Golden Globe-ing It. Live Blog

6:15 Welcome to the ???nth annual Golden Globes Live Blog. Now with more fever, saltines and ginger ale. I am sick so it is a rare Golden Globes without booze. Which should be illegal. (How to survive the Gervais Smug-a-Thon without a Vodka-Thon?) The first vision that greeted me was George Clooney of whom I am currently bored with (It'll pass), the second vision was Octavia Spencer and Melissa McCarthy gabbing silently. At one point Melissa even cupped her hand to tell Octavia a secret.

I would've voted for you since I wasn't nominated!"

Maybe? 

6:31 Jessica Chastain all giggly and Celia-esque while talking to E! reporters. She even did cute little spins and hand flips to demonstrate her Givenchy. But the camera people and booth barkers at E! never ever take their meds. They pan up and down. They shift focus. They put one celeb in a tiny box while another poses. They 360º it. My head spins. And it's not from the sick.

6:39 Sarah Michelle Gellar let her two year old choose her dress. Way to armor yourself against the fashion police reviews. SMG's idea of good date night is IHOP. The more you know! 

6:40 Diane Lane looking like a movie star as usual. A movie star without movies, unfortunately.

6:47 My cat is howling. He is not impressed with celebrities or my sweatshirt and sweatpants and ginger ale ensemble. The other day he stopped in his tracks to watch the TV for a full 10 minutes which has not happened since Microcosmos. What paralyzed him with interest? A PBS show Birds of the God - Birds of Paradise. 

6:49 And no Monty has not told me what he thought of any of the Oscar movies since Bridesmaids He is like the Haley's comet of Oscar pundits.

6:52 Rooney Mara is truly terrible at being interviewed. But then Ryan Seacrest is asking her whether she kept her "intimate piercings" from Dragon Tattoo so it would take a sassy pro to deflect that and own the situation. She merely says 'some of them. I didn't want to have to repierce'. No no noRooney. You don't answer those questions. You deflect that either sassily, mysteriously, flirtatiously or... if all else fails, a  look that could kill. We know you have the latter in your arsenal.

poll by twiigs.com

 7:07 Bérénice Bejo has not seen The Artist in three months. #uselessredcarpetconfessions.

7:09 Commercial break. Starting to feel a bit better. Having fish for dinner. Cat howling to commence again in 5...4...3...

7:15 Charlize Theron needs to give every young starlet lessons in red carpet banter. She is so excellent at it -- even with laryngitis. MORE with Theron, Moore, Pfeiffer, Streep and the lot of 'em.

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Readers' Ranking Meryl Streep ~ All Next Week!

Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there?

Well, yup. A lot of fans picked up our call to rank the sixteen Meryl Streep Oscar nominations thus far with number seventeen just around the corner. It was the best response ever outside of our typical prediction contests. We'll begin to reveal the breakdown after Golden Globe Madness (live blogging tonight... even though I'm sick. be here!) but I thought I'd share a little teaser.

UNDERSEEN
While The Film Experience readership who chooses to participate in polls is a self-selecting sample, according to our very scientific research (we asked you rank everything you'd seen) these are the golden ones that the least of you have laid eyes upon...

01. IRONWEED (1987) missing from 40% of ballots
02 (tie) THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN (1981) and MUSIC OF THE HEART (1999) were both missing from 30% of ballots
03. A CRY IN THE DARK (1988) missing from 28% of ballots
04. ONE TRUE THING (1998) missing from 25% of ballots

All the other films showed up on more than 75% of the ballots though The Deer Hunter and Silkwood didn't have nearly the viewership numbers I'd expected given the reputation of the films.

WIDELY ABSORBED
It's perhaps no surprise that one of Streep's all time biggest hits -- and a recent movie -- is the most seen. The Devil Wears Prada was only missing from 2% of the ballots.

TABULATING THE RESULTS...
I weighted the polls to favor those readers who had seen everything. This way underseen work, like, Ironweed as it turns out, wouldn't necessarily lose out to performances that everyone saw but nobody screamed "BEST!" about.  The more you'd seen the more your vote was worth, though everyone's votes counted.

NO ONE'S FAVORITE / NO ONE'S LEAST FAVORITE
Though some performances lived up to their reputation as hugely divisive (hi Sister Aloysius Beauvoir in Doubt!) there were three performances that managed no first place finishes and two that managed to avoid last place on any one ballot. 

No one's BEST: Ironweed (1987), Music of the Heart (1999) and Julie & Julia (2009)
In other words, once every 10 years Meryl does something that a lot of people like but no one absolutely cherishes above everything else she's ever done. Literally every other performance was someone's favorite #1.
No one's WORST: Sophie's Choice (1982) and Silkwood (1983). Literally every other performance was someone's least favorite among her nominated turns.

STAY TUNED... care to make any predictions?

"It's Her Year"

I think you have to hand it to both Meryl Streep and Viola Davis during this pre-season. The former co-stars (Doubt) and friends are constantly being pitted against each other by eager awards gurus and Oscar fans alike but they're both staying classy in regards to what may or may not be an epic upcoming battle for the Best Actress crown. Perhaps one of them will take the lead this week and never let it go starting at the Critics Choice (Thursday) and Globes (Sunday) but last night at the New York Film Critics Circle dinner they were their usual classy selves. Viola presented Meryl her Best Actress prize.

It’s a testament to her that she’d do this in this year, which is her year."

Meryl reportedly said when accepting the honor. 

"It's his/her year"

We hear that each and every year though the faces change. It's fascinating that it looks like it's coming down to Meryl or Viola when they're such gracious vocal fans of each other. Meryl even asked Hollywood to give Viola a big role when she won prizes for Doubt. Here we are a few years later...

Whose year is it anyway? 

Streep Reader Ranking ~ Coming Soon

While Meryl continues her triumphant march towards Oscar nomination #17 for The Iron Lady (and possible Oscar #3) we've been tabulating your opinions about her 16 previous nominations.

I received a lot of mail about this and since I love reader participation  I'm not complaining! Don't misunderstand. But that means it's taking me some time to tally up the results including, most beloved performances, which performances are underseen but have über-devotees and so on. I'm halfway through so results are coming next weekend but a few sneak peeks before then. Stay tuned!

The Iron Linky

By now you've heard that Meryl Streep will be receiving an Honorary Golden Bear at Berlinale in February. The fun part of this news that you probably haven't heard elsewhere is this is the 62nd Berlinale Festival and Meryl is... 62! They grew up together! The best part of this news for those attending the festival? That would be festival screenings of Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie's Choice, The Bridges of Madison County, A Prairie Home Companion and Out of Africa. I'd love to see all of those on the big screen again... even though they're not the five exact choices I would have made as a programmer (obvs you have to have Kramer & Sophie though). Coming next weekend we'll look at the Reader Streep Rankings. (Thanks for all your e-mails.)

Oscarables
The Wrap Will the Oscars move away from the Kodak Theater in two years? They're considering their options before recommitting to the contract.
Gold Derby shares the new Oscar ballots for Best Picture and accompanying instructions sent to Academy members. Voters can only vote for five favorites though more than five might be nominated given the complicated rules and thousands of ballots.

Etcetera
Antagony and Ecstasy rips into Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady. Only Streep survives.
Low Resolution rips into Albert Nobbs. Close survives. Sort of.
Paper Mag Matthew Modine turns to short filmmaking with Jesus Was a Commie. May also battle the Batman but won't confirm it.
Guardian Swordsman Bob Anderson, who staged fights for massive beloved franchises Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, has died. 
24 Frames talks about a quartet of movies with ambiguous endings. Spoilers obviously. Strangely the author chastises you for not having seen Rampart. Not that the distributor will let you!
Stale Popcorn thinks Rooney Mara is The Girl With the Ungrateful Stuck Up Attitude.  
Cinema Blend Demi Moore will cameo as Gloria Steinem in that Amanda Seyfried Linda Lovelace biopic which keeps getting starrier. 
In Contention interviews Jeremy Irvine and Richard Curtis on War Horse