And the Winner is...

Extreme Home Makeover -- Tonight is one of those nights that has absolutely no significance in the everyday lives of most people. But for movie fans it is the equivalent to the start of March Madness. Unfortunately, the continuing Writers strike in Hollywood took its first casualty of the season, the Golden Globes. With no writers to scribe the painful vignettes or forced banter that proceeds announcing the winners and actors unwilling to cross picket lines NBC was left with a 3 hour time block and absolutely no programming to fill it (see aforementioned strike for why).

The car wreck that was left in its wake began with what amounted to a two hour 'clips show' billed under Dateline's banner and strung together by Matt Lauer set ups and strange archive interviews with nominees. When I changed the channel at 9PM after the Amazing Race ended (more on reality TV coming soon) I found the pathetic and annoying Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell standing in front of a podium. -- Who? you ask are Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell -- two people who host the rip off version of Entertainment Tonight known as Access Hollywood. For the next hour they simply ran roll call of the nominees with submission clips and announced the winner by displaying a photo of them on the podium front. After ten minutes I went to USA Today and kept hitting refresh on occasion while bemoaning the idiocy of the whole thing with a friend I have often watched the Golden Globes with over the years. It was NBC duct taping together 3 hours of television with nothing more than film reel and trying to use smoke and mirrors to convince it's audience it was a show. The show in its normal form has suffered at the hands of NBC big wigs since it moved from TBS to network television but this makes bringing the Apprentice back with "celebrities" look like a good move.

So, tomorrow there will be no red carpet water cooler banter of "I can't believe she wore that" and "What was he thinking". There will be no dissection of whether Rumor Willis looks more like Bruce or Demi. For those not regular viewers of the Golden Globes she was scheduled to be the "Golden Globe Girl" which in English means, she was the person set to hand the actual awards to the winners and escort them off stage. But I digress. There will be no dissecting speeches that were poignant, funny, dreadful and simply forgettable. It sets up the critics theories of who now has momentum for Oscar contention - even though the Golden Globes are voted on by a group of 60 some odd individuals that make up the Hollywood Foreign Press. Seriously, the year Sharon Stone won Best Actress for her role in Casino she wrote personal notes to all of the members stating her case for why she should win. It's like running for class president in the 8th grade.

At the end of the day, this fluff is nothing more than red carpet glamour and cotton candy escapism. Rarely is the top grossing film of the year in contention for Best Picture and like I said before, it doesn't matter to most of us. But at a time when the news is filled with kidnappings, missing pregnant women and war and you just can't bear to watch another primary debate things like the Golden Globes can provide a fun distraction as you curse the fact your favorites don't win.

For my part I am good - Javier Bardem was a winner, and I can't believe Atonement won for Best Picture. Here's hoping the writers strike a deal and there is some cotton candy television in my future.