As we trudge into the fourth week of 2012 — one of those all-too-rare years that influenced a movie title — a question arises: What’s the best film named after a year? The worst? Because it went so well the last time we tried something like this , let’s give it another shot: 16. Year One 15. 10,000 BC 14. 1492: Conquest of Paradise 13. One Million Years B.C. 12. One Million B.C. 11. 1969 10. 2010: The Year We Make Contact 9. 1941 8. 1911 7. 1776 6. Nineteen Eighty-Four 5. 1900 4. 1991: The Year Punk Broke 3. 2012 2. 2046 1. 2001: A Space Odyssey Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
And nominations will be announced on Feb. 25, the day before the Oscars. I’ll let Dan Kois, the foremost Golden Raspberry Award expert in the business, explain the significance: “At long last, after 32 years, the Razzies will take place on the day they always should have: April 1, 35 days after the Oscars and 92 days after the last movie eligible for a Razzie was released. CHECK AND MATE, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences!” Orrr not. Anyway, this happened. [ Grantland ]
If you’ve grown tired of the gimmickry and diminishing quality of “found footage” horror, Sundance’s Midnight program just delivered the cure: V/H/S , an anthology film comprised of shorts by six up-and-coming horror/indie filmmakers, each working within the parameter that their story be told via found media. The Devil Inside this ain’t; V/H/S is fresh and pulse-quickening to the end, one of the best discoveries of this year’s fest. Conceived by producer Brad Miska, V/H/S culls some of the most promising genre talent around for writing and directing duties: Ti West ( House of the Devil, Innkeepers ), Adam Wingard ( A Horrible Way to Die ), Joe Swanberg ( LOL ), David Bruckner ( The Signal ), Glenn McQuaid ( I Sell the Dead ), and filmmaking collective Radio Silence. Their six disparate segments are tied together thusly (though you won’t want to go in knowing much more about it than this): Four prankster punks are promised a big payday to break into a house and steal a VHS tape, but once they get there they find an empty house, a body, and a stack of bizarre tapes to sift through. As they pop in each cassette in search of The Tape, described in vague “you’ll know it when you see it” terms, we see what they see — a collection of found recordings documenting strange, grisly happenings. The segments unfold as follows (SPOILER ALERT: If you want to know nothing going in, close your eyes and skip to the next paragraph): Wingard’s Tape 56 , Bruckner’s Amateur Night , West’s Second Honeymoon , McQuaid’s Tuesday the 17th , Swanberg’s The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger , and Radio Silence’s 10/31/98 . While I won’t spoil the details (or even the premises) of these shorts, suffice to say V/H/S serves as a stellar showcase for its stable of writers and directors, some of whom also worked on each others’ selections. (Swanberg and Wingard, for example, each direct a short and act in another.) What’s interesting to note is that, as the directors explained late Sunday night following their raucous midnight premiere, none had any idea what the others were planning when they were all making their films. So when certain trends pop up — say, sex-hungry twenty-something young men undone by their own pervy impulses, a popular theme — it’s by coincidence. The film itself is an experiment in found-footage filmmaking, a trend much more profitable than it is respected, and yet these are the guys who aren’t cashing in on their neophyte horror cache by signing on to studio-backed horror sequels and remakes and trend-catchers. So while it’s a method commonly associated with the Paranormal Activity phenomenon, each director here manages to do something different with the form that defies convention while winking at the horror faithful. Some segments evoke classic slasher horror, others the supernatural thriller, and even the indie relationship drama, but they all exploit the medium as a storytelling aide, tweaking horror cliches with unexpected, and effective results. “On a large derivative scale, [found footage] is not appealing,” said West during the film’s Q&A, explaining what appealed to him about experimenting with an otherwise tired methodology like this. Thankfully — impressively, miraculously! — these folks have figured out a way to make the gimmick fresh again, and in wildly different but inventive ways. In a time when the found footage train shows no immediate sign of stopping, at least there’s proof that it can be done in new ways, and well. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Warner Bros. has shaken up its 2012-13 release slate a bit, with Bryan Singer’s fantasy Jack the Giant Killer getting pushed from this June all the way to next March. Rock of Ages , meanwhile, has moved back two weeks to Jack ‘s original June 15 release date, and Jack has displaced Arthur & Lancelot , which now owns a less-than-encouraging TBD 2013 opening. Should have been you, Gatsby . [ Deadline ]
‘They were there to validate and chastise our decisions at the same time,’ Elijah Kelley said of airmen’s role. By Kevin P. Sullivan David Oyelowo in “Red Tails” Photo: Jiri Hanzl There was a lot of pressure on the cast of the upcoming true-life World War II drama, “Red Tails.” Not only did they have to honor the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American air regimen in the U.S., but they also had to appease the actual airmen who worked as consultants on the film. MTV News sat down with Tristan Wilds , Elijah Kelley and Ne-Yo to discuss the relationship between the actors and the real-life historical figures. Wilds explained that having some of the real Tuskegee Airmen on the set of “Red Tails” made things both easier and harder. With the added pressure came a real sense of insurance. “It’s hard. It definitely is pressure because you’re holding the historical importance of these guys basically in your hands while you’re creating this film,” Wilds said. “But I think having them on set and being there with us and helping us with everything, it kind of made everything so much easier.” Kelley summarized the airmen’s dual role on the film, saying, “they were there to validate and chastise our decisions at the same time.” Ne-Yo learned the hard way that when you want to portray real-life figures, you’re responsible to them for even the smallest of details. “A few of the existing Tuskegee Airmen were on set making sure that everything was as genuine and authentic as possible to the point where they would grab you and shake you and straighten your tie and pull your pants up and pull your belt,” Ne-Yo said. “They would go that far, and you basically just had to take it.” All the men agreed that when it came to taking orders from the real deal, you had little choice but to accept their tips. “An 80-plus-year-old man grabs you and fixes your belt, you might just want to let him do it,” Ne-Yo said. Wilds agreed, saying, “It’s a lot of years of strength.” Are you planning on seeing “Red Tails”? Let us know in the comments. Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: Red Tails
Smack in the middle of a two-week frame yielding two awards shows and a pair of nomination announcements that will culminate in this year’s Oscar nods, the researchers at Movieline’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics have gained minimal insight into where the Academy may take the 2011-12 awards race in next Tuesday’s final nominations. Or maybe they’re all just sleeping. It’s been that kind of year. Let’s check their work in this week’s Oscar Index. The Leading 10: 1. The Artist 2. The Descendants 3. The Help 4. Midnight in Paris 5. Hugo 6. Moneyball 7. War Horse 8. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo 9. Bridesmaids 10. The Tree of Life Outsiders: The Ides of March ; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ; Drive Regardless of their volume and putative weight, let’s try an experiment: Let’s not belabor the developments of the last week. Let’s look past the all-star rosters and scattered surprises at the Critics Choice Movie Awards , Golden Globe Awards and among this week’s BAFTA Award nominations , and let’s forget how real I was telling you it all began to feel a week ago. Let’s instead make quick work of key points about a race that is fundamentally down to two films vying for a Best Picture Oscar and maybe one or two others vying for the privilege of being considered alongside them. Academy nomination ballots are being counted as we speak; by this time next week we’ll be talking not about what should or shouldn’t be considered but rather about what a film with 11 nominations has going for it over a film with nine nominations. And all this bullshit about heat meters and gold derbies and even Oscar Indices will tumble through the cracks of new white noise telling how imperfect the whole system is, and what winning has to do with justice, and why do we care, and so on and so forth until the last for-your-consideration ad is sold and the last fleck of vomit is scrubbed from the leather banquettes that got the very worst of the Oscar-night after-after-after-after parties. Let’s concede that this is the part of the race where we all forgo our last remaining illusions of pure aesthetic combat, turning instead to the customary sight of fine-tuned cogs endeavoring to spin faster and faster still — The Weinstein Company with its Artist , Fox Searchlight with its Descendants — coaxing the parts around them into specialized lurches, as affecting as interchangeable porcelain ballerinas and lilting lullabies set into action by two greasy, handwound parts. Can The Help move any faster than it has all season, with its phenomenal box-office days behind it and actresses setting the pace of their own categories? Can Hugo survive the ever-escalating altitude of its nostalgia? Can Midnight in Paris pivot successfully out of the nostalgia trap, and if so, will a complacent Academy votership simply shy away, thinking, “Oh, too bad, this one’s broken”? Can Moneyball or Dragon Tattoo , with all their sinewy, contemporary fierceness, fly low and slow enough to ever be seen by the birdwatchers otherwise known as AMPAS? Can Bridesmaids find the groundswell it will require to even crack the Best Picture class, let alone compete within it? Let’s then concede that our individual answers are all that’s left of a process that only two weeks ago teased us with the prospect of intrigue , and that when the Academy reflects our old intrigues back to us, we will betray them as we always do with new intrigues are no one else’s (e.g. “This is more easy emotional default old-fart consensus thinking …”, ” The Adventures Of Tintin might seem a surprise over favored Rango , but the latter is probably too American for the foreign group …”) And then let’s keep it going for another month of posturing on all sides, guided by the same inexorable pieces at the heart of the same inexhaustible machine. Anyway, this is as good a read as I can get on the situation headed into Nominee Tuesday, which gives you an indication of how ridiculous this whole folly is from week to week. I say we’ll get eight Best Picture nods total, in the order listed above. Wagering on this prediction would be a bad idea — unless you win, I guess, in which case you’d better cut your old pal STV in. The Leading 5: 1. Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist 2. Alexander Payne, The Descendants 3. Martin Scorsese, Hugo 4. Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris 5. Steven Spielberg, War Horse Outsiders : David Fincher, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ; Bennett Miller, Moneyball ; Tate Taylor, The Help ; Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive Scorsese has been a nomination lock for weeks now, but claiming Best Director at the Globes was one of the rarer glints of HFPA influence on the Oscar race. On the one hand, Harvey Weinstein was able to wrangle an Oscar for a relatively unknown Tom Hooper last year over Fincher et. al., so doing the same for Hazanavicius shouldn’t be perceived as too difficult. On the other hand, Scott Feinberg notes the Academy’s historical Best Director quirk: History tells us that Academy members rarely back different films for best picture and best director, respectively, which would benefit The Artist , which seems to be the more beloved film. But we also know that “splits” do sometimes happen, and the example set by the HFPA of “spreading love all around” might appeal to some Academy members who love The Artist but would rather back a director with a long track record than someone who now has only one American feature film under his belt. Obviously Payne shouldn’t be ignored in this context, either, but Scorsese gets the week’s big bump. Fincher is coming around behind the scenes as well; Sony pushed hard last week as resistance to the Dragon Tattoo -slump non-story built around the Academy. We’ll see what that’s worth against the last ounces of Spielberg’s pre-nomination muscle. The Leading 5: 1. (tie) Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady 1. (tie) Viola Davis, The Help 3. Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn 4. Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin 5. Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Outsiders : Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs ; Charlize Theron, Young Adult ; Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene Not even the boldest pundit would yet dare to choose a Best Actress favorite after the week we just had, with winner Davis dazzling the Critics Choice crowd and Streep giving it her own best acceptance-speech shot at the Golden Globes. And what of Michelle Williams, whose provocative GQ photo spread prompted Sasha Stone to observe : “There is a school of thought where Oscar is concerned that goes like this: You can win if you can give them rock hard erections.” Yowza! So much for the L.A. Times ‘s hilarious awards-season “Heat Meter” — what we need around here is a meat heater . Amirite? OK, don’t answer that. The Leading 5: 1. Jean Dujardin, The Artist 2. Brad Pitt, Moneyball 3. George Clooney, The Descendants 4. Michael Fassbender, Shame 5. Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Outsiders : Demi
It’s always a thrill to read about some upstart, young first-time screenwriter catching a lucrative break in Hollywood with a spec script, so let’s hear it for Cormac McCarthy! The New Mexico-based writer has reportedly sold a thriller called The Counselor , about a successful, respected lawyer who gets in over his head during a dalliance in the drug underworld. Steve Schwartz, one of the producers who made the acquisition as part of a “sizable deal,” told Deadline’s Mike Fleming : “Since McCarthy himself wrote the script, we get his own muscular prose directly, with its sexual obsessions. It’s a masculine world into which, unusually, two women intrude to play leading roles. McCarthy’s wit and humor in the dialogue make the nightmare even scarier. This may be one of McCarthy’s most disturbing and powerful works.” Fleming adds that the script is “contemporary, and set in the Southwest” — also unusual for McCarthy, who is previously best known for a slightly obscure oeuvre of novels including Blood Meridian , All the Pretty Horses , The Road and No Country For Old Men (the latter of which sparked a brief but ultimately fruitless flirtation with the film industry in 2007). The writer has even entered a representation agreement with ICM. When it rains it pours! Nice work, kid. [ Deadline ]
The conservative “watchdog” group Judicial Watch has sued the CIA and the Defense Department, alleging a failure to comply with requests to know what was discussed in consultations with Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal about the Hurt Locker duo’s follow-up charting the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Great. In a nutshell: JW sent a Freedom of Information Act request about the meetings — themselves merely alleged at this point — to determine what classified details (if any) about the bin Laden mission were shared with the Oscar winners. Both organizations failed to respond in the 20-business-day window required by FOIA, and so… yeah. Now there is a lawsuit. I can’t even deal. Here, from TheWrap : As of January 12, the DoD and the CIA “have failed to produce any records responsive to plaintiff’s requests or demonstrate that responsive records are exempt from production,” the suit says. “Nor have they indicated whether or when they will produce any responsive records.” In addition to information regarding the alleged meetings and communications, Judicial Watch is also seeking compensation for attorneys’ fees and other legal costs related to the lawsuit. The filing of the suit comes less than two weeks after Congressman Peter King, senior Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said the Office of the Inspector General at Defense was launching an investigation over the alleged meetings. Washington! Getting Things Done Since Never.™ Anyway, Bigelow and Boal have specifically responded to King’s pseudo-pissed hotdogging before, and this is all just another compulsion of the “small-government” elite to control everything, up to and including the Stop Online Privacy Act, in the name of national security and jobs jobs jobs that 10 percent of you don’t even have and won’t even have as long as the Dept. of Defense is shuffling FOIA requests about Kathryn Bigelow movies in with all that private contracting it still has yet to do abroad (think of the hundreds of personnel who’ll be hired to install much-needed porta-potties in hot spots in and around Afghanistan) and the House of Representatives has some jowly wraith from Long Island stomping all over D.C. inveighing against God only knows what irrelevant bullshit while the culture at large seethes with resentment and while today’s sprawling Web blackouts remind you how helpless you are to see, create and share anything without some mega-institution first authorizing it, whether it’s Wikipedia or the CIA or Congress or some bozo-cabal calling itself “Judicial Watch” pinning its legitimacy to whether or not a Defense Dept. intern bothers to make a few photocopies before his shift ends and he runs off to get high and play video games or whatever it is kids do these days when they’re not shamelessly conscripted into war or debt or The Devil Inside or the next new hopelessness of 21st-century American life. Seriously — just feel safer already! Someone’s looking out for you! And by “someone,” I mean “not a fucking soul.” [ TheWrap ]
Watching mixed martial artist Gina Carano fight on television, director Steven Soderbergh was struck by inspiration: Why not build an action movie around the lethal (and yes, gorgeous) athlete to show audiences what a real action heroine could look like? Forget Angelina Jolie in Salt , or any number of actresses who’ve unconvincingly flitted their way through the genre. Carano was the real deal, a woman who can dole out punches with bone-shattering believability, leap between buildings, and battle Hollywood’s best leading men with aplomb, as evidenced in this week’s Haywire . For Carano, Soderbergh’s offer of film stardom was an opportunity. Written around the first-time actress’s physical strengths, Haywire keeps its premise simple: A betrayed black ops agent (Carano) tries to uncover a plot against her as she battles a stream of spies, muscle, and former associates. Paired with actors like Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, and Channing Tatum, who keep the dramatic scenes charging alone, Carano explodes in her action scenes with a ferocity even her castmates can’t match. Movieline spoke with the MMA veteran and neophyte actress about the challenges of her work on Haywire, the encouragement she takes from female moviegoers, her future acting aspirations, the possibility of a sequel, and what she thought of 2010’s MMA drama Warrior . It’s such a pleasure to see you beat up men like Channing Tatum and Michael Fassbender on the big screen. How fun was it for you, doing it yourself? It was incredible, because they are such wonderful, genuine guys who brought no ego. There were no problems – they wanted to do everything themselves, they wanted to be as physical as possible, and I think we all walked away enjoying the bumps and bruises we walked away with on set. Instead of there being any competition it was more about creating something beautiful. And honestly, it’s just one of the coolest things to hear from a female’s mouth that they got excited about the fight scenes, you know? It’s like one of the best compliments I’ve gotten so far, hearing that females got excited and that they were rooting for me. Part of the appeal of Haywire for me was that most of the action heroines we’ve seen throughout film history have felt somewhat unrealistic, but your physicality was part of the reason Steven Soderbergh built this film around you. Look at Angelina Jolie; at AFI Fest Soderbergh described you as Angelina Jolie-meets-Steven Seagal , but I think there’s more of the badass Seagal in you. How important do you think realism is when it comes to action and female performers? Well you know, I have the utmost respect for people like Angelina Jolie and Zoe Saldana in Colombiana . But here you have beautiful women and they’re taking on these rougher roles that they don’t necessarily have to take, but have chosen to take. So I have the utmost respect for them. But what I’m bringing to it is hopefully…I know that the whole reason I got the job is that I’m bringing a physicality that maybe people haven’t seen yet. So anything I can do and could have done for Haywire to be believable in these fight scenes, of course I did. I like being a little bit different in that way, and I have a lot to learn from these women as far as everything else goes, but I’m definitely comfortable saying that I felt good bringing my form of physicality for my sport and for other females to see, because I know there’s a lot of them out there that know what it’s like, that get a rush. And a man came up to me the other day and said, “I had to drag my wife to the premiere, and she was like, ‘Oh, great – another action film.'” But after the premiere, she was so happy that she’d gone, she was so pumped! I think she was more enthusiastic than I was about this film! [Laughs] It was awesome. It was really cool for me to just offer up something people haven’t seen. So the physicality came naturally to you, but what about the dramatic work? You had appeared in film and TV before… Well, I hadn’t really done [film] – I consider Haywire my first acting experience. The other stuff that is listed was not acting. I have one fight scene in a movie called Blood and Bone , and it was kind of that thing where you just show up that day and it’s all improv. So Haywire was my first experience. Steven Soderbergh, first of all, he had the vision and he had in mind what he wanted to portray, and it’s always refreshing to me to meet a man who knows exactly what he wants – or a boss, or whoever. It’s nice when somebody wants to take on a project and they know exactly what they want out of it. Then he surrounded me with some beautiful people who opened up their arms, these genuinely talented human beings who had no egos and wanted to help. The actors were helping me with the dramatic side and I was helping them with the physicality of it, so it was really a beautiful trade-off with everybody being open-minded and wanting to make the most beautiful product we could. Which scene did you find most challenging to pull off? Well, I was extremely afraid of heights, and I had to jump from one building to the next and there were no wires. [Laughs] I had a serious mental block when it came to this one jump, and I was like, “Gina, this is the whole reason you got the job. Come on, suck it up!” And then I would think of my family, what if they hear I got killed on set? So I think that was one of the scarier moments of the film, but each day was new for me. Each acting experience was new, and every day I woke up just kind of blessed, but at the same time almost terrified of what that day held — just adrenaline pumping through my body. But because of all that, now a couple of years later looking back it’s nice to know I got through something like that, and that I was able to keep my head cool and really enjoy the experience of it. Are there many ways in which you see the worlds of fighting and acting overlap? I know you worked with Randy Couture as a fighter, and he’s someone who’s also made this transition over to acting. Did you ever compare notes with him, or with other athletes-turned-actors, about making that leap? No, actually! Randy is a man of very few words, and he was just like, “You’re going to do great, Gina. Just have fun.” [Laughs] Just like he said to me the first time I met him and asked him to be my coach: “Just go out there and have fun, be yourself.” I didn’t know that many people – Randy had done it, a couple of other people in the sport have done it, but really not very many of the people who were around me had done anything like this. It was just kind of an all-new first-time experience, and the people I worked with were the people that showed me the ropes. Are you having fun with all of this? I’ve seen you do interviews in which you say you’re looking forward to getting “on the other side” of January 20, and you’ve been described as a shy person. Yeah. [Laughs] Are you feeling more and more comfortable with having this media spotlight on you, the increased focus that acting adds to your already established MMA profile? I feel really, really positive right now. I feel like I got to experience something that nobody around me has gotten to experience, and the people and the reviews and the comments that I’m getting back from those who have seen the film are also incredibly positive. I’ve just had a really blessed life until now, and to be negative or fearful of what comes next would be a shame, because then I wouldn’t be enjoying this moment right now, sitting on patio in L.A. talking about this beautiful experience. I’m looking forward to getting on the other side of it because I absolutely want to go back to work, you know? I want to figure out what’s next. I’m eager to do this again, and I want to raise the bar and keep going forward, but a lot of people have been waiting for this film to come out – it took a while to come out, two years now – so I’m just really excited that it’s finally coming out and I’m going to be able to get on the other side of it and kind of close it, land somewhere. I’m super excited about that. In terms of your acting future, has there been any discussion of doing a sequel to Haywire with Steven? Well Ewan McGregor… It’s funny because we were doing the press conference the other day and he was like, [SPOILERS] ‘Gina, you know my character doesn’t die…’ [Laughs] He was like, it’s kind of blessed that you left me there stuck on the rocks and he doesn’t necessarily die. [END SPOILERS] He keeps on talking to Soderbergh, and he’s such a lovely person – he’s talking about what could happen. He’s really pumped to go into a training camp with me for two months to do a Haywire sequel. And of course it would be another dream come true for me because I absolutely adore the film and I adore Ewan and Soderbergh, so to have another opportunity would be incredible. But we’ll see. We’ll have to see after January 20 and see if people really do enjoy the film and consider me believable. Do you want to stay in this action niche, or perhaps take on roles that require no physicality, are more dramatic? It’s such a good question. Regarding the physicality, I would love to explore different characters and I feel like you can still do that, but I know that right now my niche is definitely bringing something physical to the table, and I enjoy that and welcome that completely. I’m not going to say that I would never want to do something different, but I feel like I would love to represent my sport and represent women, and that reaction was so positive off of the fight scenes that I’m like, “Really? I can do more!” Lastly, I was curious to hear your thoughts on Warrior , which was the most prominent MMA-themed film to hit screens. Did you see it, and if so how well do you think it represents what it’s like to be in that world? Well, it was interesting; the day that I was watching it I was watching with a guy friend of mine, and I was doing laundry and coming in and out so I can’t say I necessarily got the whole vibe of the film completely, but I did notice and was impressed that it’s extremely hard to make a fight film look realistic, and I think that film to date has done the best job doing that. I always wonder, because all of my friends just beat the hell out of each other in practice every day, and they should just put these guys in the film! It’s not like they’re not doing it anyways, they’re doing it every single day so you might as well film it to make it more realistic in these fight films, you know? But the guy I was watching it with, at one point I walked back in, and I remember looking over at him and he was just in tears. [Laughs] Then I just settled down and started watching it a little bit and I’m like, “Well, geez, this film really had an impact on this person!” There was a guy just crying and bawling on my bed after watching Warrior ! So I feel like I have to go back in the right mindframe when I’m not so busy, but I was impressed with how believable it was. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Over the last week or so, film-culture observers witnessed an odd phenomenon sweep the country: A palpable, recognizable feel of anticipation — for an awards show. Even rarer was the reason behind it. When the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced that Ricky Gervais would return for a third stint emceeing the Golden Globe Awards, we expected a return to last year’s delirious exercise in blunt-force celebrity accountability. After all, it was only a year ago that a parade of offended A-listers and scandalized organizers protest the infamous ruthlessness delivered from the podium. The Elite let it be known they did not appreciate digs at Robert Downey Jr.’s drug history, or as Ricky commented about the Sex and the City cast, “Great job girls, we know how old you are – I saw one of you in an episode of Bonanza .” Thus it was with no small amount of surprise — and not just a little apprehension within Hollywood — that we received word of Gervais agreeing to host again this year. However, after the British comic appeared to have wilted over much of Sunday night, we have to ask: Was this an orchestrated hit-job by the studios, the HFPA and Hollywood as a whole? It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Despite all the vitriol directed back at Gervais following last year’s caustic turn, NBC’s ads for the 2012 iteration featured the host snipping a silken mouth gag away with scissors, as if to promise an ensuing controversy and a reason to watch. Prior to the telecast, Entertainment Weekly published a lengthy column from Gervais proclaiming his duties as a comedian to eviscerate the pompous, and then detailing specific jokes he had uttered at the last telecast. (Because nothing helps a failed joke better than explaining why it is funny.) Indicating how he would not let up this year Gervais quoted Horatio Nelson, regarding men doing their duty. “I did,” wrote the comedian about his previous stint, “And I will again.” However, last night we saw not only Gervais’s (arguably) inevitable failure to reach last year’s superstar-tweaking heights, but what felt like a coordinated effort to both muzzle and get even with the acerbic host. As it turned out, all of the most amusing lines came not from the host but the presenters, and those that cut deepest were aimed at Gervais himself. In and of itself, this is not a bad thing — Gervais can take it. However, where was the give-and-take? As the night evolved we saw stars wielding knives and a host reduced to using safety scissors. At least things began well for both Gervais and viewers. “Tonight you get Britain’s biggest comedian, hosting the world’s second biggest awards show on America’s third biggest network,” he said before catching himself. “Sorry, is it? Fourth. It’s fourth.” Gervais also looked like he wouldn’t pull any punches when he remarked, “The Golden Globes are just like the Oscars, except without all that ‘esteem’.” From that point, however, his trademark edge dulled its way through a bloodless monologue. (Digs on Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber!) The very first presenter was Johnny Depp, one of the megafamous who notoriously had their noses out of joint following the 2011 show. Gervais asked Depp if he had actually seen The Tourist (a wry jab at Depp and Angelina Jolie’s critically reviled yet Golden Globe-nominated film from a year ago); the actor admitted risibly that he had not, then made a curious turn and stalked Gervais as he walked offstage. For those watching at home and at the Beverly Hilton alike, the exchange tipped the mood for the night. At best, Gervais and Depp shared a laugh, as if to say, “We’re in this together.” At worst, Depp reclaimed the Globes for the stars, offering a dour aside about the host — “Oh, he’s fun” – and thus opening the gates for his fragile peers to have their way. Amid the other celebrities having fun at the podium, Gervais waded and ultimately faded into the low-hanging fruit. We endured stars repeating cock jokes and references to how brilliant “Bridesmaids” had been (though, to hear numerous presenters tell it, the only funny part was a crapping-in-the-sink scene), all glued together with Gervais’s tepid commentary. He bum-kissed George Clooney by way of intro. (Did he actually call him the “Cloon-meister”?) Then he introduced Madonna with a joke well beyond its expiration date — about her being “like a virgin” — that paved the way for Madge to get triply acidic in return. “If I’m still just ‘like a virgin,’ Ricky, then why don’t you come over here and do something about it,” she sniped. “I haven’t kissed a girl in a few years.” The exchange came as a welcome jolt, a return to the Globes’ contentious recent form. But then… nothing. Gervais did not return volley. The fix was in. Gervais welcomed Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayak, getting bleeped as he commented about not being able to understand what they say; Banderas replied with a lengthy Spanish-language diatribe towards the host (translation forthcoming eventually? Maybe?). Meanwhile, Robert Downey Jr., one of the most outspoken Gervais critics from the 2011 awardscast, simply ignored the comic he’d once excoriated as “mean-spirited and sinister.” Huh? Now we knew the Globes had been neutered. Gervais returned, pint in hand, and makes a comment about being paid to drink and say whatever he wants, but it had long become obvious he was completely muzzled. Next up was Colin Firth, whom Gervais described as an “evil” racist who punches blind kittens. The host was clearly having fun, and one got the sense that they’re actually friends. But then Firth took over, describing a group of protestors in front of the ballroom. “Some very angry religious people are outside with big placards threatening us all with brimstone and pestilence and perdition for our sins,” he said. “What they don’t realize is, we have Ricky.” Firth and Gervais may in fact have worked this out, but the Oscar-winner sounded as full of contempt as Downey and others had been last year. It underscored the feeling that Gervais had been targeted — or at least, in the instance that we’d witnessed a pair of compatriots breaking each other’s balls, it suggested that he was in on the joke, toothlessly playing along with Hollywood’s public revenge without once returning fire. It reminded me of a scene from Animal House , of all things: Throughout that film, Tim Matheson’s character Otter mocked the establishment and thumbed his nose at the fraternity brethren, while taking liberties with their women. In the third act he is called to a rendezvous with one debutante, but instead enters a room of angry frat guys who have their way with him. Gervais persevered as the HFPA’s Otter: invited back to the party, yet placed on a short leash, while the stars were encouraged to let fly. And however justified the industry elite felt in their retribution, much like that decades-old revenge scene, Sunday night’s ambush came off as neither funny nor particularly entertaining. In any case, it certainly was not what we had been sold. Take those scissors away from Gervais, and the gagged likeness on the 69th Golden Globes poster was a truer representation. The biggest problem? It wasn’t why people tuned in. [Photo: Getty Images]
