Awards Round-Up (Golden Globes, Critics Choice, etc.)

Don't you love awards season? There are plenty of golden statuettes to go around, whether you're talking movies, TV, pop stars, directors, writers, whatever.

Probably the biggest party among the recent shows were the Golden Globes, given out on Sunday. And that was a pretty awesome party all around. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were fabulous. Also funny and fresh and cool, but mostly fabulous.

So what happened? Jodie Foster got the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her contributions to cinema, offering an acceptance speech that some found infuriating, some found inspiring, and others found confusing. Oh well. She got her award and she looked great, so I guess we're clear on that much.

In more surprising news, Argo and director Ben Affleck upset the Lincoln applecart, with Affleck taking Best Director and the movie being named Best Drama. It was a good week for Affleck, who also won the Critics Choice Award for Best Director, with Argo named their Best Picture, too. Was it a little payback for Affleck's direction not even getting a nomination from the Academy? Who knows? But it was fun!

Lincoln's Daniel Day-Lewis won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama, while Jessica Chastain took the Drama Best Actress honors for her role as a CIA agent on the trail of Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty. Those two also won with the Critics. Are they frontrunners for Oscar? Yeah, probably.

They were matched on the Golden Globes' Comedy/Musical side by Hugh Jackman, who won for playing brave and virtuous Jean Valjean in Les Misérables (which is certainly no comedy) and Jennifer Lawrence, half of of the off-kilter dancing duo in Silver Linings Playbook (which certainly is a comedy).

Aside from the overall Best Pic, which was Argo, the Critics Choice awards divide their favorite film choices into Comedies, Action Movies and Sci-Fi/Horror, and they singled out Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall and Looper. Jennifer Lawrence was their winner for both Action (The Hunger Games) and Comedy (Silver Linings Playbook), while Daniel Craig (Skyfall) and Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings) took honors among Action and Comedy actors. Science Fiction/Horror actors get no love at all.

Supporting actors honored by the HFPA were Anne Hathaway, who played Fantine in Les Miz, and Christoph Waltz, as the dentist/bounty hunter/magic wizard in Django, while the Critics went with Hathaway and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who played the cult leader in The Master.

Along with the awards for Jackman and Hathaway, Les Misérables also took the Golden Globe as Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical). Oddly, the Foreign Press Association honored neither Les Miz nor Argo, not even Lincoln and Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner, for its screenplay. That award went to the always annoying Quentin Tarantino for Bloody Bloody Django Unchained. (The "Bloody Bloody" and the "always annoying" are my contributions and not part of anything to do with the Golden Globes.) And yes, Tarantino was also the Critics Choice for Best Original Screenplay, while Kushner got Best Adapted Screenplay to go with all those Tonys, the Emmy, the Olivier and the Pulitzer.

Other films taking home the hardware were Brave, named Best Animated Feature Film by the Hollywood Foreign Press -- the Critics chose Wreck-It Ralph -- and France's Amour, which won as Best Foreign Language Film from both the HFPA and the Critics.

On the TV side at the Golden Globes, Showtime's Homeland was the big winner, taking Best Drama, Best Actor for Damian Lewis, and Best Actress for Claire Danes. HBO's Girls won Best Comedy, with star/creator/writer/Ms. Everything Lena Dunham named Best Actress in a Comedy. Don Cheadle, the lead in the Showtime series House of Lies, won as Best Actor.

HBO's Game Change, all about Sarah Palin and her Vice Presidential run, emerged as the winner in the Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television category, with Julianne Moore, the one who played Ms. Palin herself, named Best Actress. Kevin Costner took Best Actor honors for Hatfields & McCoys, a mini-series that aired on the History Channel.

Best Supporting actors in All of Television were Downton Abbey's Grande Dame Maggie Smith and Game Change's Ed Harris, who played presidential aspirant John McCain.

And now the important stuff! Who looked the best?

Among the ladies, I liked Amy Poehler's fun faux-tuxedo, which fit her personality perfectly, I thought Claire Danes looked terrific in red, and I also liked Naomi Watts' garnet gown. But Lucy Liu (above) was amazing in a flowered Carolina Herrera gown that didn't look like anybody else's.

 Unlike Connie Britton and Isla Fisher, who looked like the same person. Same color, same hair... Which is which? Can you tell?

And now it's on to more awards and more gorgeous gowns, as we wind our way through SAG, BAFTA and Oscar season. It feels like it lasts forever, but it's really just two months. Okay, maybe three.

A Refreshing Kind of Princess in "Brave"

There's a long tradition of animated Disney princesses enchanting young girls, all the way back to Snow White (1937) and Cinderella (1950). These days, Belle and Jasmine and Ariel and Tiana, even Mulan and Pocahontas, get trotted out at the Magic Kingdom, have tea parties with young visitors, dance and sing on video, sell costumes and hats and clothing and the entire Disney Princess concept.

The newest princess is a bit of a departure, however. She's Merida, the feisty Scottish redhead at the center of "Brave." Actress Kelly Mcdonald provides her voice, making her as appealing as she is rambunctious.

Like Mulan, Merida knows how to wield a weapon. (Note the bow and arrow in the poster at right, which is a copyrighted image taken from the Wikipedia article on "Brave" and is reprinted here as part of my own commentary on the film. You can also tell how beautiful the animation and artwork are in "Brave." Her hair alone is stunning.)

Like Belle, she is smart and devoted to her family. But unlike any other Disney princess, Merida doesn't have a Prince Charming. And, in fact, the whole hook for the plot is that she doesn't want one. Yet, anyway. She'd rather run and climb and ride than settle down to any kind of domesticity.

The action begins when Merida's well-meaning mom, given vocal warmth and grace by Emma Thompson, gathers together the three main suitors for Merida's hand. There are scions of the Clan MacGuffin (the old and young MacGuffins are voiced by Kevin McKidd), Macintosh (the head Macintosh is Craig Ferguson) and Dingwall (the big Dingwall is Robbie Coltrane), but none of these boys is anyone Merida is interested in. When they take bows in hand to battle for her hand, Merida jumps in, outdoes them all on the archery field, proclaiming she had just won her own hand.

That sets everybody fighting with everybody, including Merida's dad, the formidable Fergus (brought to life by Billy Connolly), and puts Merida and her mum at loggerheads. So Merida runs off on her trusty steed, hurtling past some of the most gorgeous scenery Pixar's artists have ever created, into a scary world of standing stones, lochs, brochs and crumbled towers. She also runs into a witch. And a variety of bears.

Because Merida is impetuous and headstrong, because she insists on being master of her own fate even though she's way too young, she makes a bad decision, which results in danger and devastation for her mother. Their attempt to restore the mother-daughter bond and mend the family makes up the rest of the plot.

There are small bits of humor in "Brave," although the main mood is dark and wild. Pixar has gotten so good at making things look real that some sections of the movie were too scary for me, let alone a young child. But then, the death of Bambi's mom still haunts me, so... You can draw your own conclusions.

All in all, I found "Brave" a vehicle for a refreshing kind of princess, one who didn't have to give up her hoydenish ways. I also appreciated that Merida's happy ending didn't include a boy, although maybe she can have a sequel later. She may be too early for Oxford, which dates back to the 11th Century, but I could totally get into Merida sent off to civilization for schooling, too uncultivated for the other students and teachers, who don't think a girl needs an education, anyway. And then she takes a boy she fancies back to DunBroch, where he is completely at sea...

Or maybe Merida doesn't need a romantic sequel. Maybe she can be her own Warrior Queen without a king at her side. Why not?