has taken in just $38 million worldwide.
The movies nominated for Best Picture have had a hard time connecting with audiences this year. Indeed, only one of the best picture nominees broke the $100 million barrier at the box office, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which won no awards. And only “Slumdog” seemed to win the hearts of Globe voters – a collection of 85 foreign journalists and freelance writers who make up the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
With Hollywood no closer to finding a horse worth backing in the Oscar race, and the TV awards offering a replay of last year’s Emmys, with “30 Rock” and “John Adams” dominating, just as worrying was the lack of dramatic interest in the three-hour show in prime time on NBC.
Sunday’s show came just a year after the Golden Globes ratings hit a historic low as the show was replaced by a bare-bones broadcast announcing the winners, due to the Writers Guild Strike. This year, despite the bottles of champagne visible on the dinner tables, no one seemed drunk or unhinged. It was an evening in which Mickey Rourke thanking his agent David Unger “for having the balls” to represent him had to pass for an edgy moment. Rourke won best actor for “The Wrestler.”
The Globes ratings plunged to 5.8 million in 2008, after a high of 20 million viewers in 2007, according to Nielsen ratings. The Oscars have also been struggling in the ratings.
Kate Winslet won two Golden Globe statues, best actress for playing a restless housewife in “Revolutionary Road,” and best supporting actress for playing a German woman with a secret in “The Reader.” She burst into tears at each win, and thanked her husband, Sam Mendes, the director of “Revolutionary Road,” “for killing us every single day… It made me love you more.” She also confessed her love to her costar Leonardo DiCaprio.
But as the ceremony dragged on, even Martin Scorsese presenting a lifetime achievement award to Steven Spielberg could not lift the pace, or make the show feel like a necessary event. Spielberg spoke at great length, and even the stars in the room appeared to have a hard time maintaining interested expressions as he traced his life in film back to a train set in his basement. It was hardly Spielberg’s fault – instead of a long speech, why couldn’t we get, say, a montage of his work, showing us why it’s meant so much to Globe voters?
It was a night in which the dresses were far more interesting to look at than anything up on stage.
