And “The Bear” just keeps on cooking.
In just two seasons, the FX/Hulu series has established itself as one of the all-time great shows set and filmed in Chicago, and the accolades kept coming Sunday night with the production winning the Golden Globe for best series — musical or comedy, Jeremy Allen White taking home his second Globe in two years, and co-lead Ayo Edebiri winning for the first time. With production on season three set to start in town very shortly, “The Bear” has solidified its standing as one of the primary buzz shows in all of television.
On the cinematic front, to no one’s surprise, “Oppenheimer” cleaned up, with wins for best motion picture — drama, director Christopher Nolan, lead actor Cillian Murphy, supporting actor Robert Downey Jr., and composer Ludwig Göransson.
Paul Giamatti’s win for best performance by a male actor in a motion picture — musical or comedy for “The Holdovers” further cements the belief that the best actor Oscar race is down to Murphy and Giamatti. Lily Gladstone’s victory for “Killers of the Flower Moon” only adds to the momentum for Gladstone — the first Indigenous person to earn a Globe — winning Oscar, and that would be quite great and so earned. It is a transcendent performance.
Well-played, Golden Globes voters. Well-played.
In nearly every category, most of which were loaded with worthy contenders, it was difficult to find fault with the choice of the winner, starting with the formidable duo of Ali Wong, the first person of Asian descent to win in her category, and Steven Yeun taking home Globes for “Beef,” which also won for best TV limited series — and was my pick for the best new TV show of 2023. Also well-earned: “The Boy and the Heron” for best motion picture — animated; Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s triumph for her supporting performance in “The Holdovers”; and the “Succession” trio of Kieran Culkin, Matthew Macfadyen and Sarah Snook winning in their respective categories, as well as the victory lap trophy for the series.
Upsets? Arguably the biggest surprise was screenwriters Justine Triet and Arthur Harari winning for “Anatomy of a Fall” over the writers of “Barbie,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Oppenheimer,” among others. Not that it wasn’t deserving, but I don’t think many of us saw that one coming.
Example of the Globes getting it “wrong,” aka “not the way I would have voted”? In the brand spanking new category of best stand-up comedian on television — with Jim Gaffigan tossing out a Hollywood pedophile joke to the uneasy crowd before getting to the announcement — Ricky Gervais won for his intermittently funny but often smug “Armageddon,” in which Gervais seemed incredibly self-pleased with his “edginess” and willingness to “go there,” whether you like it or not. I would have gone with Chris Rock. Or Wanda Sykes. Or Trevor Noah.
As for the Golden Globe Awards show itself, which aired on CBS for the first time in some 40 years after the Globes nearly scandalized themselves into oblivion: Yikes. The Cringe Factor started with a corny, old-school narrator intoning, “The champagne is flowing, some of your favorite stars are arriving, thriving and bubbling with excitement … We kick off the biggest live party of the year, where anything can happen! See which A-listers will win, let loose and have a good time, some of them a REALLY good time. Censors will be standing by….”
It only got worse when poor Jo Koy took the stage and almost immediately started bombing with uninspired jokes about the running time of “Oppenheimer,” Meryl Streep winning everything and oh, by the way, “‘The Color Purple’ is what happens to your butt when you take Ozempic.” Clearly aware he was flopping, Koy exclaimed, “I got the gig 10 days ago, you want a perfect monologue? … I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at,” thus throwing the writers under the bus and also making us wonder: Why did the Golden Globes wait until 10 days before to lock in a host? Were the Golden Globes unaware of when the Golden Globes would be taking place?
Ah well. At least Ray Romano and Keri Russell were pretty funny as presenters, while Kevin Costner came across as if he had mistimed his intake of melatonin and might doze off next to a perplexed America Ferrara. In the audience, Jennifer Lawrence had a killer moment when her name was announced as a nominee and she mouthed to the camera, “If I don’t win, I’m leaving.” Spoiler alert: Emma Stone won for “Poor Things.” Lawrence didn’t leave. I don’t think.
It was the best reaction shot since early in the telecast, when Taylor Swift reacted to an unfunny Taylor Swift joke from Koy — “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift” — by coolly sipping her drink and looking for all the world like Michelle Pfeiffer’s Elvira in “Scarface.”
The second new category was Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, with the winner being “Barbie,” which coincidentally was the highest grossing film of 2023. It would have been kind of hilarious if they gave it to the runner-up: “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” but it was not to be. I’m beginning to think it’s going to be pretty easy to predict the winner in this category in the coming years.
