Gervais’ humor, few surprises define Golden Globes

Take away the red carpet, the elegant dresses and the A-list celebrities and the Golden Globes are revealed for what they really are: a base awards show that gives Hollywood one more shot to pat itself on the back. What is the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, exactly? Who runs this mysterious organization? Besides making the arbitrary judgments more commonly known as the Golden Globe Awards, what do HFPA members do? And more importantly, why do they matter?

Recently, this question has plagued many film and TV buffs. The list of 2011 Golden Globe nominees for Best Picture — including the critically panned “The Tourist,” starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie — was particularly puzzling, making befuddled movie enthusiasts (myself included) wonder if the film was only nominated because obscure HFPA journalists wanted the chance to mingle with Jolie and Depp at the big awards show.

Thank God for Ricky Gervais, who took this controversy and ran with it as host of the 2011 Globes. The British comedian used the host’s pulpit to roast both the HFPA and those lining up to receive their awards. Borderline offensive but utterly hilarious, Gervais breathed life and excitement into an awards ceremony devoid of any big surprises.

Gervais’ jokes provoked varied reactions from the audience. Some actors such as Christian Bale (or was that Jesus?) poked fun at the awards ceremony during their acceptance speeches, while Woody Allen and Tom Hanks used their time onstage to playfully decry Gervais’ heavy-handed humor.

For those who watch the Golden Globes for the awards, this year’s show was a disappointment. But those watching the ceremony for the drama were undoubtedly satisfied. While it is quite unlikely that Gervais will ever be allowed to host the awards show again (in recent news articles, Gervais acknowledges that his over-the-top performance is unlikely to win him more hosting invitations), I am eternally grateful that he went out with a bang. ­—Alec Brodsky

Best of Film

“The Social Network” dominated the Golden Globe Awards Sunday night, earning the Best Motion Picture Drama prize as well as awards for its direction, screenwriting and musical score.

Although the Golden Globes don’t carry the critical clout of the Academy Awards, they are generally considered a good predictor of Oscar success. With its wins at the Golden Globes and positive critical reception, we can certainly expect to hear the score of “The Social Network” throughout the night of Sunday, Feb. 23 during the Academy Awards.

Described by Rolling Stone Magazine as “the film that defined a generation,” the movie is indeed impressive — well written, visually brilliant and scored fantastically. As writer Aaron Sorkin said when accepting his screenwriting award, director David Fincher managed to make computers interesting by using fast-paced scenes and sharp, witty dialogue.

But does “The Social Network” define a generation? For a film to do so, it must transcend its profit motive to express the mood of the times. People watching “The Social Network” decades from now should be able to have an idea of what it was like to live in the early 21st century, just as we can understand the angst and alienation of teenagers in the 1950s when we watch the classic “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955).

Our generation — which has matured in the era of computers, a financial crisis on Wall Street and the threat of terrorist attacks — can be defined by its individualism and rogue entrepreneurship in a quickly globalizing world. In that sense, “The Social Network” comes pretty close to putting on screen what it means to be right here, right now.

While “The Social Network” beat out serious competition like “The King’s Speech” for its Best Motion Picture Drama award, the winners for the best performance in a dramatic picture were fairly easy to predict. For drama, Colin Firth took the Globe for “The King’s Speech” and Natalie Portman won for “Black Swan.” Both actors were predicted favorites, although Jesse Eisenberg’s performance in “The Social Network” and Nicole Kidman’s delivery in “Rabbit Hole” posed a real threat.

In comedy, the race was a bit more contested, with “The Kids are Alright” triumphing over Tim Burton’s fantastical “Alice in Wonderland.”

In the best performance category, Annette Bening beat out her co-star, Julianne Moore, while Paul Giamatti’s performance in “Barney’s Version” won out over Johnny Depps’ performances in “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Tourist.” ­—Gavin Huang & Jackie Donohoe

Best of TV

For the most part, the Golden Globes results for television turned out as critics and viewers had expected. It came as no surprise, for example, that the critically lauded “Boardwalk Empire” snagged the Best Television Series Drama award. It is notable, though, that “Boardwalk Empire” beat out “Mad Men,” which had won the award for the past three years.

Steve Buscemi, the star of “Boardwalk Empire,” took home the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series Drama, while Katey Sagal from “Sons of Anarchy” won the prize for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series Drama.

As anticipated by many critics, “Glee” won the trophy for Best Television Series Comedy or Musical, beating out popular critical hits like “Mad Men,” “30 Rock” and “Nurse Jackie.” Even more impressive, a few of the actors on “Glee” gained recognition for their performances in supporting roles.

For the second year running, Jane Lynch took home the award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for her part as the malicious cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, while Chris Colfer won the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for his much praised portrayal of gay teen Kurt Hummel.

The mini-series “Carlos” — which tells the life story of a Venezuelan terrorist — won in the category of Best Mini-Series Or Motion Picture Made for Television. ­—Sydney Ayers

Taylor Swift's 'Back To December' Video Extends Her Apology

Long before Taylor Swift released the video for "Back to December," everyone was clamoring for clues about who she was singing to in the breakup ballad. And still, the dark-haired character in the video could represent any one of her recent exes. Swift has always made it clear that though she sings about her life, she never names names, but she did talk to MTV News about writing an apology song, which she explained was a first for her.

"I've never felt the need to apologize in a song before, but in the last two years I've experienced a lot, [including] a lot of different kinds of learning lessons," Taylor told us last year, just before the release of Speak Now. "And sometimes you learn a lesson too late and at that point you need to apologize because you were careless."

In the chorus, she sings, "So this is me swallowing my pride/ Standing in front of you saying I'm sorry for that night And I'd go back to December all the time/ It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you/ Wishing that I'd realized what I had when you were mine."

Many have guessed that the tune is about her breakup with "Twilight" star Taylor Lautner. Whoever it is, Swift felt her former paramour deserved a musical mea culpa.

"Well, I've always sort of written songs about situations in life, things that needed to be said," she told E! back in October. "I write songs about people who deserve to have songs written about them, and whatever they need to hear, whatever is the right thing to say to that person, ends up being said."

While Swift may have been careless toward the guy she's writing about on the song, she's admitted he was nothing but a gentleman. "This is about a person who was incredible to me, just perfect to me in a relationship," she said. "And I was really careless with him."

Piers Morgan Still Upset About Madonna Pregnancy Lie

Newsman PIERS MORGAN is still sore about missing out on MADONNA's pregnancy scoop when he was a British tabloid editor - and that's one of the reasons why he's banned the pop superstar from his much-anticipated new CNN talk show.

The tough hack-turned-TV personality will debut his hard-hitting new show on Monday (17Jan11) after replacing CNN's Larry King on air and he has made it clear Madonna is not welcome as a guest.

Until now, he has refused to go into detail regarding his feelings towards Madonna, insisting he just finds the Material Girl "irritating" and "boring" - but now he's revealing more.

In an interview with news show Access Hollywood, Morgan explains, "Madonna and I, we've never really seen eye-to-eye. There was a bread roll throwing incident in London in the mid '90s; there was an incident at a hotel in the south of France (at) the Cannes Film Festival involving a photographer and a bodyguard; there's been an incident involving a pub owned by her recently departed husband, Guy Ritchie, where my brother was the manager."

But it was a pregnancy lie that really riled Morgan.

He adds, "Madonna's publicist once said to me, 'Listen to me, Madonna is not pregnant,' when I was running a newspaper. And I said, 'Are you sure?' She said, 'Listen to me, Piers. Madonna is not pregnant'.
"The next day, they announced (the news) on a rival newspaper's website."

Britney Spears Breaks Radio Records, Rumored To Perform At Grammys

It's been a big Tuesday (January 11) for Britney Spears. As her single, "Hold It Against Me," became available for purchase on iTunes, it shot to #1 on the site and broke radio records.

According to a press release from Jive Records, the tune, from Brit's March album, broke all previous records for the most spins in the first day of release, according to radio-industry analyst Kevin McCabe. The song had 619 spins at Mediabase on Monday, and at BDS, she had a record-making 595 first- or one-day spins.

"Top 40 outlets across the country immediately put 'Hold It Against Me' in rotation and received instant-reaction airplay at America's most-influential stations, including Z100 and WXRK in New York and KIIS and KAMP in Los Angeles," McCabe said in a statement.

"When I originally heard it in December, it blew me away from the first listen, and the same thing happened when we played it on Elvis Duran's morning show [Monday]; our Facebook and Twitter pages exploded," Sharon Dastur, program director at New York's Z100, told MTV News on Monday. "People are going crazy for it. They heard the leaked version and loved it, and now they're loving the official version too. I can see it being another huge hit for her."

As if that weren't big enough news for the singer, she's also rumored to be performing at the Grammy Awards next month. A rep for the show had not responded to MTV News' request for comment, but a rep for the singer did respond to Perez Hilton, who originally reported the rumor. "We have not confirmed a performance at the Grammys at this time," the rep told Hilton.

If the performance does happen, a source told Perez that the singer "has been rehearsing for weeks and it's gonna be a truly great performance!"

Lady GaGa and Polaroid partner on Camera Sunglasses

Polaroid asked for Lady GaGa’s help on some product designs and developed a pair of picture taking sunglasses.  Oh sure, there were the average run of the mill items like a special thermal color printer and a digital camera that prints pictures, but the sunglass camera is the ultimate in unique fashion/photo wear.

Lady GaGa was named Polaroid’s Creative Director a year ago.  Since then, she designed a series of products called the Grey Label line which includes the GL20 Camera Sunglasses, GL10 Instant Mobile Printer and GL30 Instant Digital Camera.  The most intriguing of the three is of course, the GL20 Camera Sunglasses.

The GL20 will allow you to take pictures and videos with a camera embedded in the frame in the nose piece.  Each lens over an eye contains an LCD screen so that you can display your pictures and videos instantly to those around you.

The arm of the sunglasses is also a USB drive.  You can plug the arm into your computer, digital photo screen or other device to download and display them at a later date.  You can also send the pictures via Bluetooth to a Bluetooth enabled printer like the GL10 Instant Mobile Printer.  The GL10 will print up to 40 pictures per charge and 10 pictures per film cartridge.

The printer uses special ZINK technology and ZINK Photo Paper that has a gazillion tiny tiny ink dots that are activated by heat by the printer.  This modern thermal paper uses many of the same principles as the old thermal printers but the color images last much longer.

"The ZINK Paper® is an advanced composite material with cyan, yellow, and magenta dye crystals embedded inside and a protective polymer overcoat layer outside. Before printing, ZINK Paper looks like regular white photo paper. 

Through an advanced manufacturing process, the ZINK® color forming layers are coated as a colorless thin multi-layer "stack" onto a base layer. The total thickness of all the layers combined is about the thickness of a single human hair. The cyan, magenta, and yellow crystal layers are colorless at room temperature and are activated by heat during the printing process to create color."

The amazing thing about all of this is that you can walk around taking pictures everywhere you go simply by wearing sunglasses that function as both eye protection and a camera.  Depending on who you are with, or what you plan to do with the pictures, you can either save them until you get back to a computer, download them to a phone or tablet that you have with you or pull the printer out of your pocket and print a few to hand around for your next drink.

The GL20 Camera Sunglasses are futuristic in appearance and function.  Can you imagine people walking around in sunglasses who are also displaying pictures and movies on the lenses?  Just imagine Mr. Smith in the movie Matrix with a pair.

Oh no, tell me it isn’t true. Will Price and Reid split? Will Reid’s celebrity status deflate – just like popping a pin in an inflated bazooka. How does it feel to walk around with two massive soccer balls on your chest? Will all be revealed? Clear the diary! I wait with baited breath for this announcement.

Katie Price & Alex Reid To Announce Marriage Split?

Katie Price may be about to make a B.I.G. announcement.

British glamour model Price, aka Jordan, aka massive bazookas that could sink a battleship with one swerve of the hips and who needs a mantelpiece when you have a chest like that, may have some breaking news.

Price got hitched to cage-fighter Alex Reid less then a year ago. Word at the water cooler says their marriage is kaput. The Daily Mail reports that the couple’s publicists are ready to announce a marriage split.

Quoting a Sun article, the Mail says, “The announcement is a formality. The truth is the marriage has been dead for months. They just never got on once the spotlight disappeared and they were left with the dull reality of their relationship.

“They just rushed into it hoping for the best and it has all gone pear-shaped. Alex is more depressed about it than she is. She was his meal ticket, and he knows it.”

The pair wed in April 2010. They tied the knot again in Vegas, whilst filming ITV2 reality show Katie & Alex: For Better For Worse. And how long had they been dating? A very long six months. Before the wedding, Price appeared on I’m a Celebrity Get Me out of Here. She famously dumped Reid during the filming of that cataclysmic television show.

Price recently confirmed that her marriage is in trouble, taking to Twitter days after a News Of The World story, which said the couple were heading fro Splitsville.

She tweeted: “To answer my fans questions news of the world did a accurate story sunday about our marriage in crises – always look on bright side [sic].”