• Following a lighthearted opening monologue from the hosts, Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg, Oh became emotional as she talked about diversity in Hollywood. “I wanted to be here to look out into this audience and witness this moment of change,” she explained.
• “Shallow” from “A Star Is Born” won best song.
• Oh and Samberg are “hosting this show like it’s somebody’s fund-raiser,” said our critic Wesley Morris, on Twitter. “I, at least, wanna donate to something.”
• Our Carpetbagger, Kyle Buchanan, caught up with the nominees on the red carpet. Here are all the notable looks.
• Here’s the list of winners so far.
Sandra Oh, a Golden Globe nominee, and Andy Samberg are this year’s hosts.CreditKevork Djansezian/Getty Images
LOS ANGELES — How the Hollywood pendulum swings: The 76th Golden Globe Awards dispensed with the seriousness that marked last year’s ceremony, when actresses draped themselves in black to protest sexual harassment, and got underway on Sunday night with red gowns, an award for comedic TV acting and a co-host yelling, “We’re going to have some fun!”
With that, Andy Samberg and the night’s other host, an ebullient Sandra Oh, breezed through a “nicing” of the room instead of the usual roasting. They did not make one joke at President Trump’s expense. Jim Carrey, a nominee for Showtime’s “Kidding,” participated in a goofy gag from a table in the ballroom.
The sharpest bits came from Oh, who pretended to be a Neanderthal studio executive searching for a director — “First, man. If man not available, pair of man.” — and ended with a teary acknowledgment of the “moment of change” in Hollywood over the past year regarding diversity onscreen. “Right now,” she said, “this moment is real.”
In a surprise, Michael Douglas won best actor in a television comedy or musical for “The Kominsky Method,” a Netflix series about show-business war horses. The award was expected to go to Bill Hader, a nominee for the buzzy HBO comedy “Barry.”
“For 45 years, you’ve always surprised me and treated me so well,” Douglas said, addressing the press association behind the Globes. He dedicated the award to his father, Kirk Douglas, 102.
The second award was also a relative surprise: “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” a Sony movie, won the Globe for best animated film, beating a pair of Disney entries.
Of course, the trophies are almost beside the point at this particular awards stop, which is mostly seen as a moneymaking moment — for NBC, for studios that gain a marketing hook for winter films, for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Besides, the association, with a long history of voting idiosyncrasies, has only 88 people who cast ballots. The Oscars, awarded next month, are voted on by about 8,200 movie industry professionals.
Over the last 10 years, the Globes and the Oscars have agreed on best picture winners 50 percent of the time. Last year, the foreign press association crowned “Lady Bird” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Neither won at the Academy Awards, which recognized “The Shape of Water.”
[See what celebrities wore on the red carpet.]
For a change, the big winner on Sunday is expected to be a movie that most people have actually seen: “A Star Is Born,” with roughly $390 million in global ticket sales, will almost certainly take the prize for best drama. Lady Gaga, who plays the title role, is considered a lock for best actress in a drama, while her tear-jerker “Shallow” is the favorite to win best song. Bradley Cooper is nominated for his acting and direction, but there are challengers in those categories.
Amazon may have an edge in TV
For all of the attention given to the movie winners, the Globes ceremony almost always starts with accolades for television work. And best actress in a TV drama promises to be one of the most intriguing matchups, pitting a co-host versus a Hollywood legend.
Oh could win for her performance in BBC America’s buzzy “Killing Eve.” But so could the Oscar-winning Julia Roberts, who is nominated for playing a mysterious counselor on Amazon’s “Homecoming,” her first regular television role. Oh was passed over by Emmys voters in September, which could help her on Sunday; this show loves to be the anti-Emmys.
Both “Killing Eve” and “Homecoming” were passed over for best television drama, however. That award went to the FX spy drama “The Americans” — an honor the series never achieved at the Emmys before ending its six-season run last year.
Amazon has won the best comedy award in three of its last four tries, with nods for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Transparent” and the little-watched and much-forgotten “Mozart in the Jungle.”
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is expected to repeat in the best musical or comedy award, making it the first consecutive winner in that category since “Glee” in 2010 and 2011. “Barry,” about a hit man who becomes an aspiring actor, has strong upset potential.
‘Green Book’ vs. ‘The Favourite’
Few films have more riding on Sunday night than “Green Book.” It has been a box-office disappointment, collecting $35 million (roughly half of which goes to theater owners) and costing an estimated $50 million to make and market. Some people adore the film’s feel-good depiction of interracial friendship in the Deep South during the 1960s. Others have been appalled by its reliance on racial clichés.
Winning best comedy or musical would give “Green Book” a much-needed boost. And it could happen: 16 of the 23 professional handicappers at Gold Derby, an entertainment honors site, expect “Green Book” to emerge victorious. Its biggest competitor is “The Favourite,” a pitch-black comedy about royal schemers.
Those two films are also squaring off in the screenplay field, where “Vice,” about Dick Cheney’s life, could also be a factor. (“The Favourite” is the front-runner there.)
“Green Book” is similarly positioned in the supporting actor competition, where the Globe could easily go to Mahershala Ali, who plays an erudite pianist in the film — or to Richard E. Grant, a nominee for playing an unscrupulous sidekick in the forgery drama “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
In praise of Jeff Bridges and Carol Burnett
Jeff Bridges will collect the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in film, and Carol Burnett accepted a new award, named after her, for career achievement in television.
Steve Carell presented Burnett with the award, calling her “one of the most revered, respected and most well-liked people in show business” before making an off-color quip about nice-guy Tom Hanks that NBC censors bleeped. Julia Roberts offered a rambunctious hoot from the audience, which jumped to its feet.
“I’m really gobsmacked by this,” Burnett, 85, said. “Does this mean I get to accept it every year?” She used most of her speech to reminiscence about the TV industry of the 1960s and ’70s, ending with her signature line, “I’m so glad we got this time together.”
What we saw on the red carpet
Our Carpetbagger, @kylebuchanan, was on the red carpet, where he shared observations on Twitter:
A diverse set of nominees. Winners may be another story.
At the very least, expect discussion from someone — the hosts, winners, presenters — about one serious topic: moviedom’s long-overdue effort to embrace diversity.
Three movies from black filmmakers and featuring leading characters who are black (“Black Panther,” “BlacKkKlansman,” “If Beale Street Could Talk”) are nominated for best drama. Jon Chu’s “Crazy Rich Asians,” celebrated for its primarily Asian cast, is nominated for best comedy or musical.
The only problem? None are expected to win.
The best shot at a Globe for that group of films may be Regina King, a supporting actress nominee for the little-seen “Beale Street.” But Amy Adams (“Vice”) is also a contender, and Rachel Weisz (“The Favourite”) could sneak through.
Looking for clues about ‘Roma’
The foreign press association, rather strangely (or not, given its focus on celebrity), considers foreign films ineligible for its best picture awards. So the Globes will not offer much guidance on the Oscar fortunes of “Roma,” Alfonso Cuarón’s subtitled, black-and-white homage to Mexico City life in the 1970s. (In another quirk, American studios can dictate where their films compete, hence the classification of “A Star Is Born” as a drama and not a musical.)
Globe voters may, however, throw their weight behind Cuarón as best director. (It’s either him or Cooper for “A Star Is Born.”) And “Roma,” the source of some angst in the Academy Awards race because it comes from Netflix, which is challenging the traditional model for releasing films, will easily win the Globe for foreign film.
