The 69th annual Golden Globe Awards presented their top honors to family drama “The Descendants” and the silent black-and-white film “The Artist.” Other mentionable winners were “Hugo,” “Midnight in Paris,” “The Help,” and TV greats “Homeland” and “Modern Family.”
The awards brought viewers laughs, some tears and some surprisingly dull moments by Ricky Gervais.
“Now the Hollywood Foreign Press have warned me that if I insult any of you, or any of them, or offend any viewers, or cause any catastrophe whatsoever, they’ll definitely invite me back next year as well,” said Gervais during the live telecast. “It’s so good having a job where you can get drunk and say what you want and they still pay you; it’s just amazing to me.”
If Gervais didn’t have a bad joke and a celebrities name in his mouth, then he had some sort of alcohol in his hands.
Nobody was off limits to Gervais’s self-proclaimed “large vocabulary” as he tried too hard to rouse controversy and poke fun at the movie industry’s finest. It was clear that Gervais’s third time hosting was not the charm as he fell short in delivering with his usual crude finesse.
Among some actual comical moments of the night was Meryl Streep leaving her glasses at the table, rendering her unable to read the teleprompter and her planned speech.
Michelle William’s performance in “My Week With Marilyn” won her the award for best actress in a musical or comedy. Williams was humbled knowing it was 52 years after Monroe herself won that very award.
Perhaps the most touching moment started with celebrated actors Sidney Poitier and Helen Mirren presenting the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award to Morgan Freeman. “If you do what you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life,” said 74-year-old Freeman.
The wins hope to boost the odds of nominees for the Oscars in late February.