The Golden Globes, 2011

January 17, 2011January 23, 2011 / Jared / 1 Comment

We warmed up earlier this month with the People’s Choice Awards, but now Awards Season begins in earnest with the Golden Globes. By the way, People’s Choice Awards, you may need to reassess your existence if you’re nothing more than an unnoticed ramp-up to the ridiculous disaster that is the Golden Globes. And I’m sure you noticed that I didn’t even bother with you, Critics’ Choice Awards.

As per the usual, my wife Johanna and I will be competing in a winner-picking competition. We’ve done this for nine award shows and I’ve beaten her eight times. Her one win? Last year’s Golden Globes. That doesn’t bode well for me tonight; I suspect her tendency to make at least one or two crazy choices really helps her because of the general goofiness of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

She wants the win, too. You guys should have seen her agonizing over her ballot! I thought she was going to have a breakdown making her picks. She also had to fulfill her role as award show bartender. In honor of the foreign voters and the drunken, vaguely trashy vibe of the evening, she’s whipped us up a wine spritzer with equal parts Chardonnay, Sprite Zero, and Diet Orange Fanta. As she set it down in front of me she said, “These are relatively disgusting, BTW,” but I’m enjoying mine so far. She’s calling it the “Slutty Exchange Student” and assures me that she’s working on a second concoction for later this evening.

All right, let’s get started. As always, categories and winners in bold. Take it away, Ricky Gervais!

8:01 – Here’s Ricky! As I said last year, I think he’s perfect for this job, mostly because he doesn’t seem to care much about offending people and he doesn’t seem stiff and over-prepared. I’m looking forward to it.

His drinking a beer on stage thing is starting to feel like a gimmick, though.

8:04 – The audience has definitely warmed to him since last year. He’s getting more laughs from the famous people up front. Robert De Niro is certainly enjoying himself.

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The People’s Choice Awards, 2011

January 6, 2011February 17, 2011 / Jared / 3 Comments

2011 has begun and another awards season is here, and we all know what that means; Johanna and I must resume our award show winner-picking competition. If you’re sensing a lack of enthusiasm on my part, that’s due to the fact that tonight we’re starting with The People’s Choice Awards.

I don’t know about you, but I was under the apparently false impression that this was a real award show. I mean, I knew from the title that it was voted on by the “people,” so the actual winners are inevitably going to be terrible. That’s no excuse for the list of nominees, though. No real award show in 2010 has any reason to nominate Jackie Chan for anything, right? The categories themselves don’t even make sense. Two of the TV show categories are “Favorite TV Obsession” and “Favorite TV Guilty Pleasure” and the nominees for both seem pretty interchangeable. And Mad Men apparently doesn’t qualify as either an “Obsession” or a “Guilty Pleasure.” At least we finally get to vote for our “Favorite TV Doctor.”

I’m having trouble even figuring out who the target audience for this show is. This is key, because since this is a winner-picking competition, I need to know what type of person was doing the voting. So, judging from the nominees, this is basically the MTV VMAs/Movie Awards except it’s aimed at the dorkier tweens and teens. Also, there is probably a lonely housewife factor that I need to consider. Noted.

If you’ve been keeping score at home you’ll remember that I pretty handily trounced Johanna in the 2010 competition. Of the eight award shows we’ve done this for, I won seven of them. It’s a new year, though, so we’re wiping the slate clean and giving her a chance to redeem herself. Let’s get started. As always, categories and winners in bold.

9:00 – No one told me this was hosted by Queen Latifah. Although, to be fair, no one said anything about this show to me at all, ever.

9:02 – She’s opening with a cover of “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz. This is officially Johanna’s favorite opening to an award show. I’m busy scanning the audience to see how many celebrities are actually in attendance to try to see what I’ve gotten myself into.

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The Emmys, 2010

August 30, 2010November 12, 2010 / Jared / 1 Comment

Here we are again. Another award show, another winner-picking competition between me and my new wife, Johanna. And after slogging through a few shows that, while fun, were ultimately inconsequential (The ESPYs, The Daytime Emmys, and the MTV Movie Awards) we finally have a big one: The Emmys.

This has traditionally been my award show of choice; I’ve always been more of a television guy than a movie guy, I guess. Plus, I don’t usually get around to seeing many of the nominated films before the Oscars, whereas I’m always pretty invested in the Emmys and opinionated about the categories. It feels like the recent golden age of television has faded a bit, and my interest has waned slightly, but this remains my favorite masturbatory Hollywood event.

Tonight is big for Johanna, too. My friend Alex, in anticipation of tonight’s competition, asked me if Johanna had won any of these. I quickly said that yes, she had. While I knew I had taken the last few, I thought we were actually pretty even. Having gone back to check, though, I’m surprised to report that I won The Grammys, The Academy Awards, The MTV Movie Awards, The Daytime Emmys, and The ESPYs, with Johanna only claiming the Golden Globes, the first one of these we did. I’m up five to one! She needs a win. In preparation, she’s been scouring the internet for expert predictions.

As always, we choose for the most part whom we think will win, not whom we want to win. Never is that more true than with the Emmys; trust me, I’m no fan of The Good Wife or, heaven forbid, Glee. Categories and winners are in bold. Johanna has concocted an Emmy cocktail containing peach vodka, Sprite Zero, and a splash of grenadine. She’s named it the “Leading Lady.” It’s better, both in name and taste, than the drink she fixed us for the Daytime Emmys. Let’s do this.

7:41 – Taco night is over, the red carpet has begun, and I’m filling out my ballot. All of these interviews are so unbelievably awkward and cringe-worthy. I instinctively reach for the mute button.

8:00 – Here we go. We’re opening with a shot of the director’s booth. This is such an ego move; it’s like they think we’ll assume the show was put together by elves if they don’t show themselves. Johanna just thinks it’s hacky and compares it to starting a school paper with a Webster’s definition.

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The Golden Globes, 2010

January 18, 2010January 17, 2011 / Jared / 4 Comments

Ah, The Golden Globes, a time for dressing up and drinking single malt Scotch.

Johanna and I were on a big delay for the event, due to other activities, and also due to the fact that we wanted to be able to fast-forward through all of the commercials. Just as we were sitting down to start it I got a text from my friend Mike that, while ruining one of the winners for me, gave me the idea of (not really live) live-blogging the event. So thanks, Mike! Here are my thoughts, along with exciting updates about my winner-picking competition with Johanna (all times listed are Eastern Time Zone, and not when I actually watched it; not only did we start it late, I had to pause it every ten minutes or so to try to find the mouse that we keep hearing in our kitchen).

8:00-8:04 – A nice open from Ricky Gervais. Even if I weren’t such a big fan of his I would applaud his selection as host. He’s exactly what these things need, someone who has no interests to protect and no problem poking fun. His jokes seem to be hitting with the audience, but it’s almost like it’s canned laughter or something, because the wide shots of the big stars up front aren’t revealing too many smiles. Maybe the laughter is coming from the people in the back. Hollywood, as always, taking itself too seriously.

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