Wet, Wet, Wet: The 67th Golden Globe Awards

Just a few quick words about last night's Golden Globes.

I spent the evening watching the (thankfully) live telecast from home and then went over to the Beverly Hilton for HBO's Golden Globes after-party at Circa 55. As usual, HBO did an incredible job transforming the outdoor space (right at the poolside)... but, rather sadly, the network's handiwork was undone by the weather, rendering the glass-enclosed firepits and open-air seating unusable.

But the party must go on and it was moved under the tents and inside Circa 55 itself, where executives, celebrities, and bon vivants sipped Copper-tinis and Moet et Chandon champagne. Those celebrities included Mad Men's January Jones and Entourage's Jeremy Piven, Modern Family's Eric Stonestreet, Big Love's Chloe Sevigny (Golden Globe-winner Chloe Sevigny, I should say), Ginnifer Goodwin, and Mary Kay Place, True Blood's Anna Camp, Hung's Natalie Zea (with whom I chatted about her role in FX's upcoming drama series Justified), Grace Jones, and many, many others. Spotted at the Hilton on the way into the party: Tina Fey, the cast of Glee, White Collar's Tim DeKay, Busy Philipps, Aaron Paul (of HBO's Big Love and AMC's Breaking Bad), Flipping Out's Jenny Pulos, True Blood's Kristin Bauer, Mad Men's Christina Hendricks (and husband Geoffrey Arend), and... I'm forgetting a ton of others. (Forgive me, I'm still recovering.)

As for the actual telecast itself, it was a mixed bag, really.

I thought that Ricky Gervais' self-deprecating opening bit was absolutely hysterical but there was too little Gervais sprinkled throughout the ceremony, which seemed oddly stiff and rudderless at the same time. After the Hollywood Foreign Press Association made such a big deal about hiring a host for the awards telecast (the first time since 1995), it was odd that the evening seemed so, well, hostless.

I think that Gervais' humor, despite the copious amounts of alcohol flowing at the relatively more laid-back Golden Globes, is perhaps more suited for the Emmys in the end, where his seemingly impromptu comedy killed last fall. Here, there are so many categories to cover in two mediums, a host of celebrity presenters, and a hell of a lot of confusion. I didn't quite feel like Gervais had the MC role over the entire evening but rather just offered a comedic introduction to the evening's festivities.

As for the television awards themselves, I was happy to see both Alec Baldwin and Chloe Sevigny take home statuettes for their respective work in 30 Rock and Big Love. Considering that Big Love got shut out in the other categories--losing Best TV Drama to AMC's Mad Men--I was glad to see that Sevigny was recognized for her honest and soul-baring performance on the last season of Big Love.

I figured that Glee and Mad Men would take home the top prizes in their categories as well, so I wasn't surprised, though I was hoping that Modern Family would have won for Best TV Comedy. Yes, Glee fuses together comedy and music (thus making it perhaps the first honest double contender in the comedy or musical category) but Modern Family definitely deserved to win for its winning comedic chops.

Was happy to see Michael C. Hall win for Showtime's Dexter (would have loved to see Bill Paxton win an award for a change) as well as that for John Lithgow, but I was surprised by Julianna Margulies' win... but then again the HFPA does love to give awards to new series and The Good Wife was the only new drama in that category. Additionally, I was pulling for Edie Falco to win for Best Actress (Comedy) but that accolade went to Toni Collette. Still, very happy with the love very deservedly heaped on Grey Gardens, which won for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television and Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television for Drew Barrymore's amazing turn as Little Edie Beale. (Which, incidentally, must be seen and heard to be believed.)

What did you think of the awards? Who were you happy to see win and who would you have rather had take home the statue? Which winner surprised you the most? And who had the best ensemble? Discuss.

Emmys: The Morning After (The Morning After)

No, it's not quite the morning after the Emmys but I spent yesterday recovering from a bit too much overindulgence the night before and still wanted to get in my thoughts about this year's Emmy awards before the door for such discussion slams shut.

Emmy host is a rather thankless job and we've seen, thanks to last year, just how much the show can go off the rails in the hands of less-than-qualified hosts. However, I thought that Neil Patrick Harris did a legendary job and infused the proceedings with wit, sparkle, and humor and kept things running smoothly. (Did we really only run over by a few minutes? Fantastic.)

I spent the evening carousing at two post-Emmy bashes, HBO's luxe red-hewed affair at the Pacific Design Center and AMC's latenight after-after-party at Chateau Marmont. Both fetes were absolutely, ridiculously fun and the stars were out in full-force for both events, with this gleeful partier catching glimpses of Jon Hamm, Glenn Close, Ricky Gervais, Chloe Sevigny, Kristin Bauer, Anna Camp, Maria Bello, Christina Hendricks, Daniel Dae Kim, Kevin Connolly, John Slattery, Grace Zabriski, Douglas Smith, Shirley MacLaine, Jemaine Clement, Bret McKenzie, Kristen Schaal, Anne Heche, Aaron Paul, Rose Byrne... and the list goes on and on. (That's just off the top of my head.)

I had a lovely time sitting with Top Chef judge Gail Simmons and her husband at the HBO event and discussing professional chefs, sci-fi TV, and a host of other topics and I got to catch up with Inbetweeners creator Iain Morris and his girlfriend, there to support Flight of the Conchords, for which Morris had written two episodes with writing partner Damon Beesley, and co-creator James Bobin, whom I interviewed recently for The Daily Beast, and ran into at the AMC party with Jemaine Clement. I also caught up with the always delightful Anna Camp of HBO's True Blood, who introduced me to her fiancé Michael Mosley, who will be a series regular on Scrubs this season.

And, at the AMC bash, I got to congratulate Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner--who was holding his two Emmys--on his two wins and he very kindly and graciously thanked me for the piece I did on him and Mad Men for The Daily Beast recently, saying that it was a pleasure to be interviewed by someone who genuinely loves the series. (Aw!)

So what did I think of the awards themselves? Let's discuss. (The full list of award winners can be found here.)

I'll admit that I watched the awards ceremony via an East Coast feed while I was getting ready but that it seemed to be moving at a pretty even speed and Harris provided a charming host throughout the evening, looking quite dashing in a white tuxedo and managing to make me roar with laughter during his Dr. Horrible-style takeover of the airwaves, buffering and all. (The fact that I was watching the Primetime Emmys on a computer made this gag even more hysterical and meta.)

As for the awards themselves, they were more or less pretty predictable, though there were some nice surprises spread throughout the evening. I was thrilled to see Kristin Chenoweth take home an Outstanding Supporting Actress statuette for her role as Olive Snook on Pushing Daisies , a bittersweet posthumous (for the series, not Cheno) acknowledgment of the whimsical series. (By the same token, however, I'd have much rather seen Tina Fey take home the prize for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy to match Alec Baldwin's win for Jack Donaghy, rather than United States of Tara's Toni Colette.)

I was thrilled that Little Dorrit and Grey Gardens took home some prizes in the movies and mini-series categories; both were excellent examples of how classy, upscale longform can still work on television and I was extremely chuffed that BBC/PBS mini Little Dorrit took home the top mini-series prize and writing for Andrew Davies. (If you haven't seen Davies' Little Dorrit, get thee to a video store--or Netflix--straightaway.) And, despite many critics saying that the movies/mini-series section of the ceremony dragged on for far too long, I loved Jessica Lange's acceptance speech and Ken Howard's Kanye West allusion. Unexpected, that.

I love The Amazing Race but I was really hoping that the addictive and slick Top Chef would take home the gold for Bravo this year. It's such a fantastic format and, as much as I adore TAR, I am ready to see it sit out from the reality competition category for one year at least.

Michael Emerson and Cherry Jones were about as professional as can be and I loved Cherry's promise that she was going to plonk down her Emmy on the craft services table at the 24 set in Chatsworth the next day. Likewise, I kind of assumed that Glenn Close and Bryan Cranston would take home statuettes but I'll admit that I was pulling for Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss and Jon Hamm to take home those prizes respectively instead, especially for Mad Men's incredible second season. (I was thrilled for Kater Gordon and Matt Weiner to win for writing the awe-inspiring "Meditations in an Emergency" episode of Mad Men.)

But I'm extremely pleased by 30 Rock and Mad Men's continued win this year for Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Drama Series respectively. If Big Love couldn't have won for the truly outstanding third season they had, then I'm exceptionally happy that Mad Men took home the prize. In an era of reality television dominating the airwaves, it's comforting to see so many fantastic drama series making their marks and I think we're truly blessed to have complex series like Mad Men, Big Love, Lost, and Damages on the air today.

What did you think of the awards? How did Neil Patrick Harris do? Were you happy with the winners? And, if not, who would you have awarded the top prizes to? Discuss.

The Fall of the House of Beale: An Advance Review of HBO's "Grey Gardens"

"It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present. You know what I mean? It's awfully difficult." - Little Edie Beale

It's hard to imagine, in age where Susan Boyle can go from obscurity to worldwide fame in a matter of days (thanks to things like YouTube and Twitter), that prior to the advent of this technology, fame was usually a hell of a lot harder to grasp.

Two of last century's most enigmatic and compelling cult figures were discovered in much a similar way as Britain's Got Talent's Boyle. The eccentric Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, were propelled into superstardom following the release of Albert and David Maysles' 1973 documentary film Grey Gardens, which showed the mother and daughter argue, sing, flirt, dance, and reminisce about the past as they struggled to survive in their raccoon-infested, decaying mansion in East Hampton.

Over the last thirty-five years, the Beales have taken on a cult status among the viewers of the original Grey Gardens documentary, who have fallen in love with the plucky and unique mother-daughter pair who live their life looking to find beauty even as they are surrounded by so much filth and poverty. Having seen and loved the documentary, I was more than intrigued by HBO's Grey Gardens, premiering tomorrow evening, which uses the documentary as a jumping off point to explore the Edies' lives and, like Little Edie said, blurs the line between the past and present in a rather intoxicating way.

HBO's sensational Grey Gardens, written by Michael Sucsy and Patricia Rozema and directed by Sucsy, stars Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange as the doyennes of the titular Grey Gardens, a formerly beautiful East Hampton estate that became infamous in the 1970s for its crumbling squalor and filth. Recreating some of the documentary's most memorable moments (such as when Little Edie tells filmmakers Albert and David Mayles--played here by Arye Gross and Justin Louis--about her "costume for today"), the film uses these moments to fill in the blanks missing from the original documentary, traveling back to 1936 when both Beale women were young and bright and filled with joie de vivre and beautifully setting up their descent into co-dependence and, some might argue, madness. Additionally, the film manages to show the audience what happened after the cameras stopped rolling at Grey Gardens, following Little Edie after the New York premiere of the film.

For fans of the documentary, which covered but six weeks in the lives of the Beales, these moments give HBO's Grey Gardens added weight. The film is able to delve deep into Little Edie's past, exploring her relationship with a married man, Julius "Cap" Krug (Daniel Baldwin), the former Secretary of the Interior, and her losing battle with alopecia (from which Little Edie tragically loses her hair) while also sharing the story of the boozy former singer Big Edie's separation from her straitlaced husband Phelan (Ken Howard) and her relationship with her accompanist George "Gould" Strong (Malcolm Gets). The film is also able to dramatize the traumatic investigation of the squalid Grey Gardens by the Suffolk County Department of Health... and its eventual rescue by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (Jeanne Tripplehorn), after the women's plight becomes national news headlines.

What's remarkable about the Beales is their co-dependent relationship, which the film goes to great lengths to showcase. It's clear that these two women love one another and perhaps hate one another too. The claustrophobic conditions at Grey Gardens force them into a sort of hellish existence, where the women could argue about blame and guilt for the rest of their days. When Little Edie says that the only way she is going to leave Grey Gardens is if one of them dies, you know she's not just posturing for the cameras but is deadly serious. There's a joy with the two women as you watch them crack the other up repeatedly but there's also an innate sadness as well: these two are trapped by their mutual need for the other. Together, they're not two women but two limbs on the same body. In allowing Grey Gardens to fall into compete and utter disrepair, so too do they allow their dreams to wither and die, becoming ever more reclusive as they pull themselves away from society and into a dream world within the house.

Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange are breathtaking in their roles as Little and Big Edie Beale. Playing these two women over a period of forty years is no ease feat but both actresses go above and beyond the call of duty to show the roots of their future situation and their love/hate relationship with one another. Given how well known both of the women are that they are playing, Barrymore and Lange nail both the vocal inflections and facial cues and their jaw-dropping performances are aided by some truly staggering prosthetics that accompany the women as they age. (Just look at how the makeup completely captures the crepe-like quality of Little Edie's arms or the lines around Big Edie's multi-colored eyes.)

It's truly a credit to both that they disappear completely into these roles and it is hard at times to discern between Barrymore and Lange and my mental recall of the two women depicted in the original documentary. There's a sense of shared history and rawness of emotion between Barrymore and Lange that's rarely seen on celluloid as they capture the very essence of these cult figures.

The supporting cast is equally strong. Big Love's Jeanne Tripplehorn gives a memorable turn as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, imbuing the former First Lady with a fragile sadness, a palpable sense of loss, and a shock at how the beautiful house she visited as a child has become little more than a decrepit ruin. Likewise Ken Howard turns in a powerful performance as the uber-conservative Phelan Beale, disapproving of his wife's zeal for singing, throwing parties, or spoiling their daughter rather than finding her a suitable husband, telling her that it is her only purpose on this earth.

Sucsy's direction is lush and atmospheric and he manages to capture both the early grandeur of Grey Gardens as well as its claustrophobic and fetid later years and he dazzlingly stages many of the original documentary's most memorable bits without making them feel like recreations but genuine moments unfolding for the first time. Aided in this is the gorgeous musical score by Rachel Portman, whose music gives the visuals a haunting quality.

My only complaint of the otherwise flawless production is one scene towards the very end of Grey Gardens in which the relationship and issues between Big Edie and Little Edie are tied up a little too neatly for me and the picture attempts to come full circle in a way that's slightly too much on the nose. Rather than offer this melodramatic moment, I do wish that Sucsy and Rozema had instead left this conclusion to the audience's imagination as the moment is already encapsulated in the interactions between the Beales throughout the piece. But it's a quibble against a production that is powerfully rendered and overflowing with emotion.

Ultimately, Grey Gardens is a remarkable piece of filmmaking about the love story between a mother and daughter that reinvents two wondrous women for a whole new generation unfamiliar with the Beales. Whether you have or haven't seen the original documentary on which it's based, this is one story you don't want to miss.



Grey Gardens premieres Saturday night at 8 pm ET/PT on HBO.