Golden Doze...

The cancellation of the Golden Globes this year due to the WGA strike brought forth a revelation: this is how it should be done every year. No one really cares about the Golden Globes outside of Hollywood and media circles. Everyone likes to comment about how hammered Jack Nicholson gets, or how much of a dissident Sean Penn has become, or how 20% of American males have a man crush on George Clooney, or whose boobage looks best (or worst) stuffed into a million-dollar gown bedecked with a jillion dollars worth of diamonds on loan from a place that insists said diamonds aren't of the conflict variety. But ultimately, no one really gives a hoot past the following day of the broadcast, right? Once you've watched the girly show over at Today weigh in on all the particulars, and once you've done your own recap while waiting in line for skinny lattes at the corporate coffee boite with the one or two people in your cubicle farm who actually give a rat's ass, the Golden Globes fade into the nether regions of our memory, never to be accessed again (for instance, remember how Elizabeth Taylor seemed to have either shot up the Nighttrain or inhaled a tube of carpenter's glue before taking to the stage to announce Gladiator as winner back in 2001? Didn't think so).

When I say the ceremony should be reduced to a press conference from here on in, I'm not talking about the primetime NBC broadcast featuring Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell from Access Hollywood. Despite being a live event, the two couldn't keep up with the actual presser going on over at CNN. I had already seen Atonement win the Best Drama award, but NBC insisted on having a movie pundit try to handicap who might win, saying that No Country for Old Men was a virtual shoe-in. It was such a sorry display. The press conference had already been put to bed some 20 minutes prior, yet the producers of the NBC broadcast insisted on going the disingenuous route, seeming to not understand that those few people who took the time to watch would likely be flipping around from CNN to E! to TV Guide Channel to catch the real action in the live presser. Plus, when you think of excellence in motion pictures and television, you don't think of Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell.

The press conference route, especially in a time of war, puts things into perspective, I think. No one outside of H-Town is up in arms that they missed the traditional event -- not even a guy like me who used to eat this stuff up. Right now, people care about whether they can make the next payment on their house, or whether their son or daughter is safe out in the war zone, or whether the stumbling economy will result in the loss of their job, or, hell, the NY Giants versus the Dallas Cowboys.

Now, this may seem a little out of sorts, posting this quasi-rant on blog that focuses on movies. I love movies, I love TV. But I also think that the WGA fallout and how it has started to effect the business of TV and movies is ultimately a good thing, especially when it begins to have financial impact on the corporate entities that give the content creators short shrift for the sake of the almighty dollar. Might I sing a different tune if the Oscars end up as a press conference? Maybe, but only because I think the Oscars are more relevant than the Globes... but I suspect I won't be losing any sleep over it if a cancellation comes to fruition.