Some Musings on the Golden Globes

The Golden Globes have been awarded and once again prove how completely out of touch I am with what is considered good film and television these days. Because I have no idea what half the nominated films and TV shows are and actively dislike the other half. In fact, I posted almost the same thing on the same event last year, so it’s a definite pattern.

That said, The Artist, which won best film and best actor in the comedy/musical category as well as best score, looks like a lovely film, which might even tempt me to see it in the cinema rather than wait for DVD/TV. And in this age of CGI and 3D, how can you not admire anybody brave enough to make a black and white silent film? Particularly since so many people flat out refuse to ever watch a silent film or even a black and white film, because they don’t grasp that the limitations were part of the art form.

I’m also happy that the Iranian film A Separation won the Golden Globe for the best foreign language film (The Artist, though French, apparently doesn’t count as a foreign language film, since it’s silent). Not because I am particularly interested in an Iranian divorce drama, though it won the Golden Bear and an acting award at last year’s Berlinale as well, but because winning international awards will protect the director, who is considered politically radical in his own country, from persecution. And besides, it’s good to see Hollywood set aside political prejudice (though the Golden Globes are awarded by the foreign press association i.e. not Americans) and give an award to a film from an “Axis of Evil” country.

Finally, I’m also pleased that Idris Elba won for his performance in Luther, a show I enjoyed very much (and he kicked some bloke from Downton Abbey out of the game, too), and that Peter Dinklage won for playing Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, because he’s awesome. And I like George Clooney a lot, though I don’t care for most of the films he makes, so I’m okay with him winning for a film I’ve never heard of. Besides, it’s better than Leonardo di Caprio taking home yet another award for playing yet another historical figure whose name begins with an H.

But the rest? It was probably inevitable that the grossly overrated Downton Abbey would take home an award, since I seem to be the only person in the universe who doesn’t like that Edwardian tripe. And while I’m pleased to see that British productions received quite a few nominations in the TV categories, they really couldn’t come up with something better to nominate than terminally dull fare like The Hour, Page 8 (both about journalists, print and TV respectively) or Appropriate Adult (I wouldn’t have thought it possible to make a dull film about the Fred and Rosemary West case, but apparently it is)?

The big American winner in the TV categories is something called Homeland which stars the quite likable Damian Lewis and the tolerable Claire Danes and yet doesn’t sound like something I would watch.

Finally, while I understand that given the high cancer rates in the US, American TV producers feel the need to make shows dealing with that reality and featuring protagonists with terminal cancer (Breaking Bad and The Big C respectively), I don’t understand why those protagonists have to be so damned unlikable that a regular viewer of either show is probably looking forward to their demise. What is more, this year’s Golden Globe awards, for which the stars of both shows were nominated, illustrate the perils of having a protagonist who’s dying from the first episode on. Because upon seeing both shows and their stars in the nomination list, my first reaction was, “Crap, that stuff is still running?” Because I’d thought the protagonists would have died long ago, given they each only had a few months to live at the start of their respective shows. So if you must make a show whose protagonist is terminally ill and dying, make it a miniseries and not an open ended multi-season drama.