Golden Moments at the Globes

Houston-born directors rule at Golden Globes; Tina and Amy's best jokes (including Cosby zingers)

Despite being around for 72 years, the Golden Globe Awards have been and likely always will be the redheaded stepchild of awards season. They’re rarely a harbinger for awards to come, mostly because they’re voted on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association instead of industry professionals, and because they do things like shoehorn Birdman into the Best Comedy/Musical category.

The co-hosts were not as biting with their quips as they have been the past two years, but they still got off a few great zingers.

But they’re usually the most entertaining of the awards shows, because the stars have no reservations about guzzling multiple drinks, leading to some truly delightful moments. Returning as co-hosts for the third and last time were Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, two former Saturday Night Live cast members whose bond only seems to grow stronger as the years go along.

The co-hosts were not as biting with their quips as they have been the past two years, but they still got off a few great zingers. On Patricia Arquette’s nominated role in Boyhood, which she shot over 12 years, they noted that this proves there are still great roles for women over 40, as long as they’re hired before they turn 40.

And they went after George Clooney yet again, pointing out that his wife, Amal Alamuddin, has accomplished a tremendous amount in her non-Hollywood career, yet it was Clooney who received the lifetime achievement award.

But they reserved their most shocking jokes for Bill Cosby — no surprise given Fey’s history at jabbing the comedian for the rape allegations against him. No recap does their jokes justice, so here’s the video instead:

cos by vidstuffs

However, once they got past the opening monologue, Fey and Poehler turned relatively tame, and the usually raucous awards show seemed to follow suit. There was not one boozy presenter or award winner, save for the reliably naughty Ricky Gervais, although even he seemed to censor himself.

That doesn’t mean the night was devoid of memorable moments. Among ones worth remembering:

A standing ovation for, of all people, HFPA president Theo Kingman after he proclaimed the HFPA’s support of free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings.
Rapper Common, who co-starred in Selma, gave an eloquent speech honoring the civil rights fight that continues to this day.
Two other SNL alums, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, who co-starred in The Skeleton Twins, were as funny as always when they presented the award for best screenplay.
Kevin Spacey, who had been nominated seven previous times before winning this year for his role on House of Cards, tested the censors with the line, “This is the eighth time I’ve been nominated. I can’t believe I f---ing won one.”
Michael Keaton delivered the most personal speech of the night after winning Best Actor, Comedy/Musical for Birdman, revealing intimate personal details. In paying tribute to his parents and his upbringing, he said his name is really Michael John Douglas, a fact many were sure not to know. He also had the line of the night while choking back tears: “My best friend is kind, intelligent, funny, talented, considerate, thoughtful … did I say kind? He also happens to be my son, Sean.” Keaton may or may not get to deliver another speech this awards season, so it was a pleasure getting a peek inside his soul, if only for a minute or two.

Boyhood was the big winner of the night, taking home three awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Arquette, Best Director for Austin-based director Richard Linklater, who was born in Houston and graduated from Bellaire High School, and Best Picture, Drama.

Birdman seemed destined for a similar trio of awards after winning for Best Screenplay and Best Actor, but The Grand Budapest Hotel, from Wes Anderson, who was born in Houston and graduated from the St. John's School, surprisingly won for Best Picture, Comedy/Musical. Anderson gave a witty acceptance speech where he thanked voters from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association by their first names, with a lot of Helga's and Helmut's thrown in.

Other winners on the movie side included J.K. Simmons for Best Supporting Actor in Whiplash; Amy Adams for Best Actress, Comedy/Musical for Big Eyes; Eddie Redmayne for Best Actor, Drama in The Theory of Everything; and Julianne Moore for Best Actress, Drama in Still Alice.

On the television side, the Amazon series Transparent made a splash by winning Best Comedy/Musical and Best Actor for Jeffrey Tambor. Showtime’s The Affair won for Best Drama, and Ruth Wilson was honored as Best Actress.

Wes Anderson, in pink shirt, gave a witty acceptance speech after his film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, scored a surprise win.

Photo by Paul Drinkwater NBC

Wes Anderson, in pink shirt, gave a witty acceptance speech after his film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, scored a surprise win.

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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