71st Golden Globe Awards (2014 TV Special) User Reviews

A Fine Show. ♦ 70%

[nairtejas · 7/10 · 13 January 2014]

The two hosts' jokes actually made my day than the actual performance consideration. Here in India, it was early morning the show telecast and along with the arrival special, the 71st snippet of the GGs came out as a fine show.

Not too long, not too sleazy, the host bravely handled the microphones. Yet, I still ponder over some of their strange, odd remarks on actors (e.g. something with Tom Hanks' name). The awards were totally unexpected but it'd been nicer if the original song, score had been played in background during their times. Also, the direction was not handled properly, not to mention the studio setup. TV actors had a field day walking to the dais for collecting their statuettes.

With a brouhaha of advertisements for the producers of the show itself, the movies & the shows, the blend quite didn't work out. It was treat to see celebrities talk when they are tad vulnerable. There were points of speeches and anchoring that bored and I stopped paying attention. If I had to do a graphical representation of the awards show, I'd draw a reverse ramp signal.

I chuckled more times than I did watching some of the comedy movies that were nominated. :D

BOTTOM LINE: A fine show not to be taken seriously. 7/10.

A strong awards ceremony with mostly pretty good winners

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 19 July 2017]

Here we have 71st Golden Globe Awards, a television event from 2014, so two more years until this has its 5th anniversary. It ran for slightly over 2 hours, not counting commercial breaks and this was one of the occasions where Amy (Poehler, also a deserving winner that night I guess) and Tina (Fey) hosted the show. I think they did a pretty good job and every time they were on screen the show got better. A bit of a shame they disappeared pretty much completely during the second half and you could see during their final words that they really had to rush it. Thumbs up for these two. Not as good as Gervais, but better than pretty much all other hosts in recent years, not just from the Globes. Now about the winners. There is one major letdown that night and that was the success of "American Hustle". I would have loved to give this show a ****/*****, but with Best Comedy and Best Supporting Actress (and Best Actress) going to such an undeserved movie, I just can't. At least the Oscars got it right. Not in terms of nominations, but in terms of wins. Another negative moment was probably Samberg's Best Actor win. His show is fine, but he is not the reason for it at all. A joke Braugher and others are running empty in terms of nominations and he won his category even. Bisset may not be a bad winner, but her speech felt really fake sadly.

Now the good: The love for Breaking Bad was amazing. Such an excellent show, such an excellent final season and it was really nice to see Cranston winning a Globe finally that night. And even most categories where I cheered for other films, I was still somewhat happy with the winners (U2 song over Frozen and ILD, Douglas over Elba, Voight over Paul, Jonze over Coogan, Blanchett over Dench). Woody Allen is of course a highly deserving Lifetime Achievement Winner, says a lot he had a great film in the running too that year. Happy for Elisabeth Moss too as I loved her on Mad Men and I really need to check out Top of the Lake at some point. I'd certainly have preferred Isaac, Phoenix and Dern for Best Comedy(?) Actor, but you can't be mad at Leo. Hill getting in at the Oscars is the bigger joke about TWoWS. The boys from Dallas Buyers Club deserve their wins too and McConaughey said that it was surprising as 12YaS (including Ejiofor) was the front runner before that night. But the losses for Director, Screenplay and Ejiofor showed that the film lost a bit of momentum. It was almost a surprise they won Best Drama eventually. Nyong'o's loss was shocking to me especially, but glad she took the Oscar then. "All is Lost" was a very inspired Best Score winner, shame they did not get in at the Oscars. Oh yeah and while I think 12 Years a Slave is a good film, I would have preferred all 4 other nominees to win instead. It was truly an amazing year for drama movies. It was also a good year for the comedy category as Nebraska, Her and especially Inside Lleyn Davis are all top-notch, TWoWS is also better than American Hustle, but no idea why they went for the letter so many times, at least not for Best Screenplay.

Overall, I can see why this awards ceremony became an awards winner as well, even if they lost the two Emmy nominations. It was pretty fun to watch for the most part and most winners were somewhat deserving I guess. Overall, I give it a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out.

Another awards show ruined by cut-off music

[Rogue-32 · 4/10 · 13 January 2014]

The 2014 Golden Globes show would have actually been pretty good if it hadn't been ruined - as most every other award show these days has been ruined - by the obnoxious cut-your-speech-short-and-get-off-the-stage music which plagued nearly every recipient last night.

As I've been saying for years, these shows are supposed to be about THE WINNERS. The acceptance speeches should be the actual focus of any award show, plain and simple. To ruin these speeches with the stupid get-off music is monumentally ridiculous. So what if the show runs fifteen or twenty minutes overtime? Anyone who's committed to watching for the right reasons (to see the WINNERS WIN) aren't going to tune out, and the network is not going to suffer financially in the long run. Let these people bask in the glory of receiving an award, let them say what they need to say without the insane time constraint; nobody is going to go on forever.

71 Long, Tedious Production **1/2

[edwagreen · 12 January 2014]

What exactly did Kate Blanchett say in her acceptance speech when she won the best actress drama award for "Blue Jasmine?" It was somewhat inaudible, but her crack about the late Judy Garland and barbiturates was most inappropriate.

While it is true that Woody Allen never shows up for award shows, after all, he was being singled out for the Cecil B. DeMille Award and should have been there. Instead, we got a long-winded speech from Diane Keaton of "Annie Hall" fame instead.

Who makes the seating arrangements at this show? The winners sitting in the rear, especially at the beginning of the show, took forever to reach the podium.

How much can one stand of Tina and Amy? 3 hours was plenty. Their gags became tasteless after a while.

Was Jackie Bisset drunk when she won her supporting award? Sure sounded like that to me.

A boring, tedious show. At least, have all the nominated songs performed and play the nominated musical scores in their entirety.

Interesting winners and good hosts but a few too many embarrassing moments along the way (SPOILERS)

[bob the moo · 21 January 2014]

I don't always watch the Golden globes but this year I decided to record it and watch it later – giving me the option at very least to fast- forward the commercial breaks which make this 2 hour show into a 3 hour show. Part of my reason for watching was that the awards seemed quite open for the Oscars and I was curious as to how they played out, plus I like the hosts Fey and Poehler. As hoped the opening monologue was pretty good with only one or two jokes not really working and the majority of them working well. Unfortunately after this they go missing for long sections with the only other meaningful bit being about Fey's teenage son – noticeably less successful than the monologue. However really good jokes at the expense of Clooney's and DiCaprio's sexual interests were worth the price alone.

Outside of this we have the show itself and here it is very mixed. Generally the range of winners was interesting with some surprises, plenty of things to disagree with and lots to engage. In some ways it backed up the thinking for the Oscars but in many other ways it threw some categories much more open in terms of perception. Unfortunately this isn't what I remember from watching because what sticks in the mind is the large number of awkward and embarrassing moments which seemed to occur. Bisset going on and on about nothing and not even the orchestra seemingly able to stop her; it didn't appear she was emotional unless you measure emotion by the glass. Speaking of drunks, Emma Thompson wandered onto stage with her shoes in her hands, a drink in the other and no envelope to read from – either she was drunk or she was failing at comedy, either option was painful to watch. Puff Daddy trying to get involved with the winners he presented to was painful to watch although worth it to see Bono pull away from him with disgust. Woody Allen deserves every career award he gets, but it is still an odd feeling when the guy doesn't show up.

Many winners were gracious though and I particularly liked Moss from Top of the Lake as she seemed genuinely moved, while of course fan-favorite Breaking Bad did well and deserved to. Amy Poehler was very funny and very excited by her win. Even when the winners were good though, the walk to the stage was pretty long, with many doing a tortuous loop of tables and chairs and taking an age to get to the stage – there must have been a better way to do it than this. These negatives are annoying because there are so many of them and, even though the spread of winners was interesting and the hosts were good, too many awkward, painful or embarrassing moments occurred and it is these that stick in the mind.