Pop Culture Kitty

2010 Golden Globes Wrap-Up

I had high expectations for this opening show of the awards season.  I’ve wanted to see Ricky Gervais host one of these things for a long time.  The Golden Globes feels like a party – a good fit for Ricky’s style of humor.  Unfortunately it is also a show that normally operates without a host and that showed.  There wasn’t really a place for Ricky.  I wasn’t expecting a big musical number but he didn’t even really get a full monologue.  That’s not to say that he didn’t get off some pretty good one-liners.  His crack about being a man who loves a drink, but not as much as Mel Gibson, was a slap-your-hand-over-your-mouth classic.  Kudos to Mel for reacting so well to it.  The Salty Old Dog’s take on it was that Ricky took his “I don’t care” attitude a little too far and didn’t seem to particularly care how funny he was. 

As for the show itself, it moved quite well and even ended on time.  There were funny moments and even a couple of heartfelt ones.  Here’s what stood out for me:

Fashions 

Might as well start with what really matters – the gowns!  For me the knock-out of the night was Jennifer Garner.  It was a stunning dress that fit her body type perfectly:

I thought there were also some interesting (while still being attractive) dresses.  I love the color and unique style of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s gown:

I also found Kate Hudson’s dress striking – while also being a little odd:

And, of course, my girl Jennifer Aniston was her usual, gorgeous self:

She and Gerard Butler certainly weren’t trying to stop the romance rumors on this particular night. 

As for the misses, I didn’t think there were any real disasters this year.  Mariah Carey has been getting some grief for her super-plunging neckline:

I don’t really see what the problem is.  She’s Mariah Carey.  She’s supposed to dress this way.  Nick Cannon certainly looks happy about it.

Winners & Speeches

My favorite winner of the night was Sandra Bullock for “The Blind Side”.  As she has admitted, she’s not the kind of actress who gets nominated for awards so it was great to see her get her moment in the sun.  I also loved the speech from Jason Reitman after winning for Best Screenplay – Motion Picture with Sheldon Turner for “Up in the Air”.  He seemed so genuine in his praise of George Clooney and his words to his father (who was there along with his mother) were very touching.  Salty was struck by the heartfelt speech from Mo’Nique who won for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for ”Precious”.  Sometimes Mo’Nique can be a bit much but this speech was sincere and moving.  My favorite speech of the night, though, belonged to Robert Downey, Jr.  He was just plain funny:

Other notes:  How adorably uncomfortable does George Clooney look when he’s being praised?  It makes me love him even more (if that’s possible).  Meryl Streep was also charmingly uncomfortable with her embarrassment of riches and her impromptu speech was outstanding.  The Martin Scorsese tribute was quite good – especially the speech from Mr. Scorsese himself. 

It was definitely an enjoyable evening full of beautiful people.  In closing, I’d just like to take a moment to focus on two of the prettiest - Leonardo DiCaprio and Simon Baker:

Oh, and I should mention that the hot guy standing there with Simon is his brother.  Here’s hoping he shows up on “The Mentalist” sometime soon. 

Dancing With The Stars 9 – The Semi-Final Results

Aired 11-17-09

We opened with the encore dance – Mya & Dmitry’s Salsa.  That was an easy choice.  It was certainly THE dance of the previous night.  It was just as fabulous the second time around.

In the recap we learned that Kelly made up her solo in the Rumba because she forgot the whole thing.  We also saw that Kym was at least as upset as Donny over their disastrous Tango.

Hosts Tom Bergeron and Samantha Harris announced that the first couple moving on to the finals …. was going to be announced shortly.  Oh, that was just mean!

Samantha then interviewed the four celebs and I was struck by Kelly and Joanna’s comments.  They both sounded like they were getting themselves prepared to be eliminated.

The first number of the night was a production of “Be Italian” from the movie “Nine”.  I’m not sure who the people were performing the number.  I also don’t know that I would have picked this particular number for such a high profile spot.  The commercial that followed was much more appealing. 

Musical Guest #1:  Alicia Keys with “Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart”.  Alicia looked gorgeous but I wasn’t loving the thigh high blue suede boots.

Oh, good grief.  They had the four celebs lip syncing in a music video to David Bowie’s “Under Pressure”.  Donny was getting waaayyy too into it. 

We finally got some results.  Tom & Samantha called forward Joanna & Derek and Mya & Dmitry as they were the two highest scoring couples.  The result:
Mya & Dmitry Chaplin – in the finals.
Joanna Krupa & Derek Hough – in jeopardy.

Musical Guest #2:  Leona Lewis with “Happy”.  Leona was wonderful but I seriously did not like the choreography for the dancers.  It was much too melodramatic.

Tom then had Donny & Kym and Kelly & Louis come to center stage:
Donny Osmond & Kym Johnson – in the finals. Donny looked immensely relieved.
Kelly Osbourne & Louis van Amstel – in jeopardy.

Musical Guest #3:  The BeeGees.  Specifically Barry and Robin Gibb singing “You Should Be Dancing”.  It’s a little unbelievable that Barry can still rock that falsetto after all these years.  They were joined by Tony Dovolani, Cheryl Burke, Chelsie Hightower and a newbie named Artem Chigvintsev.  The featured dancer, though, was last season finalist Melissa Rycroft.  She did the second half of the dance with former partner Tony.  She looked great – but that’s not exactly news.

We came to the end of the show and it was time to find out whether Joanna & Derek or Kelly & Louis were leaving.  As Tom lead up to the announcement, Kelly looked worried and nervous while Joanna & Derek looked resigned.  They just seemed to know.  They were the ones eliminated.  After a brief interview, Tom announced that Joanna & Derek would exit by doing a reprise of their lovely Waltz from the night before.  It definitely brought a tear to my eye.

There’s no way around it, this result wasn’t fair.  I adore Kelly and Donny but it should have been one of them to go.  Joanna was the second best dancer (behind Mya) in the cast but I guess she just didn’t have the fanbase.  Sigh.

Full episodes of DWTS are available at ABC’s website here:

http://abc.go.com/watch/clip/dancing-with-the-stars/SH007473660000