Tag Archives: Russell Crowe

Entertainment, Movies

77th Golden Globes Recap: Ricky Gervais hits a nerve, On Stage Activism & Netflix goes Unsung

’Big Winners Mostly Among the Predicted with a few Notable Exceptions

With the 77th Golden Globes concluded, Hollywood’s 2020 awards season is officially underway, celebrating the best and brightest that the film and television industries had to offer in the past year.

The Golden Globes took place on Sunday, January 5th at the famous Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California. The ceremony began at 5:00 PM Hollywood time, when stars from around the world took their seats to eagerly await the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s picks for 2019’s best film, show, actor, actress, and so on… as well as the obligatory drama and awkward moments that come with any award show.

The event started far from subtly, as host Ricky Gervais took the stage. A notoriously raw British comedian, Gervais did not shy away from controversy in his opening monologue. He poked fun at just about every industry professional in the room, humorously calling out individuals for their leftist stances on political issues while engaging in an exploitative business led by capitalist juggernauts like Apple, Amazon, and Disney. Add in a Jeffrey Epstein suicide joke, a comparison between Joe Pesci and Baby Yoda, and a shot at Felicity Huffman’s prison sentence, and the night was off to a deliciously cringey start.

Despite his forewarning jests, through, Gervais did not manage to silence the award winners in their acceptance speeches. With few exceptions, it seemed as if each recipient used his or her stage time to make a statement regarding the world’s current turbulent condition.

Upon receiving the award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV film, “Fosse/Verdon” star Michelle Williams spoke out for a woman’s right to choose; While accepting his Best Director title for “1917,” Sam Mendes made a sly remark about war that was indubitably tied to President Trump’s recent actions in Iran; Actor Jared Harris also touched on the cost of political lies when getting the Best Limited Series award for the ever-so-relevant “Chernobyl.”

Undoubtedly (and unsurprisingly), however, the social issue most addressed on the stage was climate change. Nobody addressed this topic more profoundly than Joaquin Phoenix, who upon winning Best Actor in a Drama Motion Picture for his performance in “Joker,” took to the stage with peculiar reticence before immediately thanking the HFP for making the event plant-based. He then proceeded to get on Gervais’ level by dropping several f-bombs in calling out Hollywood hypocrisy. The speech was jarring, yet well received, as the actor delivered the message with far more sincerity than Gervais did at the night’s beginning.

Climate change was on many people’s mind throughout the night, especially in light of the ongoing bushfire epidemic in Australia. Russell Crowe even missed winning best actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie for his performance in “The Loudest Voice,” because he was Down Under protecting his house and family from the catastrophic infernos. In absentia, Jennifer Anniston read the New Zeland-born (yet Australian-raised) actor’s acceptance speech, where he definitively articulated the link between the country’s present forest fires and the planet’s continuing climate crisis.

Ellen DeGeneres also started out her speech expressing her concern and love for Australia. DeGeneres was honored with winning the Carol Burnett Award for achievement in television. After her touching words for Australia, the comedian-actress-talk show host shared her humble rise to stardom and her thoughts on the power of television, all with a characteristically stellar mix of endearing humor and unmistakable earnestness.

Later in the evening, actor Tom Hanks won the second special award of the night—the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award. Hanks gave a deeply impassioned speech and even got choked up while thanking his family. He touched on the duty of an actor to think creatively, know ones part, and “show up on time.”

This brings us to the meat of the event—the actual winners. While the drama, activism, and jokes all make for good television, the Golden Globes are ultimately there to recognize yesteryear’s outstanding works in the entertainment industry.

First off, we obviously had a number of expected outcomes. On the TV side, Brian Cox and Olivia Coleman won best series actor and actress for their respective work in “Succession” and “The Crown.” “Succession” also won Best TV Drama Series while “Fleabag” won in the Comedy category.

As for movies, we saw the anticipated Brad Pitt win Best Supporting Actor for his role in Quentin Tarantino “Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood.” Tarantino himself also won Best Original Screenplay and the film as a whole won Best Film in the Musical or Comedy category. Similarly predictable, the Korean “Parasite” won Best Foreign Language Film, Hildur Guðnadóttir won best original score for “Joker,” and Renée Zellweger won Best Drama Actress for “Judy.”

1917 is Stealth Favorite and Takes Top Drama

The upsets, however, came about in some other fields. As aforementioned, Sam Mendes won Best Director for “1917,” and the movie went on to win Best Film in the Drama category. Neither award was anticipated for Mendes. On the directorial front, he faced competition from the likes of Tarantino and Scorsese. Likewise, for best picture, he went up against bona fide critical hits such as “The Irishman,” “Joker,” and “Marriage Story.” “1917” is yet to get a wide release, however, which may be the reason many people did not foresee its success.

Another upset occurred in the Best Musical/Comedy Actor category, where Taron Egerton won the title for portraying Elton John in “Rocketman.” The thirty-year-old actor beat out stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Eddie Murphy, and Daniel Craig. Furthermore, in the Animated Film category, Laika Entertainment’s “Missing Link” beat DreamWorks’ “How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” along with Disney’s triple-threat nominees “The Lion King,” “Toy Story 4,” and “Forzen II.” “Missing Link” performed abysmally in the theaters and director Chris Butler was utterly baffled during his acceptance speech. Evidently, big studios and box office figures do not always correlate with talent or translate to critical success.

That being said, the films that had no box office earnings whatsoever (i.e. the copious direct-to-streaming nominees this year) did far worse than expected at the 77th Golden Globes. Going into the night, Netflix had more film nominations than any other production company. Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” led the race with six nominations, trailed only by Scorsese’s “The Irishman” with five—both of which were Netflix originals.

It seemed as if the Globes was going to be a game-changing event for the streaming world as well as a defining moment for Netflix to rebrand itself as the “prestigious” streaming platform amongst the competition. Maybe just getting the nominations was enough for Netflix to earn this reputation. However, the company walked away with just one film award—Laura Dern for Best Supporting Actress in “Marriage Story.” For all the hype that Netflix’s “The Irishman,” “Dolemite Is My Name,” and “The Two Popes” went in with, they all left empty handed.

Contrary to expectations, perhaps the Hollywood Foreign Press was not quite ready to hold direct-to-streaming titles in the same regards as traditional theatrical releases. Maybe the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will think otherwise, as they announce the Oscar nominees on January 13th—if nothing else, maybe they’ll at least select a host with a touch more compassion.

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Entertainment, Movies, News

Should-be Hero to the Age of “Fake News” Mike Wallace is the Investigative Reporter We Are All Missing Today

Video
https://movietrailers.apple.com/movies/magnolia_pictures/mike-wallace-is-here/mike-wallace-is-here-trailer-1_h1080p.mov

Know it or Not, We All Need the Power he Once Had

“Serious Journalist”, a phrase that, these days, almost seems like an oxymoron. “Investigative Reporter”, where have those all gone?

According to the New York Post, over 500 daily newspapers went out of business between 1970 and 2016. More recently, between January, 2017 and April 2018, one third of the largest newspapers in the US reported layoffs. Buzzfeed and Huffington Post among other “new media” outlets reported massive layoffs in 2017, 2018 and again in February of this year.

The Huffington Post, as just one example among many, paid most writers “nothing” for years and, although they had ad revenue of tens of millions of dollars in 2018, nevertheless, failed to show a profit.

Read More: Online Media next Fatality after Coronavirus Causes 50% Ad Income Decline?

A Lost Art from a Bygone Era

For any of us in the current generation, all of this seems like old news. Yet, with all that is going on in the world, and facing down a, hopefully, longer future to endure within it, we should look to the past, even what seems like ancient history, to recapture a thread to what may have been lost, and to what a lone individual with “balls and a heart” can do. Mike Wallace was one such individual.

“We are, for the first time in modern history, facing the prospect of how societies would exist without reliable news”

Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian, editor-in-chief

In 2012 we lost a man who virtually defined both “serious journalist” and “investigative reporter” and all of us, in the media and the general public, would do well to look back at who Mike Wallace was, and what he did during his 93 years. Although rightfully revered, Woodward and Bernstein’s famous story of taking on the corrupt Nixon administration during the Watergate scandal was not the only blueprint for investigative storytelling that had the informative power to move the masses.

The truth hurts, as the saying goes. And it hurts more when you are a corrupt politician or a business mogul submersed in your own greed and lust for power.

Today’s world and future generations would be well served to view “Mike Wallace is Here” as a time-capsule showing what freedom of the press and the power of the Fourth Estate can produce in a country to attempts to practice democratic principles.

Could we see a Zuckerberg or a Bezos or a Trump or Trump supporter in Congress holding up well in an interview with Mike Wallace? Is there a modern equivalent of a interviewer or reporter who at once holds the power of his popularity, as a carrot to entice an interviewee to submit to an interview, and yet wields the stick of truth and is not afraid to use it? Or do we at least still comprehend the concept?

Sadly, no, and this points to how the release of this movie should really be seen: as a clarion call to current and future generations, to educate themselves on how it is possible to have the balls to stand up to greed, power and, yes, evil.

Spider-Man? Iron Man? This film should be seen and promoted as a Super Hero movie about the real world. Mike Wallace was not a perfect person. He was known to be a tough, cantankerous workaholic up to the very end. But his more than fifty years of standing up for principles of truth and the positive power of the press the affect change, amount to a legacy of which even Iron Man could be proud.

It was Wallace, who, at his peak, on 60 minutes in the 60s and 70s, could confront a scoundrel in an interview and change waves public perception in an instant, outing the evil and the corrupt.

Read More: 5 Books that Could Shed light on our Time: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds

Clash of Corporate Interests, and One Man Standing Up

The Oscar-winning movie “The Insider” has a sequence showing the last vestiges of this power as Wallace, played by Christopher Plummer in the film, clashes with the corporate heads of CBS who want to block his plan to air an interview with whistle blower Jeffrey Wigand, played by Russell Crowe, who gave an on-air interview where he exposed some of the tobacco industry’s darkest secrets.

Although Wallace said he hated the film, primarily as it depicted him as not standing up enough against the top brass at CBS regarding the story’s airing, it shows his unflinching, abrasive style when the truth was on the line. His career was a master class in taking risks in order to change opinions about injustices perpetrated by evil men and women, and as a result, changing minds and a small part of the world. The Wigand interview finally aired on February 4, 1996, after a protracted battle to prevent it from being shown.

The tobacco industry eventually had to pay for at least some of it’s misconduct, but in retrospect, the media was already losing it’s power to use investigation and information to affect change and expose corruption.

This all seems like ancient history, with Russian fake news hackers electing presidents, people thinking of facebook as a source of “real” information, and the idea of a journalist having the ability to fight evil, using little more than a well timed, provocative live interview, seems like science fiction.

This film “Mike Wallace is Here” may not win an Oscar, but should be seen by anyone wanting to observe a master at work, standing up to anyone and everyone that crossed his path. And how Wallace used nerve and cunning to expose the truth, often at the expense of the truly corrupt and pernicious.

“Mike Wallace is Here” is scheduled for US release on July, 26, 2019.

Summary from IMDB:

For over half a century, “60 Minutes” fearsome newsman Mike Wallace went head-to-head with the world’s most influential figures. Relying exclusively on archival footage, the film interrogates the interrogator, tracking Mike’s storied career and troubled personal life while unpacking how broadcast journalism evolved to today’s precarious tipping point.

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