Most of our coverage of the Golden Globes came via Twitter, and our analysis of Ricky Gervais’s second stint as host was limited to a brief “Ricky Gervais killed it in his intro. Tha man doesn’t care who he pisses off.” Well, turns out he pissed off a lot of people, especially Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Philip Berk. Gervais took a couple of big shots at people both in the room and out of it, notably making big jabs at The Tourist (which prompted a scathing look from Johnny Depp and probably a voodoo curse from Angelina Jolie), Tom Cruise (who he referred to as being gay, “probably”), Tim Allen (which pissed off co-presenter Tom Hanks), Robert Downey Jr. (referring to his stints in jail and rehab), and the antics of Charlie Sheen. So how did Ricky get away with it? By not sharing his jokes with the HFPA before the show. Berk responded to the controversy, saying, “”I had absolutely no idea what Ricky was going to say so anything I heard was at the same time you heard it…He definitely crossed the line. And some of the things were totally unacceptable. But that’s Ricky.” Berk seemed uncomfortable addressing Gervais on stage during his brief speech, and he’s not the only one voicing his distaste with the Twitterverse exploding yesterday with responses to the edgy performance. Gervais defended himself yesterday, saying, “Everyone took it well and the atmosphere backstage and at the after show was great…I was allowed to choose who I would introduce in advance. I obviously chose presenters who I had the best jokes for. (And who I knew had a good sense of humor.)” He added that he didn’t think he was going to be invited back next year, which seems like the obvious call.
So what are we to make of this? Honestly, I don’t know who was expecting Gervais to come out and give the normal dull awards show banter, especially after he did almost the same thing last year, albeit not quite as mean spirited. Gervais has always pushed the envelope Damon Lindleof may have said it best when he tweeted, “In case you forgot what made David Brent so brilliant, it’s that he made us feel unsafe, uncomfortable and unable to look away.” If you want someone to talk about how great The Tourist is, you should have hired someone with a lighter reputation. In the end, this looks like it might be the end of Gervais career as an award show host, which means we can look forward to many more years of bland, boring Hollywood schmooze fests.
It’s that magic time of year again where the Golden Globe nominations come out and get us excited for the Oscar race, and remind us of all that good TV we’ve been watching. The big guns movie wise got a plethora of nods in the categories that mattered, though True Grit was shut out, perhaps because no one has seen it yet, though it hasn’t stopped some other awards. Thanks to the odd Musical or Comedy category at the Globes, we get a nomination for The Tourist, the “thriller” that got nearly universal critical scorn which made nothing at the box office. Boy, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association sure are tastemakers! The TV nominations are also fairly predictable, but the results should be interesting. Ricky Gervais will host the ceremony January 16. The nominations:
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Tangled Up In Wires 