20 Best, Worst and WTF Moments at Golden Globes 2016
"I want to do this monologue and then go into hiding," Ricky Gervais declared at the outset of the 73rd annual Golden Globe Awards broadcast. "Not even Sean Penn will find me." (Give it up for a backhanded Rolling Stone shout-out!) Whether you thought his fourth time out as host of the boozy, bawdy, much-bleeped-out alternative to the Oscars and the Emmys was a boom or a bust, it was merely one of several high-to-low points that occurred during last night's ceremony — one chock full of surprising upsets, exuberant speeches, displays of celebrity narcissism and more digs at Hollywood than you could shake a network censor's mute button at. Here were the 20 best, worst and WTF things we saw at the 2016 Golden Globes.
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Best: Rise of the TV Upstarts
Time was, the TV shows that took most of the nominations (and awards) were on the Big Three networks: ABC, CBS, or NBC. That trend has been reversing for a while now, but the 2015 Globes featured few shows from any of those networks. (As Gervais noted, NBC was shut out entirely — kind of embarrassing, considering the ceremony appeared on the network.) In fact, streaming services like Amazon Video (Mozart in the Jungle, Transparent) and Netflix (House of Cards, Master of None, Orange Is the New Black) dominated, while cable networks like USA (Mr. Robot) and the CW (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) came through with big wins of their own. Does this mean network television is dead? Not quite, but it may want to step up its game.
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Worst: Host Ricky Gervais Not Bringing His A-Game
After two years of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey breathing some much-needed fresh air into the Beverly Hilton, was anyone exactly clamoring for the return of Ricky Gervais? The Brit comedian's brand of sour-faced, can't-be-bothered humor has curdled over the years, and his fourth round as Globes host felt like a tedious exercise. His shtick for the evening boiled down to a general disgust with everyone in the room (himself included), and with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association specifically. What came off as refreshingly transgressive in 2010, when Gervais first emceed, now just seems like contempt for contempt's sake. We get it, Ricky: You think you're way too cool to be here. The door's that way.
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Best: Rachel Bloom ‘Crazy’ Surprise Win
Talk about your underdog stories. In Actress in a Musical or Comedy Television Series, a category that included some serious heavy hitters (Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Lily Tomlin, anyone?), TV newcomer Rachel Bloom pulled up from the bottom with a well-deserved win for her turn in freshman CW series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. And in case you haven't seen her wickedly funny, singing-and-dancing turn in the subversive series — which she also cowrote — consider this your wake-up call. Bloom delivered the evening's most genuinely surprised and enthusiastic speech, in which she was practically shaking with joy and declared, "I love you so much!" to possibly all of America. We love you too, Rachel.
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Worst: Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill’s ‘Bear’ Bit
The 21 Jump Street duo, there to present the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Film, engaged in a bizarre bit of banter in which Hill played "the bear from The Revenant" — complete with fuzzy bear hat. "I'm a Daniel Day [Lewis] or Tom Hardy type of actor who doesn't like my face out there very much," Hill-as-the-bear deadpanned. Why? With the Golden Globes, apparently anything is possible, no matter how weird.
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Best: Aziz Ansari Has Best Sight Gag of the Night
Gael García Bernal may have won the Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series for Amazon's Mozart in the Jungle, but the favorite going into the Globes was Transparent's Jeffrey Tambor, who won in the same category last year. Fellow nominee Aziz Ansari (who got a nod for his Netflix comedy Master of None) was so sure of Tambor's win that he brought a hilarious prop: a book called Losing to Jeffrey Tambor With Dignity. Well played, Aziz — even if you got the prognosticating wrong.
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Worst: ‘Spotlight,’ ‘Carol’ and ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ Get Snubbed
It was a packed field this year in the drama category, sure. But we find it hard to swallow that three of 2015's greats — lush, evocative Carol, visceral, groundbreaking Mad Max: Fury Road and bitingly intelligent Spotlight — took home zero awards each. We get it: Big winner The Revenant was fiendishly hard to film and Leo fought a bear. But that doesn't mean that Alejandro Iñárritu's survivalist knuckle-biter was the only masterpiece this year.
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Best: Jon Hamm Takes Home One Last Statuette for ‘Mad Men’
Matthew Weiner's dearly departed ad-man drama only netted one nomination for its farewell season, for Jon Hamm's inimitable turn as creative genius/human disaster Don Draper. Hamm deservedly took the gold for his iconic role — looking slightly less sad about the universe than he did at the Emmys a few months back — delivering a classy, humble speech in which he called out Don as a "horrible person" (true) and joked that he was glad showrunner Matthew Weiner didn't take his suggestion to end the series on a Chumbawamba song.
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Worst: Why Was ‘The Martian’ a Comedy?
Someone needs to have a sit-down with the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to explain to them what constitutes a comedy. We're guessing most people's definition is not "drama that includes a few more jokes than average." And yet that's essentially where three of the five Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy nominees land — including Joy, The Big Short and winner The Martian. Don’t get us wrong: We quite enjoyed Ridley Scott's astronaut-rescue tale, but it's both misrepresentative of the movie itself to wedge it in this category, and a disservice to the nominees that are, y'know, actually comedies, like Spy and Trainwreck.
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Best: Taraji P. Henson Hands Out Cookies
Henson's win for Best Actress in a Television Series Drama led to one of the night's few truly funny moments: The Empire actress handed out cookies (get it?) on her way up to the stage and noted that "playing an ex-convict [took] me all around the globe"; then, when the wrap music started playing, she cut it off with a Cookie Lyons-like retort. "I waited 20 years for this; you're going to wait." (They did.)
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Worst: Quentin Tarantino Making It All About Quentin Tarantino
We're ecstatic that legendary composer Ennio Morricone won the Best Score award for his work on Tarantino's wild Western The Hateful Eight. But as the director went into a speech that can only be described as particularly Tarantino-esque, the tilting toward "And I was the director" territory started to gratingly feel like someone was treating the honor like it was their own win. And while Morricone is certainly an icon whose work deserves to be celebrated, comparing him to other composers by putting the other ones down isn't a particularly good look.
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Best: Eva Longoria and America Ferrara Serve a Latina Smackdown
In an obvious callback to the Globes' slip-up confusing America Ferrara with Jane the Virgin actor Gina Rodriguez, she and fellow presenter Eva Longoria made damn sure that viewers didn't mistake them for other Latina actresses. No, they're not Eva Mendes or Gina Rodriguez, and neither one is Rosario Dawson. (We're glad to see Charo still getting some love, though.) It was one of the classiest instances of putting someone on blast.
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Worst: Good Presenter Teams, Bad Banter
There were plenty of great presenter pairings throughout the night, including BFFs (and Globe nominees) Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Schumer, and Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell. But despite the comedic talents present, the banter often fell flat — or simply went on for way too long, in the case of J. Law and the self-proclaimed A. Schu. (Okay, that was pretty funny.) A word of advice to the Globes producers: cut down on the banter, and use those extra seconds to give more time to the winners.
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Best: ‘Mr. Robot’ Winning Over Serious Heavy Hitters
Sam Esmail's inventive techno thriller came out of nowhere this year, singlehandedly bringing the benighted USA Network into the prestige-drama game. In its very first season, the cyberparanoia series beat out Emmy darling Game of Thrones and popular favorite Empire for the statuette, proving that groundbreaking cinematography and unapologetically strange storytelling can indeed win the day. Here's hoping that Mr. Robot's magnetic, bug-eyed star, Rami Malek, can nab a win of his own next time around.
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Worst: That %$#@! Censor’s Mute Button
You'd be forgiven for thinking that your signal was cutting in and out last night, considering how many times in the evening presenters and winners alike were cut off by curiously long stretches of silence. But that would be whoever was in charge of censoring the Globes for content, applying a hand so heavy that we missed out on full sentences rather than just the offending words. Among the blanked-out moments: Amy Schumer jovially calling herself the C-word, and Ricky Gervais asking Mel Gibson, "What the fuck does sugar tits even mean?"
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Best: Jamie Foxx’s Sharp ‘Compton’ Joke
We'd describe most of the presenters' attitudes last night as somewhere between "bored" and "heavily medicated," but Django Unchained star Jamie Foxx used his time at the mic to fire a few shots across the bow. While reading the award for Best Original Score, Foxx first announced that Straight Outta Compton was the winner, then backpedaled with an "I'm sorry, folks, I made a mistake" — a double whammy that called out both Compton's snub and Steve Harvey's screw-up at the Miss Universe Pageant last month. But the cherry on top was when Foxx returned to the mic after Quentin Tarantino accepted the statuette on behalf of Ennio Morricone to quietly mock the Hateful Eight director's use of the word "ghetto."
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Worst: The Return of Mel Gibson as a Presenter
Let's face it: After having been soundly outed as an unapologetic bigot and an alleged domestic abuser, pretty much no one wants to hear what Mel Gibson has to say anymore. Yet the Globes trotted him onto the stage to deliver the intro for Best Motion Picture – Drama nominee Mad Max: Fury Road thanks to his history with the franchise. (Seriously, Charlize wasn't available?) Gibson's appearance did, however, give Gervais the opportunity to deliver his most scathing line of the night: "I want to say something nice about Mel before he comes out. So: I'd rather have a drink with him in his hotel room tonight than with Bill Cosby."
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Best: Brie Larson Wins for ‘Room’
We've had our eye on Brie Larson's all-on-the-table acting chops since her raw turn in affecting 2013 indie Short Term 12. The 26-year-old was up against some big names in the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama field, including Carol's Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, but she deservedly took the win for her wide-open performance as an embattled mother in Lenny Abrahamson's Room. Her speech was all class, complete with an up-front thanks for screenwriter/novel author Emma Donoghue.
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Best: Denzel Gets a Lifetime-Achievement Award
This award is given to actors who've made "outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment," and the clip reel looking back at 2016 honoree Denzel Washington's career reminded us that his versatile career is nothing short of outstanding. He's done Shakespeare, Spike Lee joints, and pretty much everything in between — in his introduction, his friend and former co-star Tom Hanks called Washington's career "as noble and legendary as it is eternal." As for the winner himself, Washington brought his wife, Pauletta, and three of their children on stage with him, giving a brief but charming speech, hampered only by the fact that he forgot his reading glasses.
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Worst: What’s With the Keep-It-Short Speeches?
It's not necessarily a bad thing that the Globes producers want to keep the telecast from running too long, but when heavyweights like Ridley Scott (who won the Best Director award for The Martian) and Sylvester Stallone (who picked up a Best Supporting Actor statue for returning to Rocky Balboa in Creed) are getting played off the stage after 30 seconds, maybe it's time to rethink the amount of time you're allocating for acceptance speeches, Golden Globes folks.
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Best: Oscar Isaac Wins for ‘Show Me a Hero’
Isaac is having one hell of a year, between starring in the critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller Ex Machina, becoming an Internet-meme heartthrob and playing the lead in David Simon's critically acclaimed miniseries Show Me a Hero. (Oh, and sure, there's the fact that he stars in a little movie called Star Wars.) Isaac picked up his first Golden Globe for the series, a drama about a public housing battle in Yonkers in the late eighties/early nineties, in which he gave what has been compared to a "young-Pacino level performance." His acceptance speech, meanwhile, was charming, concise, and punctuated by a clearly excited "Yeah!" over the much deserved win.