Awards Season 2020: Golden Globes Winners

Last night (Sunday 5th January 2020), the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced the winners of the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards, for both television and film, in a ceremony hosted by Ricky Gervais for the fifth (and possibly final) time.

Here is the full list of film winners.

Best Motion Picture (Drama): 1917

Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy): Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood

Best Director: Sam Mendes (1917)

Best Actor (Drama): Joaquin Phoenix (Joker)

Best Actor (Comedy or Musical): Taron Egerton (Rocketman)

Best Actress (Drama): Renée Zellweger (Judy)

Best Actress (Comedy or Musical): Awkwafina (The Farewell)

Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt (Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood)

Best Supporting Actress: Laura Dern (Marriage Story)

Best Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood)

Best Original Score: Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker)

Best Original Song: 'I'm Gonna Love Me Again' (Rocketman)

Best Foreign Language Film: Parasite

Best Animated Feature Film: Missing Link

Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award: Tom Hanks


Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood was the big winner of the night with three Globes, with 1917, Rocketman and Joker with two apiece. Absolutely nothing for The Irishman, which is interesting. 

A couple of nice surprises- Missing Link winning Animated Feature over Frozen II and Toy Story 4, and Taron Egerton getting the Best Actor (Musical/Comedy) for Rocketman, particularly. Acting awards for Zellweger, Pitt, and Dern shore them up nicely for a potential Oscar win, although it's never actually a guarantee. 

It was an evening of firsts: Parasite became the first Korean movie to win the Best Foreign Language Film Golden Globe, whilst Hildur Guðnadóttir becomes the first solo female winner of Best Score, and Awkwafina is the first actress of Asian descent to win the Best Actress (Musical/Comedy).

Congratulations to all winners!

There'll be more awards news a little later today with the announcement of this year's Writers Guild Awards. 

Review: Kingsman: The Golden Circle (UK Cert 15)

Three years after Kingsman: The Secret Service introduced us to Eggsy, Harry and Merlin, the boys are back together for highly anticipated sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle, once again directed by Matthew Vaughn. 

When an attack wipes out nearly all of the Kingsmen, the surviving members (Eggsy and Merlin) have to get help from their transatlantic cousins, the Statesmen, to find out who was behind the attack. Along the way, Eggsy is reunited with Harry Hart, thought dead after being shot by Richmond Valentine. But Harry isn't Harry. Can Eggsy get through to him and stop the dastardly schemes of a cunning drug cartel operator before her deadly merchandise wipes out a large portion of the worldwide population?

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is loud, ludicrous, bombastic, silly... and bloody brilliant. Easily one of the best films I've seen this year.

This could have easily been a lazy, by-the-numbers cash-cow retread of the original film. And whilst they do reuse some of the scenarios from the first film (there is a bar-fight, there is a car-chase), screenwriters Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn are careful to add a different twist on it so expectations are confounded. There's still a gleefully anarchic streak here, but whereas the first film mined some comedy out of the class differences between council estate boy Eggsy and the other posh toffs in Kingsmen training, here the differences between the US and the UK come in for some ribbing. Luckily, this culture-clash comedy doesn't overpower anything else that goes on. Just as in the first film, there are some interesting social comments made (here about why some drugs are illegal and others legal, and how you wage a war on drugs) but it never feels like tubthumping or soapbox standing. It blends in nicely to the overarching, over-the-top, narrative. 

The Statesmen team, all named after drinks instead of figures from mythology, are a great addition to the Kingsman world with Jeff Bridges impressing as their leader Champagne, Halle Berry adding much-needed tech support as Ginger, and Channing Tatum charming as the bruiser Tequila. However it is Game Of Thrones' Pedro Pascal as agent Whiskey who stands out; he's a dab hand with a lasso and more than willing to kick a little ass if needed.

As for the Kingsmen? Well, both Taron Egerton and Mark Strong slip back into their roles like a well-tailored suit. Eggsy hasn't gone full gentleman; he still has his friends on the estate and- even when looking as dapper as all get out- he's quick with a well-placed swear-word. You can take the boy out of the estate... it's a warm and winning performance by Egerton. And it's Strong by name and strong by nature as the tech wizard provides Eggsy and Harry with support and forms a lovely bond with his opposite number Ginger. Colin Firth is superb as Harry and I love the way the script plays with the idea that Harry might not be the full shilling. 

Julianne Moore is inspired casting for the big bad, Poppy Adams. A ruthless drug cartel operator with a penchant for 50s kitsch Americana and industrial meat mincers, she wanders round her fortress- PoppyLand- like Martha Stewart on crack, mercilessly dispatching those who displease her. You can tell Moore is having a ball vamping it up as the villain, but she never goes into caricature. There is also an extended cameo by Elton John which is absolutely hilarious. I won't say any more, but his screen-time is a particular highlight in a film full of great scenes. 

There is also an absolutely jaw-dropping, audacious sequence when Eggsy tries to plant a tracer on an unsuspecting mark which had me absolutely howling with laughter and dumbstruck that they'd been able to get it past the BBFC! You will know it when you see it.

It's a film which achieves a delicate balance between heartfelt drama, raucous comedy, and high-octane action without any one element overwhelmed by or dominating another. I would happily sit through it again at the cinema. It's rare to make a sequel that matches the heights of its original, but for me Kingsman: The Golden Circle delivers in spades. 

Rating: 5 out of 5

Tez

Review: Legend (UK Cert 18)

London in the 1960s. The Kray twins are some of the most dangerous gangsters operating in the city. They're mad, bad and dangerous to know- or cross. Legend takes a look at their rise and fall, told through the prism of Reggie's relationship with Frances Shea (Emily Browning) who became his first wife.

The film, written and directed by Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River), starts with the Krays already established as players in London's underworld so neatly sidesteps any origin story issues. It's a decent crime drama, with absorbing performances by Tom Hardy in the dual roles of Ronnie and Reggie.

As Reggie, Hardy is suave, charismatic, persuasive- it's easy to see why Frances falls for him- but he's able to turn on a sixpence. As Ronnie (who starts the film declared insane and in an asylum), he's almost occupying a different plane of reality, but is not less dangerous. Browning is good in a role which could have just easily been a two-dimensional gangster's moll but actually has a bit of substance; Frances tries to get Reggie to go straight but the lure of that life is too much.

Supporting roles are generally strong: Tara Fitzgerald is good as Frances' disapproving mother, whilst Christopher Eccleston is impressive as police officer 'Nipper' Read who tracked the Krays down. John Sessions gets a fruity little cameo as Lord Boothby, a peer whose links to Ronnie gets him into hot water, whilst Kevin McNally is strong as British Prime Minister Harold Wilson whose own administration gets tainted by the scandal. Paul Bettany, Colin Morgan, David Thewlis and Taron Egerton also put in great performances.

As befitting a film about some of the most violent gangsters ever to operate in London, the film earns its 18 certificate with unflinching violence (and copious swearing). It's a blackly funny film as well, with a lot of the humour coming from Ronnie and his slightly skewed view of the world.

The film is well-made but it's not particularly spectacular or powerful. There's an awful lot of 'tell, don't show' through the overuse of Frances' narration which undermines things slightly and there are several liberties taken within the story from what is generally the accepted truth about the Krays which perhaps don't ring as right. All said, decent enough.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Tez

Review: Kingsman: The Secret Service (UK Cert: 15)

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fan boy’s wish list of a homage to the Roger Moore Bond films. That’s the great thing about director Matthew Vaughn’s latest (Kick Ass, X-Men: First Class, Layer Cake), but is also its biggest problem.

Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is a young man with plenty of talent and potential, but is stuck in a rut, stealing cars for fun, spending what money he has down the local boozer, and forced to put up with his thuggish stepdad’s constant putdowns. After a run-in with the police, Eggsy is recruited by Harry Hart (Colin Firth) to join international spy agency Kingsman, where not only must he prove himself during training, he also has to survive it.

The performances in Kingsman are all solid. Colin Firth steals the show as Harry Hart. He’s suave, delivers a droll one-liner at a moment’s notice, and he’s deadly; the man can literally kick ass. While a couple of set-pieces have clearly been tinkered by CGI, Firth does the majority of his own fights. Firth, who rose to fame as Mr Darcy in the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, is just as convincing and lethal as Daniel Craig’s Bond or Matt Damon’s Bourne. Samuel L Jackson hams it up as the film’s megalomaniac villain, having plenty of fun with his scenes. Valentine is text book Bond villain (including a secret underground lair), but at least Jackson gives plenty of charisma and laughs. Mark Strong gets something to do for once as Merlin, Kingsman’s answer to Q; not just standing in a lab creating lethal new toys, Strong gets in on the action as well. Sophie Cookson, as fellow recruit Roxy, gets a female supporting role where she’s not just eye candy, she’s got the brains and able to knock someone out just as well as the boys, the only problem is the film’s climax, where Cookson is literally moved out the way (Earth’s upper atmosphere – you can’t get further away!) so that Egerton can take the glory.

As for Egerton, you can’t argue that he’s got the personality to hold the film together, it’s just a shame that Eggsy has been written as a massive Daily Mail stereotype: baseball cap, hoodie, trainers, lives in a dingy London flat with his cockney tart mum (Eastenders’ Samantha Womack), and steals things because he’s bored, Eggsy is Britain’s middle class view of working class youth. Young people in this country are more complicated than that and Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman (admittedly adapting Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel) took the easy way out when they came up with Eggsy.

As you would expect from the director of Kick Ass, Kingsman’s violence is over-the-top splatter. Some critics have described the gore as stomach-turning, but its larger-than-life, realism be damned gore, much like Tarantino’s Kill Bill instead of the projectile vomit inducing antics of Eli Roth’s Hostel. Kingsman’s stand out scene is what appears to be one solid take as Firth wipes out the congregation of a racist, homophobic – everything ending in ‘ist’ or ‘ic’ – church, easily rivalling the ballet style choreography of Gareth Evans’ Raid films.

Vaughn gives us a faithful recreation of the larger than life spy films that were the norm before The Bourne Identity and Casino Royale ruined the party, whilst also coming up with a few of its own ideas (the world’s population massacring each other to the soundtrack of KC and the Sunshine Band’s Give It Up). The trouble is, because Kingsman rigidly sticks to the formula we all know and love, there are no surprises, and even the script’s shock twists were done before in Bond films from years back. You have the gadgets, cars, girls, double-crossings, the henchwoman with razor sharp blades for legs, explosions, innuendos  - everything you could want from a trip down memory lane, and Kingsman is a hell of a lot of fun, but it doesn’t have quite enough that’s new or never-saw-that-coming to make it something you definitely need to go and watch.

3 out of 5

Matt