And I mean especially one from the Golden Globes, which is telecast nationally on NBC and has become a very big ratings deal in recent years. The show sells movies to the mass audience in a pizazzy way, and is seen as being worth all the bullshit even if everyone involved in Hollywood thinks the HFPA and its members are a total joke.

If you ask me the NBR is bizarre in a church-mousey, who-are-these-people-again? way, but the HFPA, I have to say (hell, everyone says), is a little more on the scummy side.

How can I put this delicately? With relatively few exceptions, the HFPA members are a bunch of eager-beaver pseudo-journalists (a fair portion of them write for publications in Germany and Japan) who smile much too broadly and get far too excited when celebrities are in the room.

They're not ardent admirers of the art of motion pictures as much as people who appreciate huge bowls of tasty shrimp sitting on studio-supplied buffet tables. They're pigs who squeal on cue in order to flatter Hollywood and keep themselves feeding at the trough.

A new documentary by Vikram Jayanti called THE GOLDEN GLOBES: HOLLYWOOD'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET (Trio Network, debuting December 15) expresses these sentiments and then some. It does so in a spoofy, spot-on, light-hearted way. Definitely catch it. And if you don't get Trio through your cable provider, call up and complain.

Jayanti didn't get any access to the HFPA leadership or its members (everyone was told to blow him off), but he managed a sassy little piece regardless.

I don't mean the word "little" to suggest "insignificant." What Jayanti accomplishes in the final analysis is make us think not just about the corruption represented by the entrenchment and the celebration of the Golden Globes, but the increasing idiot-wind effect upon the culture at large.

The talking heads include producer Michael Phillips (TAXI DRIVER, THE STING), publicist Dale Olson (who finagled the infamous Golden Globe award given to Pia Zadora in 1982 for "Best New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture") and documentarian Chuck Workman.

"Let's sell the public a lie," Phillips says early on, describing the attitude of the studios as well as NBC. "That's what it is. The public buys into the bullshit of the Golden Globes? Fine. Let's co-opt it and make it our thing."

The reason for this current state of affairs, he adds, is that "the [studio] marketing departments have moved from the back of the bus where they were in the '70s, and are now in the driver's seat."

The stars of the doc -- the deliverers of the wittiest remarks -- are NEW YORK TIMES reporter Sharon Waxman (who was writing for the WASHINGTON POST when the doc was shot last summer), film critic John Powers and VARIETY reporter and social gadfly Bill Higgins.

The Golden Globe membership knows "they're getting away with murder on some kind of level" says Powers. He also says the awards themselves are "a symptom perhaps of what's wrong with the industry and the culture as a whole."

"If you win an Oscar, you know how the first line of your obituary is going to read, 'the Oscar- winning so-and-so died of whatever,'" says Higgins. "Now, the Globes are a way-station on the way to winning an Oscar, and that's not insignificant. But at the same time, I don't think anyone wants their obit to read, 'the Golden Globe winner...'"

The irony, says Powers, "is that although the Golden Globe members are mostly idiots, they often show better taste [in the movies they honor] than the Academy."

Waxman has the best rant. The Golden Globes are "part of our national culture and part of our national experience, and it's a joke," she says toward the end. "[And] people should know it and Hollywood should do something about it.

"It's the Jerry Springer-ization of our society. We're spending all our time looking at nonsense, thinking about nonsense, and being sucked in by the nonsense machine. Everything in society... does it really matter? Does it really matter that Halliburton got that huge contract in Iraq? Well, nothing really matters then, and we'll all just kind of go along on our merry way and be pleasant and make nice. What's the difference? Who are we hurting?

"[The Globes] are not hurting anybody," Waxman continues. "America gets to watch this kind of fun ceremony, and everyone has a good time, and it's a kick. And in my naivete [when I first started reporting about Hollywood] I thought that the fact that people 'knowing' would mean something and make some kind of difference. And in fact is, it doesn't. People 'know' and they don't care."

The Golden Globes are "an end run about the critical review process," Jayanti says.

The doc "is just a funny story," he remarks. "The subject doesn't warrant a heavy-duty approach ...I realized early on it was better to do a spoof. But it's also about a deep truth about America -- you can make stuff up and then make it true and make yourself famous and then make money off it."

"In a way, they're like Bush doing that photo op on that aircraft carrier with the flight suit on and saying the Iraqi war was over and a big victory."

The doc uses a fair portion of its 60 minutes to focus on Danish TV journalist Jeannie Mortenson. This friendly, attractive woman talks about her life as a celebrity interviewer without a shred of irony. She says she hasn't yet been accepted into the Golden Globe organization, but with her attitude she probably will be some day.

"It isn't Jeannie's job to be a critic," Jayanti says. "She just celebrates it. She's really bought into it. They're all working for the machine."

The 2004 Golden Globe Awards nominations will be announced on December 18th. The awards will be televised on NBC on January 25th.

Gang From New York

I don't know if the idea with the National Board of Review awards was to spread the love around and get as many big names as possible to show up for the awards ceremony...or if the voters were just following their hearts. (Hah!)

The NBR selections -- always the first out of the gate -- are usually seen as an indication of which award-worthy films have the most heat with the over-45 contingent. But there are always two or three weird calls.

Diane Keaton's winning Best Actress for her likable, vulnerable, mid-range performance in Nancy Meyers' SOMETHING'S GOTTA GAVE came as a surprise. Keaton over Charlize Theron in MONSTER, Naomi Watts in 21 GRAMS, and Jennifer Connelly in HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG...? Very curious.

Clint Eastwood's MYSTIC RIVER was named Best Picture of the Year. A respectable film and an okay choice by me. It suggests...naah, it doesn't suggest anything. But I was happy to learn the winner wasn't LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING. Resistance!

THE LAST SAMURAI was named the second best film of the year, and Edward Zwick took the Best Director award. Double oddball.

No argument at all with Sean Penn getting the NBR's Best Actor prize for his performances in both MYSTIC RIVER and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's 21 GRAMS. He's got the Oscar sewn up, right?

Another surprise was Alec Baldwin geing handed the Best Supporting Actor prize for his work in Wayne Kramer's THE COOLER. (Well, maybe not. Baldwin's casino-boss performance is pretty damn okay.) I totally agree with Patricia Clarkson being named Best Supporting Actress for her acting in PIECES OF APRIL and THE STATION AGENT.

Vadim Perelman won the directorial debut trophy for DreamWorks' HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG -- good call.

Jim Sheridan, Naomi and Kirsten Sheridan won the Best Original Screenplay award for Fox Searchlight's IN AMERICA...but did they write Paddy Considine's "fee-fi-fo-fum" line? (Or was it improvised?) Anthony Minghella won the Best Adapted Screenplay award for COLD MOUNTAIN, which I've seen but can't discuss until December 15th or thereabouts.

Big cheers for Paul Giamatti and Charlize Theron winning for breakthrough performances in AMERICAN SPLENDOR and MONSTER, respectively.

And a hat thrown into the air for Errol Morris's THE FOG OF WAR, which the NBR named as the year's Best Documentary. Denys Arcand's THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS won for Best Foreign Film.

The National Board of Review has been an erratic Oscar indicator, at best. Last year's Best Picture winner was THE HOURS. And don't forget the Best Picture win by QUILLS, and the one for GODS AND MONSTERS the year before.

The NBR's awards ceremony is scheduled Jan. 13th at New York's Tavern on the Green.

Great Stuff

This is from Stephen Hunter's review of THE LAST SAMURAI in today's (12.5.03) Washington Post. Just read it. No commentary required:

"...the battles are reasonably well staged, and lots of people die. There's some cool sword-fighting. But still, it's junk.

"Basically what Zwick has done is to take Kevin Costner's DANCES WITH WOLVES and insert it into the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, with a samurai clan in the role of an Indian tribe. Hmmm, I don't think so. Costner evoked all of Native American culture; the survival of a whole people was at peril. It was a culture war, not a class war. But the samurai, after all, were but a small part of Japan; they represented, by the 19th century, obstructivist, regressive values. They really can't, or shouldn't, be sentimentalized.

"That doesn't stop Zwick. Nothing stops Zwick. He's like General MacArthur returning. He marches through everything, immune to subtlety, nuance, sense of appropriateness. So he's got Tom Cruise, as earnest and hopeless as the day is long, as both Toshiro Mifune and Kevin Costner. And to make this travesty worse, you can feel the handsome little guy 'acting' with every fiber of his being. It's kind of unsettling.

"He resembles Sean Penn in I AM SAM, except he seems to be shouting 'I am Samurai.' His face is a perpetual mask of scorn, his body a knot of anxiety, his eyes cranked down to laser glare. He's a poster boy for the concept of "trying too hard." He's not a hero, he's the guy at the party who's so intense you want him to stay away."

Home on the Range

Ahhh...the sounds of a heated kettle in which every last drop of heated water has evaporated, and the metal has now begun to melt and crackle and slowly shape-shift on the stove top. This is a regrettably familiar occurence in my home, especially during deadlines. I sometimes forget to leave the plastic steam container cap (you know...the doo-dad that makes the pot whistle when the water heats up) in place, and I'll be working on fixing an annoyingly complex sentence, and then...wait a minute...an aroma will start wafting out from the kitchen. Whazzat? And then that sound...snap...snip....crack.

There Wolf! There Castle!

"An American werewolf in Japan? Are you kidding me? I would so totally pay to see this movie. Samurai vs. Werewolves? That would kick so much ass." -- Thomas A. Jones

"Your werewolf in Japan idea was as funny as anything this year, and especially the mention of that 'Werewolves of London' sequence from THE COLOR OF MONEY." -- Stencil

"My personal theory is that Nathan Algern is actually a Wendigo a la the movie RAVENOUS. This movie has a similar scene where one of the characters survives mass battlefield slaughter, apparently anyway. This could put an interesting spin on the end of the movie." -- Ken Eaton

Son of Ringu

"What's all the fuss about your good vs. evil comments regarding the RINGS films? I understand why you don't have an appetite for this type of movie, and I don't see your comments as negative. Maybe they can make a special Oscar for Peter Jackson recognizing the tremendous work of WETA, his writing team, production partners and the whole of New Zealand. They even have a Minister For LORD OF THE RINGS, for Chrissakes!

"You may be interested to know that a NEW YORK TIMES critic trashed the second LOTR film because it portrayed the Orcs and Uruk Hai in one-dimensional bad-guy terms. She complained that they lacked depth. Well, duhh! They're frickin' Orcs. They don't have a motivation, apart from raping, pillaging and murdering." -- Jerome Mazandarani, www.Vibewire.net, London .

"I usually always agree that movies prosaic and callow enough to portray the world in black and white are worthy of our contempt. Certainly today's climate reeks of this ethos, which I feel we should all rail against. Then why is it that I like Tolkien's vision put to the screen like I do?

It must have something to do with the Anglophile in me as I listen to Sir Ian rip it up. I guess I can buy the story because there is at the very least a fragilityand wisfulness that runs through all the storylines. You've been attacked on this view enough already (and reason I am sure that you keep the beat on this drum) so I won't write a book on it.

"I suppose all I'm saying is that I don't mind this epic albeit childish send-up because the characters are full of fear and self-doubt which is the stuff the gray matter in the middle is comprised of to begin with." -- George Bolanis

Glory Mofo's

"The truth of the matter is that those black regiments did march to their deaths, knowing they probably wouldn't survive, but honorably going forward anyway. It's astounding to me, too, that people sacrificed and died like that, but no less true than the slave on the plantation, singing and praying for a better day. We don't know honor and sacrifice like that today. How could we?

"Not to get all preachy, but me sitting here typing to you on my Dell PC is directly associated with those men going into battle. What was better - that or working on some white man's plantation, cryin' and singing about a better day? These men fought for a cause, died for a belief, I think. And as the child of a military officer and a Vietnam veteran, I know there is honor in that. Even with the hardships that black regiment faced, there was honor in that.

"If THE LAST SAMURAI can have you conjure up all kinds of cultural responses, be prepared that slighting the ending to a film like GLORY will conjure up the same from those of us who love it for personal reasons. Marching right into slaughter is fighting, Jeff, because those men and those that fell before them, and many that fell after, knew that one day some of us would be reading and writing each other like this today.

"Just how I feel, buddy. Love that film. Don't have a lot of perspective on it, even fifteen years later. You'll feel the same about your 21 GRAMS and THE THIN RED LINE, probably." -- Rod Durham

HFPA Clones

"You forgot to mention the Broadcast Film Critics Association in your piece about Vikran Jayanti's doc about the Hollywood Foriegn Press Association. The HFCA, who call themselves 'the most prominent film critics in America,' want to become the next HFPA. And why not? Taken as a whole, these quote whores, blurbmeisters and junketeers are certainly dumb enough to wear the mantle proudly.

"Check out their web site -- www.bfca.org -- and look at the membership. You'll probably recognize the names from their blurbs that appeared in ads for movies like HAUNTED MANSION, LEGALLY BLONDE 3 and GIGLI.

"And yet the BFCA's awards show is now televised live by E, and president Joey Berlin -- maybe you know the guy -- is trying to position the group for a network prime-time gig. Amazing.

"I can't comment on the HFPA's membership; certain assumptions can certainly be made. But I bump into these BFCA people from time to time when I'm interviewing people at the Four Seasons. They're the ones going back for third helpings of dessert and admiring the autographs they procured earlier in the day.

They're also the ones ingenious enough to fashion a wardrobe entirely out of freebies -- you know, a tasteful ensemble like a MEN IN BLACK 2 t-shirt, a SPACE JAM cap and a tote bag emblazoned with the logo for THE MUMMY.

As their web site proclaims, these people are the 'primary source of information for today's entertainment consumers.' That might be stretching it, but it would certainly explain all the people going to see THE CAT IN THE HAT." -- Los Angeles film critic who requested anonymity.