Golden Globes Stay True to Their Brand of Crazy

Here's the thing... Ricky Gervais was not good. Just no. And a lot of the presenters had bad materials that seemed to go on for far longer than they should (I won't even repeat all the bad stuff because no). There were a few highlights like America Ferrera and Eva Longoria's incisive commentary about Latinas in Hollywood and the hot duo of Ryan Gosling and a Benjamin Button-like Brad Pitt sharing the stage together and the Spy team doing a bit, but they were few and far between. But while the actual show was a hot mess at least many of the winners ranged from good to fantastic (give or take a ridiculous win for Sam Smith). The HFPA kept true to their brand of crazy certainly, but still picked some real winners. Onwards...

Best Motion Picture, Drama: The Revenant
Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical: The Martian
Best Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, The Revenant
Best Actress, Drama: Brie Larson, Room
Best Actress, Comedy or Musical: Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Best Actor, Drama: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Best Actor, Comedy or Musical: Matt Damon, The Martian
Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
Best Supporting Actor: Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Best Animated Film: Inside Out
Best Foreign Language Film: Son of Saul (Hungary)
Best Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, Steve Jobs
Best Score: The Hateful Eight
Best Song: "Writing's on the Wall," Spectre

The Revenant was the night's biggest winner picking up 3 awards for Best Drama Film, Best Director, and Best Actor. The latter was given to Leonardo DiCaprio which unofficially begins his road to perhaps finally winning his first Oscars. Earlier in the night, his Titanic co-star Kate Winslet won Best Supporting Actress for Steve Jobs making all of us nostalgic for Jack and Rose. That film won a second award for its Screenplay beating out other films that many thought were the front-runners. The Martian was the only other film to win more than one award for Best Comedy Film and Best Actor Matt Damon. Brie Larson and Jennifer Lawrence picked up Best Actress awards solidifying one as the front-runner (Larson) and the other as possible spoiler to the Oscar short list (Lawrence). Sylvester Stallone in the meantime received a standing ovation when he won Best Supporting Actor which means if he's Oscar nominated (still a big IF), he's the favorite. My predictions were horrendous as I went 4 out of 14, but a few of my "should wins" won so I'm okay. Plus this is just yet another feather to the unpredictability of this year's awards season which yay!

Best TV Series, Drama: Mr. Robot
Best TV Series, Comedy: Mozart in the Jungle
Best Actress, Drama: Taraji P. Henson, Empire
Best Actress, Comedy: Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Best Actor, Drama: Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Best Actor, Comedy: Gael García Bernal, Mozart in the Jungle
Best Mini-Series or TV Movie: Wolf Hall
Best Actress, Mini/TV Movie: Lady Gaga, American Horror Story: Hotel
Best Actor, Mini/TV Movie: Oscar Isaac, Show Me a Hero
Best Supporting Actress: Maura Tierney, The Affair
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Slater, Mr. Robot

Last year was all about first-time winners and the HFPA stayed true to this mantra with Jon Hamm the only repeat winner from the bunch (for Best Drama Actor which I personally thought should've gone to would've been first-time winner Rami Malek). Mr. Robot and Mozart in the Jungle picked up two wins each for Best TV Series Drama and Comedy respectively and an acting win (Christian Slater, Gael García Bernal). I was especially surprised by the latter's win, but why not? Taraji P. Henson and Rachel Bloom's wins were simultaneously shocking and yet not since their wins make sense per HFPA's usual choices. And then there's Lady Gaga beating out Queen Latifah and Lily Tomlin Kirsten Dunst for an acting award. Her speech was sincere and humble, but wowsa. Speaking of wowsa, Oscar Isaac won an award and the Internet is happy. Finally, their love affair with The Affair continues with a surprise win for Maura Tierney! Prediction-wise I went a horrific 1 out of 11 with just my bet of Lady Gaga succeeding. But like the film side, a few of my should wins won, so I'm good.

In the end, the one thing I'll remember tonight is for this tweet of mine during E!'s red carpet show making it into EW.com and USA Today:

My timeline is seemingly simultaneously thirsty for Oscar Isaac *and* Jacob Tremblay's father. Thanks Jacob! #GoldenGlobes

— Ryan (@sortathatguy) January 11, 2016

Creative Arts Emmy Winners

A couple of early Emmy trophies were handed out this weekend at the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony.

As expected Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow won her first Emmy award for guest starring role in Glee. Guest Actor in Comedy went to Emmy-favorite Justin Timberlake, who also won Best Original Music and Lyrics for his Saturday Night Live monologue. Guest Actor and Actress in a Drama went to two unexpected people with Paul McCrane (Harry's Law) and Loretta Devine (Grey's Anatomy) beating out presumed front-runners Michael J. Fox, Julia Stiles, and Joan Cusack. A bit sad those two ladies didn't win, but not really since I'm a fan of Devine and she really did wonderful this season with her character coping with Alzheimer's.

The big winner of the night though was HBO's Boardwalk Empire which picked up seven awards including Casting and Editing. These wins could signal a big night for the show during the Primetime Emmys when it goes head to head with Mad Men and Game of Thrones. Casting awards were also given to Glee and Mildred Pierce while How I Met Your Mother and Cinema Verite picked up the other series Editing awards. It's also important to note that Boardwalk Empire also won Visual Effects over the much flashier Game of Thrones.

Other noteworthy results include Jeff Probst (Survivor) winning Reality Host for the fourth consecutive time robbing Cat Deeley or Phil Keoghan their deserved win, The Kennedy Center Honors (with Oprah Winfrey and Paul McCartney) winning Variety Special over Lady Gaga's Monster Ball Tour, Futurama beating out South Park and The Simpsons for Animated Program, and So You Think You Can Dance taking two Choreography Emmy awards.

The most interesting thing about the awards, I thought, was the spread-the-wealth mentality of voters when it came to the Miniseries category with Mildred Pierce (3 wins), The Kennedys (3 wins), and Downton Abbey (2 wins) unable to dominate over the other shows. Who do you think is the frontrunner in this category?

Click here to see the complete list of winners. The Primetime Emmys are September 17th.

Kelly Clarkson's New Album Plus Mika & Gaga Music Videos

There's finally some news on the new single and album for Kelly Clarkson. My still favorite American Idol announced today that her new single "Mr. Know It All" will premiere at the end of this month ahead of her new album Stronger which comes out on October 25th aka two days after my birthday (just in case anyone needs ideas of what to get me). While waiting for her new album to finish, she's been singing with country music's newest star Jason Aldean on the beautiful duet "Don't You Wanna Stay."

In other music news, a couple of new videos were recently released. Speaking of artists that we haven't heard from in a while, Mika just today released the video for his French single "Elle Me Dit" (h/t Nathaniel). The singer unfortunately doesn't appear in the fun video which instead feature a Wes Anderson-like family lip-syncing to the words. The song, as is the video, is lovely and ridiculously catchy.

Yesterday, Lady Gaga debut her usual psychedelic and highly stylized video full of crazy fashion and vaguely BDSM imagery for her single "Yoü and I" which is one of my favorite songs from her latest album. While the scenes of her singing with her drag king counterpart were a nice touch, I wished that she had switched the concepts for this and "Edge of Glory." The latter demanded something crazier and more epic than what she ended up doing while "Yoü and I" called for a more stripped down version of Gaga. Still, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that contrasting the video styles with the songs is all part of her Gaganess' plans.

Watch the videos below:

Lady Gaga Visits Dance and Other TV Thoughts

The pace slowed down a bit for both Breaking Bad and Torchwood with both getting mixed reactions from me while both True Blood and Weeds ramped up the action a bit to positive results. But first Lady Gaga visited So You Think You Can Dance as a guest judge this week.


Her Lady of Gaga was joined by Oscar-nominated director Rob Marshall to judge the top eight dancers and to be honest they were kind of crap as have been most of the guest judges this season. Gaga kept dissing the props and the choreography which the dancers had no real control over while Marshall kept playing good cop going out of his way to praise the choreographers and anything remotely Broadway. Thankfully the dancers, like they do every week, BROUGHT IT, with the judges praising Melanie, Marko, Sasha, and Tadd mostly. Gaga performed two of my favorite songs from her new album during the result show ("Edge of Glory/You and I") before the judges eliminated out Jess and Jordan. Two more weeks until Melanie or Marko wins the whole thing!

Now for some scripted fare. Last week's Torchwood episode was written by none other than Buffy scribe Jane Espenson and I love her. In talking about this episode, she said they wanted to pull back on the action and take a breather in order for this new Torchwood team to get to know one another and to get a better handle on the events of the day. And yet, I felt it was a little too lax. The sex scenes, both straight and gay, felt ridiculously gratuitous and just made them feel like filler to an episode that really could've used more forward movement. It doesn't help that Rex is still an unlikable douche or that I'm now finding it difficult to watch Bill Pullman (in a good way because OMG he's terrifyingly skeevy). With that said, lovely moment between a drunk Jack and a preoccupied Gwen both invoking Ianto's name and the tag team of the Doctor and Gwen was nice. Let's go on with this though!


As for Breaking Bad, I understand why they felt they needed to take a breather after such an emotionally tense premiere, so the problem lies more with me and my expectations probably over the show's quality. In fact seeing how the events of last episode on Walt, Jesse, and Mike affected them was kind of beautiful. All of them on the edge of doing something truly crazy, but never quite getting there. Has it been officially recognized that while this is Walt's story, Jesse is very much the heart of the show? I'm thinking his journey this whole season will be the season's highlight. And just as an aside, I really hope Hank's new hobby has something to do with the biggest plot.

I personally believe that True Blood has been on fire this season plus or minus the Hotshot storyline. But speaking of that, I'm glad that Jason is finally done (for now) with that and giving a much needed kick to the domestic woes of Jessica/Hoyt. Who else was surprised that for a split second, Jason thought he was having sex with Hoyt? HOT. Please develop this. Speaking of other good developments, nice to see brothers Sam and Tommy work together on something and YEE-HAW on their parents finally biting the dust. Alexander Skarsgard is still doing mighty fine work with his lost Eric story while Pam's predicament is bringing out the snark in Bill Compton which makes me happy for him. Though of course that he now knows where Eric is, we'll see.


Finally, Weeds finally delivers an episode that I mostly liked. Yes, I zoned out over whatever is happening with Andy because really who cares. Plus I think Shane enrolled in college or something and Doug is wearing a suit? Whatever. This has become a Silas and Nancy Botwin show and I'm just find with that. They fly out to the West Coast for a custody hearing that is then promptly rescheduled giving Mary Louise Parker a much needed cause to fight as she dukes it out with her sister over intercom. Silas is also forced to defend her mom, as he testifies to the judge, and their relationship is finally getting back on track. I'm much more excited, however, by the surprise reappearance of Heylia in the end. WOO!

Video: Perform This Way

This is possibly the single best thing pop culture has given us this year.



Yes, this is Weird Al Yankovic singing his already classic "Perform This Way," a parody of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way." I thought the song was genius when I heard it a few weeks ago, but this music video is all kinds of amazing if only for the unforgettable image of Weird Al's face on some hot girl's body.