Remember this year’s Golden Globe Awards?
Hard to believe they were less than a month ago. Modern Family, Boardwalk Empire and The Social Network were the big winners, and Ricky Gervais — with his mean-spirited, low blow jokes — was the biggest loser.
Memories.
My ‘ah ha’ moment — or maybe it was more of a ‘say wha?’ — was Paul Giamatti’s win for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for a little-known movie called Barney’s Version (He beat out Kevin Spacey, Jake Gyllenhaal and two Johnny Depp nods in the process.)
So I decided to give it a look.
Here’s one thing the Hollywood Foreign Press got right. Giamatti is brilliant as Barney in a movie that spans four decades of his life, three marriages, and literally dozens of bad decisions. Whoever cast Dustin Hoffman as Barney’s father must be feeling pretty smug, too, because it was nothing short of inspired.
You can make fun of the Globes all day long and be perfectly justified. But that award alone, and the light it shone on this funny, sad, twisted, lovely film, atones for a multitude of sins.
If Barney’s Version hadn’t won a Globe, it would have no doubt languished on a couple of screens in New York and Los Angeles before calling it a day. Thanks to the Globes, you may get a chance to see it at a ‘theater near you.’
Everybody wins.
Cold justice
I was lucky enough to catch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on HBO over dinner tonight.
Such a wonderfully inventive story, and perhaps Jim Carrey’s most powerful and controlled performance.
As I watched, I questioned yet again why he didn’t win an Oscar…or even get nominated. So I used the Google machine to remind me — who did take the prize in 2005?
The Oscar nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role were:
Foxx took home the prize; it was no shock. His portrayal of the musical legend was spot-on. He sang and played the piano, too. I wasn’t a fan of the film, but of him, yes.
I concede defeat.
But I would argue that Carrey’s performance deserves to be on that list as much if not more than Leo. Or Johnny. In fact, the list would be stronger for it.
Isn’t it funny how quickly you can become bitter about something that happened 10 years ago?
(Imagine how Jim must feel.)
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Posted in Academy Awards, Commentary, Entertainment, Humor, Movies, Oscars
Tagged 2004 Oscars, Academy Awards, acting awards, Ben Kingsley, Best Actor, Bill Murray, bitter, cold justice, Cold Mountain, commentary, drama, entertainment, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, film, Google, Google machine, HBO, House of Sand and Fog, Humor, Jim Carrey, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Keith Richards, lost in translation, movie sequel, Movies, Mystic River, Oscar nomination, Oscar nominees, Oscars, parody, performance, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Sean Penn, showy, subtle