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    The Dos and Don’ts of Staging a Pandemic-Era Awards Show

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonGolden Globes: What HappenedBest and Worst MomentsWinners ListStream the WinnersRed Carpet ReviewAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ProjectionistThe Dos and Don’ts of Staging a Pandemic-Era Awards ShowThe Oscars have nearly two months to get right what has gone oh-so-wrong at other ceremonies.Joaquin Phoenix was onstage Sunday night at the Globes while the best-actress nominees and their supporters loomed behind him. (Top, from left, Viola Davis, Andra Day and Vanessa Kirby; bottom, Frances McDormand, left, and Carey Mulligan.)Credit… NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty ImagesMarch 3, 2021, 2:12 p.m. ETAre awards shows merely the perk for a fully functioning society, or is there a way to make them work even while the world around us in still in dire straits? These are the questions that many in Hollywood are asking after Sunday’s disastrous Golden Globes ceremony brought in 6.9 million viewers, a free-fall plunge from last year’s tally of 18.3 million.Certainly, people have more pressing matters on their minds than whether “Nomadland” can beat “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” but even casual movie fans surely cringed (or changed the channel) when technical difficulties nearly torpedoed the speech given by Golden Globe winner Daniel Kaluuya at the top of the show. We’re all tired of buggy Zoom calls by now, even when those thumbnails are filled with Hollywood’s best and brightest.There are still nearly two more months before the Oscar telecast on April 25, which will be produced by the often innovative Steven Soderbergh alongside Stacey Sher and Jesse Collins. It won’t be easy for them to mount a glitzy gala during a still-raging pandemic, but here are the lessons that can be learned from the awards shows that were unlucky enough to go first.DO a sound check.In too many of the ceremonies I’ve watched this year, from the Gotham Awards to the Golden Globes, the first big winner of the night either had no idea when to speak or was still on mute when they finally began to. Clearly, some more robust preshow prep is necessary: If you’ve already got the stars on standby, keep drilling them offscreen until they know their cue to come in. (And send them better cameras and microphones, when possible.) An acceptance speech ought to begin with emotion, not technical difficulties.DON’T do improv comedy.The Golden Globes booked two sets of consummate vampers — the “Saturday Night Live” vets Maya Rudolph and Kenan Thompson, and the “Barb and Star” leads Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo — but each duo’s improvised patter only made a ramshackle show feel even more chaotic. Improv comedy works better as a palate cleanser during a tightly scripted ceremony, and it feels perverse to let comedians churn through show time in pursuit of a punchline when some of the biggest winners then have their speeches quickly curtailed by wrap-it-up music.DO some short, pretaped bits.Live award ceremonies still feel hemmed in by awkward social distancing, but plenty of movies and television shows are back in full production all over the world. The Oscars could take advantage of their long lead time and ask some of Hollywood’s wittiest to shoot pretaped bits, running no more than thirty seconds, to help expand the breadth of the show in safe and creative ways. Call up Taika Waititi and have him improvise something funny with Chris Hemsworth! Tell Judd Apatow that yes, it has to be 30 seconds — not 60! And any shorts that are cut for time can easily be released online the next day to extend Oscar’s golden afterglow.Awards Season More

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    For Many Golden Globe Winners, the London Stage Came First

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonGolden Globes: What HappenedBest and Worst MomentsWinners ListStream the WinnersRed Carpet ReviewAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookFor Many Golden Globe Winners, the London Stage Came FirstAt Sunday’s ceremony, a whole host of British winners and nominees got their training in the theater before they made it to the screen.At the Golden Globes, the actor John Boyega accepted an award for best supporting actor in a series, mini-series or television film for “Small Axe.”Credit…Christopher Polk/NBC, via ReutersMarch 2, 2021, 1:36 p.m. ETLONDON — Where would this year’s Golden Globes be without the English stage? Greatly diminished. As the winners John Boyega and Daniel Kaluuya (who took home trophies for best supporting actor in a television and movie role, respectively) and nominees like Olivia Colman and Carey Mulligan evidence, a pipeline of talent runs directly from London theater to onscreen renown at the highest levels in Hollywood.Many of the other British winners at Sunday night’s ceremony also got their training onstage. Although we may now know Emma Corrin as the latest person bold enough to embody Princess Diana, Sunday night’s 25-year-old winner for actress in a drama series accrued plenty of dramatic credits while studying at Cambridge. Her “Crown” co-star and fellow winner Josh O’Connor graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theater School before shifting his attention to the screen. He was expecting to make a high-profile return to the London stage last year in a National Theater production of “Romeo and Juliet.” Because of the pandemic, the production has been reimagined for the screen with a notably starry supporting cast, and will be airing in Britain and the United States next month.Josh O’Connor, who plays Prince Charles in “The Crown,” graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theater School.Credit…Alex Bailey/Netflix, via Associated PressEmma Corrin, who plays Princess Diana, accrued dramatic credits while studying at Cambridge.Credit…Des Willie/Netflix, via Associated PressMichaela Coel’s absence may have commandeered attention at this year’s Globes after her HBO show “I May Destroy You” was snubbed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but keen-eyed London playgoers will have spotted this graduate of Guildhall School at the National Theater’s now-defunct Shed theater, first in the all-female ensemble of “Blurred Lines” and then in her self-penned monologue, “Chewing Gum Dreams,” a project she began while still a student. That title was shortened and the work’s concept expanded to create “Chewing Gum,” Coel’s first TV show. Her fiery talent, first seen in embryo by London theater audiences, has now found the larger audience it deserves.On occasion, a small play itself becomes a celluloid sensation. There’s no other way to describe the leap made by “Fleabag,” which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013 and which I caught within the intimate confines of the Soho Theater in London the following year. Before long, its creator and star, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, had found a new and welcoming home for her sexually unbridled Londoner on television.An astonishing success story followed, and when Waller-Bridge returned with her character to a mainstream West End perch in 2019, there were House Full signs from its first performance onward. Before long the show’s second season had also won six Emmys, as well as a best actress Golden Globe for its creator. As a sign of quite how high her Tinseltown star has risen, Waller-Bridge was brought on with much fanfare to work on the script of the upcoming Bond film “No Time to Die.”Phoebe Waller-Bridge received a Golden Globe award in 2020 for her work on “Fleabag.”Credit…Paul Drinkwater/NBC, via Associated PressIndeed, scratch most British TV and film names and you’ll find a theater-trained talent, most of whom are happy to return to the stage and regularly do: Ralph Fiennes, a movie star by anyone’s definition, was quick to brave the London stage last year during the brief mid-pandemic window when theaters here were open. His chosen vehicle was David Hare’s solo play, “Beat the Devil,” appearing as the playwright himself.Fiennes graduated, as have many well-known actors here, from the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The widely shared belief, at least in Britain, is that some sort of stage training sets you up for a profession that demands versatility and flexibility (not to mention technique), all of which are surely useful onscreen as well as onstage. Nor can one deny that theater training here has long seemed like a rite of passage, conferring legitimacy on those who submit to the rigors of the stage.Not everyone follows this path: I’ve yet to see yet another of Sunday’s Globe recipients, Sacha Baron Cohen, on a London stage, though that prospect is hugely enticing, and such actors as Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet seem to have leapt to onscreen stardom without paying this country’s seemingly obligatory dues onstage. (Winslet has done theater in the regions but not in London.)Awards Season More

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    Golden Globes: The Projectionist’s Takeaways

    Golden Globes: The Projectionist’s TakeawaysSacha Baron Cohen with his wife, Isla Fisher.Christopher Polk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWant a catch-up on last night’s Golden Globes? It was a weird one — and considering how weird a typical Globes ceremony is, that’s saying something.Watch the standout moments → More

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    Golden Globes 2021: Where to Stream the Winners

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonGolden Globes: What HappenedBest and Worst MomentsWinners ListStream the WinnersRed Carpet ReviewAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGolden Globes 2021: Where to Stream the WinnersNearly all of the big winners from the evening are available to stream. Here’s a look at where to find them and what The Times first had to say about them.Sacha Baron Cohen in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” which won the award for best musical or comedy at the Golden Globes.Credit…Amazon StudiosMarch 1, 2021, 11:31 a.m. ETDuring a normal year, when many of the awards-contending movies are released late in the season, home viewers often have to wait for a month or two to catch the winners on various streaming services. But the one benefit to an awards show during a pandemic year is that all the winners are immediately available — or so we might have assumed.To the surprise of many Golden Globes prognosticators — and to the actress herself — Jodie Foster won best supporting actress for “The Mauritanian,” a 9/11-themed legal drama that’s currently in theaters, but will arrive on VOD on Tuesday, March 2nd. (Our critic, Jeannette Catsoulis, would advise you to proceed with caution.) Otherwise, the night’s big winners on the film side are scattered among the streaming giants, with “Nomadland” and “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” on Hulu, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” on Amazon Prime and “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “I Care a Lot” on Netflix.The awards were not distributed quite so democratically for the TV slate, where the fourth season of Netflix’s “The Crown” took best drama as well as prizes for three of the four acting categories. Netflix also has The Queen’s Gambit,” which won for best limited series or TV movie and for Anya Taylor-Joy’s performance as an American chess grandmaster of humble origins. And the service is streaming all six seasons of the best musical or comedy winner “Schitt’s Creek.”Here’s a guide to the major-category winners that are currently a click away, along with excerpts from their New York Times reviews or features.Movies‘Nomadland’Won for: Best picture, drama; best director“In a fine Emersonian spirit, the movie rebels against its own conventional impulses, gravitating toward an idea of experience that is more complicated, more open-ended, more contradictory than what most American movies are willing to permit.” (Read the full Times review by A.O. Scott.)Where to watch: Stream it on Hulu.‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’Won for: Best musical or comedy; best actor, musical or comedy“Would I call this the best movie of 2020, from the standpoint of cinematic art? Look, I don’t know. It’s been a weird year. But I would insist that this sequel to a cringey, pranky, 14-year-old classic is undeniably the most 2020 movie of all time.” (Read the full Times article on the Best Movies of 2020, in which A.O. Scott put Sacha Baron Cohen’s satire at #1.)Where to watch: Stream it on Amazon Prime.‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’Won for: Best screenplay“‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ is a mixed bag. While [Aaron] Sorkin draws some of his dialogue from court transcripts, he also exercises the historical dramatist’s prerogative to embellish, streamline and invent. Some of the liberties he takes help to produce a leaner, clearer story, while others serve no useful purpose.” (Read the full Times review by A.O. Scott.)Where to watch: Stream it on Netflix.‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’Won for: Best actor, drama“Of course it’s hard to watch Levee — to marvel at [Chadwick] Boseman’s lean and hungry dynamism — without feeling renewed shock and grief at Boseman’s death earlier this year. And though ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ has been around for a long while and will endure in the archive, the algorithm and the collective memory, there is something especially poignant about encountering it now.” (Read the full Times review by A.O. Scott.)Where to watch: Stream it on Netflix.‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday’Won for: Best actress, drama“Andra Day, who plays Holiday, is a canny and charismatic performer, and the film’s hectic narrative is punctuated with nightclub and concert-hall scenes that capture some of the singer’s magnetism. Rather than lip-sync the numbers, Day sings them in a voice that has some of Holiday’s signature breathy rasp and delicate lilt, and suggests her ability to move from whimsy to anguish and back in the space of a phrase.” (Read the full Times review by A.O. Scott.)Where to watch: Stream it on Hulu.‘I Care a Lot’Won for: Best actress, musical or comedy“An unexpectedly gripping thriller that seesaws between comedy and horror, “I Care a Lot” is cleverly written (by the director, J Blakeson) and wonderfully cast. Marla is an almost cartoonish sociopath, and [Rosamund] Pike leans into her villainy with unwavering bravado.” (Read the full Times review by Jeannette Catsoulis here.)Where to watch: Stream it on Netflix.‘Judas and the Black Messiah’Won for: Best supporting actor“‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ represents a disciplined, impassioned effort to bring clarity to a volatile moment, to dispense with the sentimentality and revisionism that too often cloud movies about the ’60s and about the politics of race.” (Read the full Times review by A.O. Scott.)Awards Season More

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    The Best and Worst of the Golden Globes

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonGolden Globes: What HappenedMoments and AnalysisGlobes WinnersGolden Globes ReviewAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Best and Worst of the Golden GlobesAmid deeply moving moments (like the speech by Chadwick Boseman’s widow), there were technical difficulties and the strange sight of long-distance hosts pretending to be on the same stage.March 1, 2021, 4:57 a.m. ET More

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    Chloé Zhao becomes the first Asian woman to win the Golden Globe for best director.

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonGolden Globes: What HappenedMoments and AnalysisGlobes WinnersGolden Globes ReviewAdvertisementContinue reading the main story‘Nomadland,’ ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’ and ‘The Crown’ Led a Remote Golden GlobesChloé Zhao becomes the first Asian woman to win the Golden Globe for best director.Feb. 28, 2021, 10:40 p.m. ETFeb. 28, 2021, 10:40 p.m. ETChloé Zhao accepts the award for best director, motion picture.Credit…NBC阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版Chloé Zhao, whose drama “Nomadland” offered an intimate portrait of itinerant Americans, won the Golden Globe for best director on Sunday, making her the first Asian woman ever to win that prize.In taking home the award, Zhao also became the first woman to be named best director since Barbra Streisand won for “Yentl” almost 40 years ago. It was the first time in Golden Globes history that three women had been nominated in the category.Earlier in the night, Zhao had also been nominated in the best screenplay” category. (Aaron Sorkin won for the “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”) “Nomadland” is also up for the best picture Golden Globe in the drama category, and its star, Frances McDormand, is up for an acting trophy.[embedded content]The much-praised “Nomadland” follows Fern (McDormand) as she travels the country in a van, picking up itinerant work (in an Amazon warehouse and elsewhere) and making connections with other American wanderers. Zhao, who adapted the movie from Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book of the same name, largely used nonprofessionals in the cast, including people from Bruder’s book.Zhao captured the essence of the story discussing it for Anatomy of a Scene, the New York Times series. She recounted the scene in which Fern (Frances McDormand) wanders through Badlands National Park. “She’s exploring,” Zhao said, “but she’s also lost at the same time.”Though Zhao has been known for indie dramas like this one and “The Rider” from 2018, her next film is on a much different scale: the Marvel superhero movie “Eternals.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Transcript: Jane Fonda calls for diversity in Golden Globe nominees and voters.

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonGolden Globes: What HappenedMoments and AnalysisGlobes WinnersGolden Globes ReviewAdvertisementContinue reading the main story‘Nomadland,’ ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’ and ‘The Crown’ Led a Remote Golden GlobesTranscript: Jane Fonda calls for diversity in Golden Globe nominees and voters.Feb. 28, 2021, 10:54 p.m. ETFeb. 28, 2021, 10:54 p.m. ET“Art has always been not just in step with history, but has led the way,” Jane Fonda said while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award. “So let’s be leaders, OK?”Credit…NBC More

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    ‘Minari’ wins best foreign-language film, but not without controversy.

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonGolden Globes: What HappenedMoments and AnalysisGlobes WinnersGolden Globes ReviewAdvertisementContinue reading the main story‘Nomadland,’ ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’ and ‘The Crown’ Led a Remote Golden Globes‘Minari’ wins best foreign-language film, but not without controversy.Feb. 28, 2021, 10:00 p.m. ETFeb. 28, 2021, 10:00 p.m. ETMaya Salam and The director Lee Isaac Chung, with his daughter, accepting the foreign-language film award for “Minari.”Credit…NBC“Minari,” Lee Isaac Chung’s semi-autobiographical story about a Korean-American family seeking the American dream in rural Arkansas during the 1980s, was the favorite for the best foreign-language film Golden Globe, and on Sunday night, it secured the trophy.“This one here, she’s the reason I made this film,” Chung said in his acceptance speech, while tightly hugging his young daughter. “Minari is about a family. It’s a family trying to learn how to speak a language of its own,” he said. “It goes deeper than any American language and any foreign language; it’s a language of the heart.”His message was a nod to the controversy surrounding his movie. The film did not meet the Globes’s 50 percent English language requirement — the characters mostly speak Korean — so it was entered under the foreign-language category, even though Chung, 42, is an American director, the movie was filmed in the United States and it was financed by American companies.[embedded content]And because “Minari” was in the foreign-language film category, it could not contend for the either best-picture awards. (Worth noting, the film’s distributor, A24, submitted “Minari” in the foreign-language category.) The cast of “Minari” was eligible for acting nominations but did not receive any.The classification drew accusations of racism and favoritism — Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” (2009), for example, did not meet the English language requirement either, and yet was nominated for a best-picture prize — and calls for changes to the rules.“Maybe the positive side of all of this is that we’ve made a film that challenges some of those existing categories, and adds to the idea that an American film might look and sound very differently from what we’re used to,” Chung recently told The New York Times. “It’s hard to say, ‘I demand a seat at a table for best picture.’”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More