"Golden Globes:" Appraisal
Giants lost.
But "Mad Men" won.
I'll get over it - the Giants, that is.
Don't mind me...if I sulk.
But here's the thing. Last night, the Golden Globes. An important awards show? (Perhaps on some galaxy.) But what is, or should be, especially good about this awards ceremony, is the television show that wraps around all its sodden, soupy, sappy silliness mixed in with the serious and interesting. So...
The Bottom Line: As awards shows go, this one went fine - not too hot, and not too cold, but somewhere in that mild, midpoint temperature range. That's good because the Globes will not - and maybe should not - be remembered by next week; there's something terrifically ephemeral about this ceremony, and the TV program probably shouldn't attempt to pretend that history is unfolding, and that the moment of bestowal should be consecrated for all time. As recently as five years ago, this affair was treated as serio-comedy - the place where you could get drunk! Watch Jack slur! See the stars make fun of themselves (not so hard to do, on occasion)! And...then something happened. Maybe they closed the bar early, but the Golden Globes became "important" - an Oscar bellwether, and an award that didn't deserve to be mothballed along with your People's Choice, but set alongside the Oscar (at a far remove, but at least on the same mantlepiece.) This type of self-importance can lead to a disaster on-screen - but not last night. Just smartly paced, and properly contextualized. A good awards show for a once frivolous, and still somewhat frivolous award... (Can you really buy these things, as rumor has long held? I wonder...I wonder...)