As I periodically note here, some days I just get worn out and don't have it in me to write anything about the Trump-created hell hole, even if it concerns the Democratic debate, or the release of private texts from Trump's personal lawyer, the henchmen he worked with and members of the administration team which underscored the threats to our nation's own ambassador and that Trump was all involved with this as a personal matter.

Quick side note:  as much as the texts suggest that the threats to Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch could conceivably have been life-threatening, and as much as I understand why they had to be treated that way, I don't think that they were, actually, threats on her life.  Never mind that the GOP Congressional candidate Robert Hyde who was communicating appears to have a history as a crass, pompous blowhard who it's hard to imagine would have contacts with Ukrainian assassins.  More to the point, given that the texts were willingly handed over to the F.B.I by Parnas himself, it seems improbable that he would do so if he was involved with a planned assassination of a U.S. official.

And a quick side note on the debate:  I watched for about a half-hour, was glad that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders seemed to get past the silly controversy about whether or not he ever told her that a woman couldn't be elected president -- though I'm sure their supporters won't let it die -- I thought it was all very dull since the candidates seemed tense, not wanting to screw up anything just days before the election.

Okay, so those are the quick side notes.

Instead I thought I'd write about some fluffery, in this case related to the Oscar nominations.  Mind you, as I write this, I don't know what the nominations were.  I'll check them out at some point.  But I have an addendum to a very good piece that my pal Mark Evanier wrote here on his site.

The short version is that someone had written him all frenetic that Little Women had received a Best Picture nomination, but not one for Best Director, and how in the world could this injustice possibly be?!  Mark explained (at more detailed length) that a) two different groups vote for those two categories, and b) there were nine nominations for Best Picture but only five for Best Director.  So by pure math, there had to be at a minimum four directors of a Best Picture nominee who couldn't get a Best Director nomination.

At its foundation, Mark's excellent explanation is all that you needed to know to answer the question.  There was one additional point that I thought should also be addressed which I think (especially as a screenwriter) is important --

When Academy directors are voting on Best Director, they are looking obviously at the direction and the direction only.
 
When Academy members are voting are Best Picture, they are looking at the direction…and the writing -- and acting, and editing, music, costuming, production design and how it was all produced.  So, the voters are looking at two totally different things.  A film can be wonderfully directed but just not interesting on several levels.  Or be just professionally directed though no more than that, but be a wonderful experience overall
 
I always like to point out two movies, released around the same time.  The 1982 film One from the Heart was one of the most inventively-directed and well-produced movies, but so boring to audiences and flopping so hugely that Francis Ford Coppola (who financed the film himself) lost his studio.  Two years earlier, The Gods Must Be Crazy from South Africa, shot on a shoestring budget was a terribly-made, jumble of an amateurishly-made movie with disjointed jump cuts that was a total, utter, unabashed joy and such a big hit that it spawned a sequel
 

Today's guest contestant on the 'Not My Job' segment of the NPR game quiz show Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! is Jennifer Lee, the co-writer/co-director of Frozen and its sequel, and now Chief Creative Officer of Disney Animation.  Her interview with host Peter Sagal (for whom she has a very funny surprise) is wildly enthusiastic and great fun, full of stories and her clear pleasure at being on the show.

Yes, it's that time again.  I posted this last year -- and have, in fact, posted it annually, here and on the Huffington Post, where it initially appeared in 2007, for the past 13 years.  So, with the Golden Globes broadcast set for tomorrow night, here we go again.

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                     The PreCurse of the Golden Globes Rides Again

'​​Tis the season for awards - and that means on Sunday it was time to read and hear (repeatedly) how the Golden Globes matter because they are "precursors to the Oscars," remarkable for their mystical ability to predict the Academy Awards. Of course, if you repeat any mantra enough, people will believe almost anything But then reality rears its pesky head and gets in the way.

Indeed, the dirty little secret about the Golden Globes is that they're the biggest flim-flam scam on the American public today. Okay, other than "Mitt Romney is a far-right conservative."

(And one of the main reasons that keeps it such a "secret" is because most people don't have the slightest clue who in the world the Hollywood Foreign Press is that gives these awards. That's a little sending a congratulations gift to someone who was named "Man of the Year" and not realizing that the honor was given by an online website that sends out the certificates for $18.)

I have absolutely no idea who "won" what last night. Alas, the depth of human caring simply doesn't stretch that low. Mind you, it's not because they're just awards - hey, awards are entertainment, and can be as fun as anything. It's because the Golden Globes are to awards what a Black Hole is to French toast. There's no connection, but at least with French toast you can pour on syrup and not have human existence sucked out of the universe.

When someone said, "The show must go on," clearly the Golden Globes hadn't been invented yet.

Four years ago, I wrote about the Golden Globes, and because they keep coming back unrelentingly like a crazed zombie, I updated and edited it a year later. And now it's become a bit of an annual tradition, the same as one calls in a gardener to stop the crab grass from spreading any further. Because the foolish hype gets more out of control each year - and since if I saw someone crossing the street into an oncoming truck I'd always yell to stop - I figure it's worth revisiting that piece.

​Until recently the Globes were so comatose that even a new health care system couldn't have diagnosed them to life. But three things changed: movie studios realized they could get massive free publicity. Television recognized that if celebrities attended, people would watch anything. And actors grasped they'd get to appear on TV and receive awards. It was the Holy Trinity of PR.

Before even attempting to dismiss or defend the Golden Globes, however, it's important to understand what exactly what it is. And it starts with a bit of flim-flammery.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which presents the Golden Globes, has always had only one thing going for it - an incredible-sounding name. That name comes across like A-list journalists in trenchcoats from Paris Match, Die Welt and the Neptune Gazette. In fact, however, the HFPA, while representing many fine, individual, full-time reporters, is largely comprised of stringers (part-timers whose day job is other than journalism). And many are neither foreign, nor active in the press. Membership is whimsical: some get permanent status; others are inexplicably refused even entry. (The London Times is not a member. A reporter from the renowned Le Monde has been turned down for years. Happily there is a representative from the movie hotbed of Bangladesh. Honest.)

Yes, of course, movie awards are utterly pointless to all human life forms, except the winners. It's just faflooey. Nothing more than fluff. And the Globes are the fluff on top of the fluff. But before dismissing them further, remember: around 20 million viewers tune in to the Golden Globes. If that many people are going to spend their time on Earth watching the circus, it's at least nice to know who sent in the clowns.

And that's the kicker. At last count, the Globes are voted on by just...get this...86 people. Yes, you read that correctly. 86. For comparison, the Oscars, Emmys, and Writers Guild/Directors Guild/SAG awards are each voted on by about 6,000 professionals of their respective industries.

The good news is that with only 86 people voting it cuts down on the hanging-chad problem.

Any club is entitled to give awards. But most don't get to take over three hours of prime time on national network television.

The history of the Golden Globes is peppered with so many scandals about buying awards that Frequent Shopper points should be instituted. The most famous is when Pia Zadora's then-husband gave lavish parties to the HFPA, and she won New Star of the Year - for the ridiculed disaster Butterfly. For the 2000 Awards Sharon Stone's representative sent gold watches to all then-82 voters. Only after this became a public embarrassment was the plunder returned. And Ms. Stone received a best actress nomination for The Muse.

But the big myth about the Golden Globes - indeed their one false hope to even a wisp of validity - is that they are an impeccable predictor of the Academy Awards.

(Why anyone cares about predicting the Oscars is another matter entirely.)

But the reality is - the Golden Globes as a "Precursor to the Oscars" is not only not close to true, it's worse than not close to true. Which is near-impossible.

Keep in mind that six of the 13 Globe categories are split into drama and musical-comedy - which allows for twice as many chances to be "right." Some categories have had as many as nine nominees. People watching at home eating cheese dip probably get half the Oscar winners right by pure guessing. (My mother correctly predicted Philip Seymour Hoffman's win, and she hadn't even seen Capote at the time.) Yet it's almost impressive how wrong the Globes are at "precursing."

Last year, the Golden Globes did well in all the acting categories, picking all four winners (keeping in mind that they give twice as many acting awards as the Oscars, so they have twice as many chances to be right). But they got Best Picture wrong, Best Director wrong, Best Screenplay wrong, and Best Foreign Language Picture wrong.

Going back to the year before, here are all the Golden Globe categories.

Best Picture (drama) - right
Best Picture (comedy) - wrong, not even nominated for an Oscar.
Best Actor (drama) - wrong
Best Actor (comedy) - wrong, not even nominated for an Oscar.
Best Actress (drama) - right
Best Actress (comedy) - wrong, not even nominated for an Oscar
Best Supporting Actor - right
Best Supporting Actress - wrong, not nominated for an Oscar.
Best Director - right
Best Screenplay - right, but the Oscar-winner for Original Screenplay wasn't nominated by the Golden Globes
Best Foreign Language Film - wrong
Best Animated Feature - right
Best Score - right
Best Song - wrong, not nominated for an Oscar.

It is unlikely that these results over the past two years would win your office pool. If you want to be considered a precursor, that would seem to be the minimum requirement.

And these were both pretty good years for the Golden Globes.

In 2006, the Oscar for Best Picture was Crash. The Golden Globes didn't even nominate it among their 10 finalists!

It becomes scary bad when you delve deeper. But having a limit on my Care-o-Meter, with zero interest to go back and check year-after-every-year, I decided to try an experiment. To be very clear, there is absolutely nothing even remotely scientific about it. Rather, it's the testing equivalent of throwing darts. No scientific meaning. Just picking a totally random year. But in its randomness, it has a separate meaning: it could have been any year.

I closed my eyes, pointed at the screen blindly and grabbed a year. The lucky winner was 2001. It looked good - it even had the name of a movie ("2001") about it. Alas, "lucky winner" turned out to be a contradiction.

The Globe winner in 2001 for Best Picture musical/comedy (Almost Famous) wasn't even nominated for the Oscar. The two Golden Globe winners for Best Actor were Tom Hanks and George Clooney. Swell actors, but the Oscar went to Russell Crowe (Gladiator) - and Globe-winner Clooney didn't even get an Oscar nomination.

Renee Zellwegger (Nurse Betty) won the Globe's Best Actress, musical/comedy. Alas, she didn't get nominated for an Oscar either.

It gets worse.

For supporting actress, Marcia Gay Harden won the Academy Award...but didn't even receive a Globe nomination.

In fairness, that was a random choice and therefore hardly definitive, as I said. Not proof of anything. Unfortunately, to be fair, I figured I'd at least go back one more year, and the results were as dismal. The year before, in 2000, the Golden Globes gave their two Best Actor awards to Denzel Washington and Jim Carrey - but the Oscar winner was Kevin Spacey (and Carrey wasn't nominated). Tom Cruise won the Globe for Supporting Actor - but Michel Caine got the Oscar. And remarkably, although there were nine Globe nominees for Best Original Score, their winner didn't even get nominated by the Academy, and the Oscar winner (The Red Violin) wasn't nominatedby the Globes!!

Not good as far as precursors go.

Certainly, other years may show better results. Or...okay, maybe not. But the bottom line is not whether the Golden Globes are right some years or really wrong others. It's that if you're doing to be a "precursor," if you're going to be predictive, then you have to have a steady standard that can be relied upon. Every single year. And the only thing steady about the Golden Globes is that they do not "predict" anything. Set that in granite and plant the gravestone, once and for all.

All this said, this year the Golden Globes actually do have a reason to watch. Ricky Gervais is hosting again. It's why God created the DVR and fast-forward button.

Of course, underlying all of this is that the Golden Globes or Oscars are all just awards. They have no real meaning, except to those who win. For the rest of the planet, they're just entertainment. Still, even entertainment is more substantive when we value those behind it. There's a reason TV doesn't broadcast your office pool.

Further, for as little meaning that all awards shows have (including those given out by an industry to itself), the reality is that people watch the broadcasts. And they watch them because there's a perception - as in the Emmys, Tonys, Grammys and Oscars - that the people giving the awards know what they're doing. It's a perception the Golden Globes have falsely milked for decades, scamming the public.

In the end, for those who insist on watching the Golden Globes, watch them and accept them for what they are, and you can live in blissful peace - 86 members of a shaky organization that stumbled onto a goldmine with studios and networks, and who present a lively TV kegger.

And that's why Globe winners appear so goofy on the air. Because they understand what you now know. Everyone loves a good joke.


UPDATE:

One day after writing this above, Patrick Goldstein in the L.A. Times, wrote an articleabout a story broken by The Wrap about the longtime, former publicist of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association suing the organization.

"Michael Russell, who ran press for the show for 17 years, has charged the HFPA with fraud and corrupt practices. He claims that a number of members of the organization accepted money, vacations and gifts from studios in exchange for nominating their films in addition to selling media credentials and red carpet space for gifts. He also says the HFPA accepted payment from studios and producers for lobbying other members for award nominations."

On this edition of 3rd and Fairfax, the official podcast of the Writers Guild of America, the guest is screenwriter Charles Randolph whose credits include The Big Short (for which he won an Oscar for co-writing) and Love & Other Drugs.  This week, he talks about his new film Bombshell, about the “Fox News” sex scandal that ended Roger Ailes’ career.
 

No, that's not just a holiday greeting, but something else entirely.  Let me explain...

I’ve remembered to mention this a few times previously, but usually less than a week before Christmas.  So I wanted to be sure to bring it up well in advance this year.  And that's recommend one of my favorite, little-known holiday films, Joyeux Noel. It was nominated for a 2005 Best Foreign Language Oscar, based on a true story in WWI.   Since the holiday is still three weeks away, that should give folks time to perhaps get it from Netflix or whatever online service you subscribe to before the season is out.  Though it's great any time of the year.

I really thought Joyeux Noel should have won the Best Foreign Language Oscar they year it was nominated, but the award that year went to a South African movie, Tsotsi.  That was quite good, but for my own taste Joyeux Noel stood out as a substantially better film.  Tsotsi told an important story, in an important country at an important time in its history.  And it told its story well, though it wasn't special filmmaking.  I suspect its "importance" helped a lot.  But Joyeux Noel was just...joyous.  And wonderful.  And beautifully made.

The film tells a fictionalized version of a famous story you may have heard -- how in World War I, four armies faced each other on Christmas Eve, ready for battle, but among themselves decided to call a truce for that one night.  The movie isn't just "feel good," there's a great deal of drama and intense tension, and it's all told superbly.

It was also the first movie I'd seen Diane Kruger in, though I didn't realize it at the time, since she wasn't a well-known star in the U.S. then.  She plays an opera singer, and interestingly her singing is dubbed by a soprano who was one of my folks very favorite, Natalie Dessay.

(I should note for those wary of foreign language films that one of the armies at the crossroads is British, so a good part of the movie is in English.)

Here's the trailer.  It doesn't remotely give a sense of the rich, especially-tense drama at stake and tends more to focus on the warmth, coming across like nothing more than a feel-good movie of the holiday season.  It's much more than that.  But you should at least get an idea of it all, most especially how exceedingly well-crafted the movie is.

By the way, here's a link to it on Netflix, by clicking here.  You'll note that it has four stars -- and a 7.8 rating on iMDB.  On Rotten Tomatoes, the critic rating is a high 74%...but the audience rating is even higher, at 89%.  So I'm not alone on this...

​

A year ago, almost to the day, I wrote here about a remarkable documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, directed by Peter Jackson who made the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.  It used black-and-white footage of World War I, and with new technology cleaned up the film, corrected the speed, colorized it in the most-natural way I've seen, converted to 3D, and brought in lip-sync experts to determine what the soldiers were saying and dubbed in voices, among other tech advances.  The end result was superb.

The film has been playing on HBO for a while, so you may have seen it there.  It's very good -- but terrific as it is on TV, the full version seen as intended and on a big screen is something else entirely.  And if you haven't seen it at all or only seen it on TV, you'll have another chance to see it "properly."

The film is returning to theaters on December 7, 17 and 18.  (The latter date is exactly one year after my article about having seen the documentary.

Better still, it will include the great "making of" featurette, about 20-30 minutes which fascinatingly explains how it all was done.  Plus, there is an introduction by Peter Jackson.
 
If you have interest in seeing this special theatrical version -- and again, it's remarkable, and also has the "making of" production -- you can check this link here for your zip code and find where it will be playing. 

Here's a brief trailer.  It doesn't begin to do the documentary anything close to justice -- but -- it gives you a touch of an idea of how unique this is.​

The guest on this week's 3rd and Fairfax pocast from the Writers Guild of America is writer-director-actor Edward Norton who talks about his career and current film, the excellent Motherless Brooklyn for which he wore all three hats, writing, directing and starring in .

Yesterday, I saw one of those short TV ads with a video that ends with "To see more, go to..." and then gives a URL address to see the full video online.  Usually, I don't follow-up on such things.  This one, however, was near-impossible not to.

I don't want to give out why or anything about the video.  The surprise is too much of a fun "Yipes, wow!!!" thing.  The only thing I'll say is that this is SO weird because I have no idea how or why the company -- Xfinity -- got permission to from the rights holders to do this.  They've been pretty protective for over 35 years.  In the end, this is like a trailer for a sequel to one of the most famous movies ever made, with some of the original cast.  

It should be noted that Xfinity is owned by Comcast which owns Universal that made the original movie.  So, that clearly helped -- a lot.  But the biggest hurdle was probably getting the film's director on board, and he not only gave his approval, but was consulted throughout the project.  And one of the actors who was involved with the short film commented, "The audience is going to get everything they want out of a sequel without the messy bits that could destroy the beauty of the original and the special place it has in people’s minds and hearts.”  The ad doesn't really seem to have all that much to do with Xfinity except in the most general, tangential way -- but will no doubt get them a lot of attention, which ultimately may be the point.  

​I shall say no more.

My suggestion is to click to double-arrows in the lower-right corner of the video viewing box to make the image go full-screen.