Golden Globes: Live Blogging

Yes, I know that Grandpa Jack Bauer starts his eighth really bad day tonight, and that there's a new Desperate Housewives and the second installment of Big Love . . . but the event of the evening is, of course, the Golden Globe awards with the deliciously unpredictable Ricky Gervais as host. Thank goodness for DVRs so I can catch up on the missed eppies later after I shamelessly root for for Jon Hamm, Mad Men and Modern Family.

After I jump back and forth between E (the Exclamation! Point! Channel) and the TV Guide channel for the arrival show in the rain, I'll live blog here. Feel free to chime in on your biggest surprises/disappointments/pleasures while watching the TV/film extravaganza. (Plus Lauren Graham -- of Gilmore Girls -- is going to be presenting and looks lovely.)

Comments on Gervais' Opening:
Update: Mocked the NBC version of The Office and Steve Carell and NBC, a wee bit. Held up the DVD set of HIS version of The Office. Then skewered sanctimonious actors/actresses and complimented their plastic surgeons.

Update: "Let's get on with it before NBC replaces me with Jay Leno," Gervais' parting shot before handing off Nicole Kidman and her immobile face.

Awards:

Update: Best supporting actress in a motion picture award went to Mo'Nique from Precious. I really need to see this movie, not playing widely or as wildly as I wish it would. THIS is what acceptance speeches should be, not those irritating, phoned in laundry lists.

Update: For best actress in TV/comedy, I wanted it to be Edie Falco from Nurse Jackie. (No offense Tina.) But it went to Toni Collette from Showtime's United States of Tara, for her tough role as a suburban mom with multiple personalities. Good show, risk-taking.

Update: Best supporting actor in TV. I chanted, "Ben Linus . . . Ben Linus . . . Ben Linus" silently in my head. But the Golden Globes people didn't hear me, apparently. Went to John Lithgow for Dexter. I've never seen Dexter but really like Michael C. Hall. Have to admit I'm disappointed. Michael Emerson kicks it, totally owns one of TV's best villains.

Update: How tacky for the Golden Globes orchestra to start playing music while the guy from Up was still speaking. He hadn't gone on that long and was genuine, real. It's a pet peeve of mine when awards shows cut off non-celeb winners because the show's top brass are afraid that seeing too much of faces made of flesh and not plastic will kill the ratings.

Update: Hey Ricky, I already saw The Invention of Lying. Thought it was amusing, not belly-laugh inducing like Gervais can be when he knows he's not going to serve as a Golden Globe host again.

Update: Best actor TV/drama . . . goes to Jon Ha . . . whoa, wait, what?! Jon Hamm had an awesome year on Mad Men. Fantastic. Fantastic. This is unbelieveable. But damn, knowing that Michael C. Hall, for Dexter, is recovering from cancer treatment, that makes this so poignant, even though he didn't invoke it specifically.

Update: Best actress TV/drama, good for Julianna Margulies for The Good Wife. Good for her. Could they have seated Margulies any farther away from the stage? Didn't apparently think she'd win by seating her back there. Wonder what Silda Spitzer, Elizabeth Edwards and the other betrayed wives think of her show and her win . . .

Study: Romantic Movies Harm Your Love Life

All of those who think that your love life will and should play out like a 1990s Meg Ryan flick raise your hands. If you've got a hand aloft, I've got a really great investment for you, a simply fabbbbulous opportunity where you just hand over your extra cash to a nice man named Bernie Madoff . . .

But seriously folks . . . there's a new study from an Edinburgh university -- Heriot Watt University -- which asserts that romantic comedies offer unrealistic portrayals of intimate relationships and that fans of the genre misapply those views to their own relationships, according to the BBC.

One of the authors of the study told the BBC:

"Marriage counselors often see couples who believe that sex should always be perfect, and if someone is meant to be with you then they will know what you want without you needing to communicate it . . . We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people's minds . . . The problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realize."

The movies reviewed for the study -- for the full list, click here -- included: You've Got Mail, My Best Friend's Wedding, America's Sweethearts, While You Were Sleeping, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and Two Weeks Notice.

So, as a public service to my readers, I'll take it upon myself to hereby declare that your romantic life will not be perpetually filled with happy endings (take that in whatever way you wish), romantic gestures, destiny-filled moments and kooky side-kick gal pals who are at your beck and call to over-analyze everything your loved one said and did. You are NOT Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts (circa the 1990s, that's important to note), nor are you Sandra Bullock, Kate Hudson or Hugh Grant, titans of romantic comedies over the past decade.

When I told The Spouse about the study, he likened it to the fanciful delusions men might develop after visiting strip clubs or leafing through a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue (where the women are airbrushed within an inch of their lives). The women at whom the men are leering, he suggested, provide men with irrational expectations as to what a woman should look like and, by the argument advanced in the study, could damage the men's love life. Touche Spouse!

Image credit: DVD town.