‘Golden Globes’ host Nikki Glaser and stars stay focused on awards

And it all comes around again. The least meaningful — most meaningless? — of the big Hollywood awards shows, which is to say, among the ones that are shown on broadcast television, the Golden Globes (edition 86, if you can believe it) handed out a passel of trophies Sunday night from a ballroom in the Beverly Hilton Hotel. (The event was broadcast live by CBS and streamed by Paramount+).

As the opening of “awards season,” it’s supposed to be a bellwether of the Oscars race, blah blah blah. But if the world will little note nor long remember who wins these things, except when it’s called to their attention by the words “Golden Globe winner” appearing in an article, it means something to the people who get them, and I certainly don’t mean to rain on that parade. There are no nominees undeserving of praise. This is not the age of Pia Zadora.

In their bubble of old-school glamour and gratitude, awards shows presume to display celebrities in the highly-styled, expensively-dressed wild, and, at least in the case of the acceptance speeches, they do, for a minute, do something like that. Sunday night, these moments tended to be sweet, not incendiary, and made one think, “Those picture people really seem quite nice and genuine.” There was, of course, the question of whether or to what degree the show, which is to say the people in it, would address the world outside the Hilton’s walls. The last time the Globes rolled around, we were standing on the edge of a cliff; now we’re free falling into a seemingly bottomless pit.

To the extent they acknowledged a world out of joint, it was in generalized calls for love and cooperation. “I said my rant on the red carpet,” said Jean Smart, a forever winner for “Hacks.” “I think everybody in their hearts knows what the right thing is to do, so let’s do the right thing.”

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1. Judd Apatow presenting the award for director at the Golden Globes. (Kevork Djansezian / CBS) 2. Jean Smart accepting the award for actress in a television series. (Kevork Djansezian / CBS)

Judd Apatow, in a funny, self-mocking speech introducing the directing award, recalled his supposed 10-year boycott of the Globes, “ever since my film ‘Trainwreck’ lost best comedy to Ridley Scott’s ‘The Martian’” and noted, “Since then we’ve had COVID. I believe we’re a dictatorship now.” A few stars sported “Be Good” buttons, in reference to Renée Nicole Good, shot three times in the face by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

Despite the Globes’ historical reputation as an off-the-chain party — and notwithstanding the over-loud nattering from commentators/announcers Kevin Frazier and Marc Malkin, who filled winners’ walks to the stage with gossipy chatter, and perhaps a more than usual amount of drug references that strained to make it seem like a wild night — it was a generally decorous affair.

Nikki Glaser, who made a sort of history last year as the first woman to host the show solo, unhistorically hosted again. She was good last year and good this year, at least in the monologue, which she approached like a roast, without being nasty. She opened with a burst of topicality — “and the Golden Globe for best editing goes to the Justice Department; and the award for most editing goes to CBS News … America’s newest place to see BS news” — before moving on to the assembled stars.

She asked George Clooney for help with her Nespresso. (He’s a pitchman.) She compared Sean Penn’s look to “a sexy leather handbag,” which seemed accurate, and called Timothée Chalamet “the first actor in history who had to put on muscles for a movie about pingpong.” She made a couple of jokes about Kevin Hart’s height. But, in the great tradition of Don Rickles and roast comics everywhere, she also punctured her barbs with, “You’re the best” and “I love you.” Her later appearances through the evening — including a filmed sketch to introduce the new podcast category, with an appearance by Marc Maron, who just ended his, and “KPong Demon Hunters,” a musical number, in “Marty Supreme” sportswear, were flat by comparison. (Though her “This is going to go so viral” in reference to the latter, was clearly meant to be ironic.)

Paul Thomas Anderson accepting the award for director at Golden Globes on Sunday.

(Kevork Djansezian / CBS)

A three hour-show is always going to be a three-hour tour, and nowhere more than the Golden Globes, which eschews production numbers, the in memoriam segment and pretty much just hands out awards (so many awards) the whole night. The scripted banter mostly made one think how much funnier the presenters probably were waiting to come onstage, and after they got back to their tables. But I liked the way that winners weren’t played off (quiet music might creep in behind them, but it was never a tug of war.) I thought it was sweet the way Paul Thomas Anderson, onstage twice (for “One Battle After Another,” for director and best comedy or musical motion picture) cradled his trophies as if they were babies (unconsciously, I am sure) and enjoyed the happy excitement of Rhea Seehorn, winning a best actress award for “Pluribus.” (She is not like that character.)

It was nice that Seth Rogen, who made an episode of “The Studio” in which his character is desperate to be recognized at the Golden Globes, found himself onstage twice, for performance by a male actor in a TV series and for the show itself (“We just pretended to do this, and now it’s happening”), and that he took time to honor his behind-the-camera crew, in their many professions, and attacked the caste system that kept them uninvited to the shindig. There was a big, long standing ovation for Julia Roberts, a movie star, coming out to present the award for musical or comedy motion picture, which was as true a Hollywood moment as you could have asked. “I’m going to be impossible for at least a week,” she said, which was also very Hollywood. We love our royalty.

And finally, kudos and roses to Glaser for her implicit tribute to the late Rob Reiner, as she closed the show in a “Spinal Tap” ball cap, saying, “This one went to 11” — which of course, it did, timewise — and “I hope we found the fine line between clever and stupid.” That is, of course, the burden of all awards shows, and a line that is always crossed.