Sunday, Jan. 13 was the loneliest, most boring day in Hollywood history.
Where all the hotels would ordinarily be buzzing with life and the restaurants full to the brim, Sunday you could hear a pin drop in Beverly Hills.
At the Beverly Hilton, where the Golden Globes were being given out, there was emptiness. No cars, no people, a little press, fewer people. All afternoon, tumbleweeds could have blown across Merv Griffin Way. There was that much space. At one point, a young couple riding bikes with yellow baskets pedaled up the circular drive way. No one stopped them. There was no reason.
On a regular Golden Globes day, the red carpet would take up the whole drive, security would be overzealous and members of the Hollywood Foreign Press would be overdressed and underqualified.
Instead, we were left with the brisk but basically inane presentation on the E! Channel. Ben Lyons, the much-too-young son of veteran movie critic Jeffrey Lyons, said a lot of crazy things. Ryan Seacrest looked bored. Kristin, the wildly loud co-anchor who must stop screaming like Crazy Eddie, seemed typically overcaffeinated and just ready for electroshock on the subject of TV shows. I mean, honestly, no one can care that much if David Duchovny beat Alec Baldwin, can they?
It took a little less than 30 minutes to present all the Globe winners. I am hopeful this set a precedent. Maybe next year they can do it in 20 minutes! It was simple, clean and efficient. I like that it ended with the heavily accented, elegant Mexican HFPA president Jorge Camara and that all the other HFPA members were hidden from view. It doesn’t matter that no one knows who Camara is or what he does.
The Globe choices were not especially different or interesting. In my Sunday column, I noted that both Miramax and Focus Features were the only studios to give the HFPA special dinner parties this week. So Miramax’s Julian Schnabel won Best Director and Focus’ “Atonement” won Best Drama. Coincidences! Schnabel, at least, made a perfect film with “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” He deserved it.
“Atonement” puts Focus back where it was two years ago, when “Brokeback Mountain” won the Globe but lost the Oscar to “Crash.” There’s a good chance this time that “Atonement” won’t even be nominated for an Oscar. The five Best Picture nominees for the Oscar, I think, will be “Sweeney Todd,” “Juno,” “No Country for Old Men,” “There Will Be Blood” and “Into the Wild.”
That the HFPA didn’t give Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild” one nomination other than Best Song speaks volumes. Insiders say the group of 80 simply detests Penn for not playing their game.
“He didn’t come when he won for 'Mystic River,' he doesn’t do their interviews or luncheons or take pictures with them,” a Penn intimate told me.
Nevertheless, the Academy will likely correct that situation. The Academy will also nominate Schnabel for Best Director. He will have strong competition from Paul Thomas Anderson, the Coens, Penn and, I think, Sidney Lumet. We’ll see.
And where is everyone while Hollywood stews with the Writers Guild strike and the TV networks play games? Well, Leonardo DiCaprio and his posse (Kevin Connolly, etc.) have apparently spent the last few nights at a new hotspot on Melrose called Villa.
Justin Timberlake — who wants to keep doing movies — came by limo the other night. Lindsay Lohan’s been hanging around the Beverly Hills Hotel. So has Russell Crowe, who enjoyed a tuna melt in the coffee shop Sunday.
They’d all be better served, frankly, on the picket lines at this point if they ever want to see this crisis resolved and the town that bends to their every whim back to work.
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