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Kicking off with jokes about Jeffrey Epstein and ending with Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood and 1917 taking home the top prizes of the evening, the 77th annual Golden Globe Awards on Sunday night offered plenty of deserved triumphs, meme-worthy sound bites and questionable decision-making. Before the Hollywood Foreign Press Association wakes up from one of their thrice-daily naps to realize that they again mistakenly hired Ricky Gervais, The Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz presents the highs, lows and many weird Golden Globe moments that left us all scratching our heads.

The Good

Hulu-Who? Upon accepting his Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy Series, Ramy Youssef (star of Hulu’s Ramy) summed up the state of our too-much-to-watch era nicely: “Look, I know you guys haven’t seen my show. Everyone is like, ‘Is this an editor’?” For those interested and in Canada: Ramy is available on Crave. For Ramy Youssef’s agent: You can now e-transfer the money to my account at: bhertz@globeandmail.com. Thanks!

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Ramy Youssef accepts the award for best actor in a TV series, comedy or musical.Paul Drinkwater/The Associated Press

Found in Translation: Parasite, the best film of the year in any language, took home the award for Best Motion Picture (Foreign Language) less than an hour into the ceremony, allowing South Korean director Bong Joon-ho to get the best and most economical line of the evening in early: “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many amazing films.”

Mr. Nice Guy: There was no doubt that Tom “Hollywood’s Nicest Man” Hanks was going to deliver an aw-shucks speech upon accepting the Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award. But the actor went full-on weepy between thanking his family and emphasizing the benefits of a solid work ethic. Hanks blamed his cold medication for the emotion, and if it was absolutely anyone else up there, the moment would’ve seemed like a calculated bit. But Hanks sold it, and we were all happy to pony up.

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Tom Hanks accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award.Paul Drinkwater/The Associated Press

Podium Politics: Speaking of sincerity, direct all the applause to Patricia Arquette and Michelle Williams, two winners who decided to use their time at the podium to spotlight causes bigger than themselves. Williams, who won for her lead performance in FX’s Fosse/Verdon, passionately advocated for abortion rights. (“Women, 18 to 118, when it is time to vote, please do so in your own self-interest. It’s what men have been doing for years.”) Arquette, meanwhile, used her speech for winning the (deep breath) Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Award to remind the room of the situation in Iran: “We’re not going to look back on this night in the history books, we’re going to see a country on the brink of war. We have to vote in 2020.”

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Michelle Williams accepts her award for Fosse/Verdon.HANDOUT/Reuters

The Good-ish

Ricky, Don’t Lose That Number: Entering his fifth go-round as Golden Globes host, there was every reason to fear that Ricky Gervais would treat the show’s opening monologue as his own private Twitter feed. Which he mostly did. But instead of offering more of his tired routine as the world’s only defence against the horrors of the ultra-woke, Gervais directed his you-can’t-silence-this-superstar! shtick toward the Hollywood elite. And … it mostly worked. The crowd, especially poor ol’ Tom Hanks, was visibly discomforted by Gervais’s decent pokes at easy targets Felicity Huffman, Cats, the irrelevancy of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (“I got offered this gig by fax”), and Epstein (“I know he’s your friend, but I don’t care!”). It wasn’t the kind of razor-sharp skewering that, say, Chris Rock delivered during his severely underrated turn at the 2016 Oscars. And his mid-show gag about female directors completely and deservedly flat-lined. But it also wasn’t a Quillette article come to life, either. Call it a draw.

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Ricky Gervais hosts the 77th Golden Globe Awards.Paul Drinkwater/The Associated Press

The Bad

Home Still Under Improvement: Whoever decided that it was a good idea to let Tim Allen into the proceedings surely realized their error once the erstwhile Buzz Lightyear broke out some mid-1990s-fresh sitcom shtick, and made co-presenter Lauren Graham visibly uncomfortable. (Insert Tim the Tool Man Taylor “grunt” here, and proceed to feel deeply, unreservedly ashamed.)

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Tim Allen and Lauren Graham speak on stage.HANDOUT/Reuters

Inglourious Basterd: Quentin Tarantino seemed to be aiming for sincerity upon winning the award for Best Original Screenplay, but instead underlined his reputation for uber-cockiness while also indirectly insulting every actor he’s worked with who wasn’t cast in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood: “Normally the thing is when I win a writing award, I kind of don’t have anyone to thank. I did it!” the director said. “But this time, more than usually most, I have a fantastic cast. And not just a BS fantastic cast, but a fantastic cast that took it from the page and had to add a slightly different layer than was on the page.” Take that, formerly trusted collaborator Uma Thurman!

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Quentin Tarantino accepts the award for Best Screenplay in a Motion Picture.HANDOUT/Reuters

This Means War: Even Sam Mendes seemed surprised that his film 1917 won the awards for Best Director and Best Motion Picture (Drama) over the likes of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story. Sure, Mendes’s First World War thriller is a technically impressive feat – the tick-tock thriller is presented as if shot in one single take, even though that’s not quite the case – but there is zero doubt that anyone will be talking or thinking about it for one-fiftieth as long as The Irishman, Parasite, Marriage Story or Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. Then again, we can be thankful that Todd Phillips’s Joker left empty-handed save for Joaquin Phoenix’s lead performance. And yes, I am already prepared for the Joker acolyte hate-mail. Bring it on. It fuels me!

The Weird

Russell Crowe, Fightin’ Fires Around the World: I realize that the situation in Australia is immensely serious, but there is something also undeniably funny about imagining Russell Crowe – who won Sunday night for his role on the Showtime miniseries The Loudest Voice in the Room – literally fighting the blazes in his home country while the rest of his industry dined on luxe vegan cuisine in the comfort of private-jet-happy Hollywood.

You Can’t Say That on Television: Although every other presenter was eager to talk about the Australian wildfires, almost everyone at the Globes decided to shut up about the news that would be gobbling up the zeitgeist the very next morning: the Harvey Weinstein trial, which kicks off Monday in New York. Well, Gervais got a quick quip in at the very end, which was about as well-crafted as the rest of his latter-show material (ie., not at all).

Early Bird: If it felt like the Golden Globes arrived earlier than normal, that’s because … it did. Due to the Academy Awards deciding to air Feb. 9 this year – the earliest that the ceremony has ever been held, for no particular reason – a domino effect hit the Awards Race Industrial Complex, resulting in a number of organizations (the Globes, the Screen Actor Guild Awards, the BAFTAs) bumping their ceremonies up, too. But if you think that this accelerated timeline means that the Globes have lost their potential influence over more especially pliant Oscar voters, think again – nomination votes for this year’s Academy Awards close Jan. 7, meaning that the HFPA’s curious picks (Mendes, really?) still hold some sway, at least for those who want to stay in line with the Hollywood group-think. Let the 1917-aissance begin in earnest!

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