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blog, movies, news

Some thoughts on the Golden Globes…(updated)

Ah, the good old days. I remember when the Golden Globes could barely get coverage as an award show  that appeared on over-the-air UHF channels. This is all in the day when three-networks dominated everything and cable was just a wire you could hold in your hands.

Now as a demonstration of how our celebrity culture has risen, the GGs are big, big, big. The pre-Oscar/Emmys, and much ado about pop.

I’m not exactly sure if that’s what I’d call progress.

The programs I like to watch more often than not were rewarded on Sunday. AMC’s  “Breaking Bad,”  a great show.  Moviedom’s “American Hustle,” uneven but great acting. The HBO/Liberace biopic, “Beyond the Candelabra” well, read my review here: http://aaldef.org/blog/liberace-the-queer-for-non-queers.html

But as much as I like watching Michael Douglas and Matt Damon,  and even Bryan Cranston (with or w/o hair)  I like to watch women, and all my favorites won as well. (I don’t mean to be sexist. I appreciate a good acting performance, but is it wrong to say I tend to prefer watching women?)

Robin Wright who has been underrated on Netflix’ “House of Cards,” won a Golden Globe.  So did Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, who  both lifted “American Hustle” from the pedestrian.

But the best acceptance speech of the night  had to be the salty one from  Jacqueline Bisset right at the start.

I’m surprised that some didn’t like her bit and would disagree with me. But here’s the situation. You’ve won. You beat the odds. They sat you about a two miles away from the podium because no one thought you’d win.  But you’ve won. All eyes are on you. And now you get to tell off all your detractors.

Of course, perhaps, such a situation would call for a little grace.

But what the heck, you’re an older actress who some have left for dead. You’ve got a lot of fire left, show it. Why not?  Or not.

Listen, Amy and Tina are affable lap dogs. Cool, but not real. They ran amok within the confines of convention. JBisset was trying to prove she was not just a shadow of her former self. She was a winner. And she still had what she said after a lot of “p-ss and vinegar.”

To that, I say good for her. I liked it a whole lot better than the Woody Allen bit. But then I’m a Mia Farrow fan.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/jacqueline-bisset-acceptance-speech/story?id=21507966

 

The Oscar nominations come out later this week.

I have yet to see “12 years a Slave,” so I’ve refrained from commenting on its Golden Globe win for Best Picture. But the movie that I saw more than once this year likely won’t get nominated. I was on a 20 hour plane ride to Asia and managed to watch “Frances Ha” at least 4 times on the round trip.

“FH” is all about young people in New York. In Black and White. Starring a captivating Greta Gerwig.  She was nominated for a Globe for best actress but didn’t win. That was always the thing about the Golden Globes.  You could always count on some oddball winners and nominees compared to the other award shows.

Let’s see how traditional Oscar is this year.

 

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Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) blog, blog, news, politics, race

Dennis Rodman’s apology for outburst on Kenneth Bae might still produce a “silver lining”

From CNN and Reuters, snippets of the Dennis Rodman apology:

“I want to first apologize to Kenneth Bae’s family,” Rodman, 52, said Thursday in a statement released by his publicist Jules Feiler. “I want to apologize to my teammates and my management team. I also want to apologize to Chris Cuomo.”

 “I embarrassed a lot of people,” said Rodman, who traveled to North Korea with other former NBA players for a basketball game against a North Korean team. “I’m very sorry. At this point I should know better than to make political statements. I’m truly sorry.”

He said the day of the interview had been “very stressful.”

“Some of my teammates were leaving because of pressure from their families and business associates,” he said, adding that his dream of “basketball diplomacy was quickly falling apart.”

“I had been drinking,” he said. “It’s not an excuse but by the time the interview happened I was upset. I was overwhelmed.”

 

I still feel Rodman may have inadvertently given the Bae family some hope. I know the family is outraged, but more people know about Kenneth Bae today than did after Bae’s mother went to visit Bae in North Korea last month.  That was a :30 second blip on the news, if that.

Now people are at least  wondering about Bae and talking about him in a way that could force real diplomatic action.

As silver linings go, it’s an odd one. But when dealing with North Korea, you take your silver linings where you can get them.

 

 

 

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blog, diversity, journalism, news, politics, race

VIDEO: Classy, teary apology from MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry should be more than enough to satisfy the aggrieved on the Right

We can debate whether it was  a trumped up controversy or not, but MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry gave an apology anyway for comments made on her show about the adopted African American grandchild of Mitt Romney.

The apology sure wasn’t one of those infamous non-apologies that people who aren’t really sorry tend to give.  MHP’s was heart-felt, emotional, and sincere. As the namesake of the show, she showed real courage and integrity by standing up to the heat.  It’s the kind of apology that makes you like the person more, not less. And based on the alleged “crime,” I don’t think the Right needed much more than a clarification.  It shouldn’t have required  such a full blown apology.

But she did one. And took responsibility for everything.  She didn’t deflect, try to blame guests, producers, etc.  She put it all on her shoulders.  You’d think that should earn her  some brownie points from her critics. But she continues to be bashed on conservative sites for her “crocodile tears.” The woman’s from New Orleans, but those weren’t crocodile tears.

She deserves credit for putting aside the b.s. of political TV talk and just being real.

Here’s the apology:

 

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blog, diversity, journalism, news, politics

Unemployed critic, a journalist of color gets aid from internet: Craig Lindsey shows minority journalists aren’t part of some protected class

 

I feel for Craig Lindsey, a laid off critic, who went on-line saying he will be “snarky” for food.

 

He’s also African American.

 

At least he didn’t  have to go on traffic island and get red-light donations.

 

It was the first news story of 2014 that I saw, reported in Richard Prince’s Journa-lisms blog. (See link below).

 

When I got laid off at NPR, a top network TV exec had lunch with me and offered no job.

 

Said exec: “Time to be entrepreneurial.”

 

That’s what modern corporatists call” do-it-yourself welfare.”

 

That was in 1991, the beginning of the end of the notion of “safety net.”

 

Republicans have perfected the idea since then. More than a million lost their unemployment benefits last week. Another million could lose benefits by February.

 

Craig’s story reminded me how there’s some myth that journalists of color are spared from layoffs, as we’re somehow part of some “protected” class. You know, how minorities got their jobs to fill some imaginary quota to have diversity in newsrooms.

 

Never been my experience. There’s  still a form of “last hired, first fired” at work out there.

 

Call it “Reverse Equality.”

 

As I was reading about Craig,  I saw a network report on a morning show by a reporter, who 15 years ago was the hot female anchor on the network. Now she is rarely seen and plays utility reporter, national news quickies from the New York desk.

 

But she’s weathered all economic storms. She’s white, female. And protected.

 

See Richard Prince in “Journal-isms” on Craig Lindsey:

http://mije.org/richardprince/jobless-critic-raises-4g-stave-homelessness

 

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