English Entertainment
Golden Globe Awards high on entertainment
MUMBAI: The irreverence and the humour that actors Tina Fey and Amy Poehler brought on stage while hosting last year’s Golden Globe Awards, almost everybody fell for them. While they took funny pot shots at the people from the industry, they also made sure that the audience doesn’t feel left out. And when they were such a hit last time, it only made sense to bring them back to host this year’s edition of the Awards that was telecast today morning.
“Welcome to the 71st annual Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s Lee Daniels’ ‘The Butler’ Golden Globe Awards,” proclaims Amy Poehler (Parks & Recreation) along with her co-host Tina Fey (30 Rock) while opening the award ceremony. The two actresses were on a roll at the stage. As the hosts of the award show, they even got away by calling Matt Damon a “garbage person”. The hosts also had quite a few insightful theories, one being “the story of how George Clooney would rather float away into space and die than spend one more minute with a woman his own age”.
One of the most rib-tickling jibe was when Tom Hanks was deliberately pronounced Tam Honks, highlighting all the difficult nominees’ names. On the film adaptation of the critically acclaimed play, August: Osage County, Fey said, this proves that there are still great parts in Hollywood for Meryl Streeps over 60.
Another victim of their mockery was the former Seinfeld actress, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, just because she was sitting “with the movie crowd”. “Hi Julia, you know us from TV.” Cut to Julia smoking an e-cigarette in sunglasses and shoving away Reese Witherspoon, who’s trying to take a photo with her, Amy says, “She has really changed!” to which Tina quickly reverts, “She’s gross.”
Later in the broadcast, Fey and Poehler called Louis-Dreyfus out for “slithering back over to the TV section,” as the camera panned to the Veep star shoveling a hot dog into her mouth. Since Matthew McConaughey had to lose 45 pounds to star in Dallas Buyers Club, Fey announced to the audience that, “he lost 45 pounds, or what actresses call, being in a movie.”
The award ceremony proceeded with the announcement of Jacqueline Bisset as the winner for the supporting actress in a series, miniseries or TV movie award for her role as Lady Lavinia Cremone in Stephen Poliakoff’s Dancing on the Edge. In the same category of a series, miniseries or television movie, Elizabeth Moss took home the Globe for Best Actress for Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake, while Michael Douglas took away the Best Actor award for portraying piano prodigy Liberace in the HBO Original film, Behind the Candelabra. Behind the Candelabra also won the Best Miniseries or Best Television Film award.
Saturday Night Live’s former cast mate, Andy Samberg won the Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy series for the freshman comedy, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Amy Poehler, much to the host’s surprise, won the Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy series for her role in Parks & Recreation for the first time after having been nominated thrice for the same role, leaving her completely stunned while receiving the Globe, which resulted in her repeating the fact that she can’t believe she won, she’s never won anything.
Also, taking home the Best Actor in Drama Series award for the first time, have having been nominated multiple times was Bryan Cranston for his portrayal of Walter White in Breaking Bad. The cult blockbuster also scored the Best Drama Series title.
American Hustle tops the film awards with three wins, including the Best Motion Picture – musical or comedy. Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence won the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, Musical of Comedy respectively.
Dallas Buyers’ Club quickly followed suit with two wins, one for Matthew McConaughey as the Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, while his co-star Jared Leto won the Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture award.
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
