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A little over a week ago President Obama absolutely wiped the floor with the celebrities and media pesonalities gathered for the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, a story that got buried after Osama bin Laden got buried – well shot in the head and buried at sea. The day before, armed with media props and a cool demeanour the Decider in Chief bitch slapped Fox News, Donald Trump, Matt Damon, Paul Ryan, Michelle Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, just to name a few. He was also self-effacing, and managed to stay cool as Seth Meyers cracked jokes about Osama bin Laden and his whereabouts. All in all a strong performance, but before I ruin any of the jokes I’ll let the President himself deepen those laugh lines.
Fortunately the President’s speech had a lot of Hollywood tie-ins (King’s Speech, The Lion King, Matt Damon, etc.), otherwise this wouldn’t be the appropriate forum – well, I probably would have written about it anyways. But really, although we like to scoff at the vocal and politically engaged Hollywood elite, Matt Damon does, in my opinion, have a reason to be disappointed. If for no other reason than for his handling of Wall Street, namely reform without teeth or meaning, and continuing the the revolving door policy. For instance, despite being at the center of almost every major American economic meltdown, there’s no SEAL team descending on the headquarters of Goldman Sachs. Indeed CEO and chairman Lloyd Blankfein is doing God’s work. William D. Cohan, author of Money and Power, said it’s a wonder people didn’t rise up – Matt Damon did, and I respect that. My two cents on politics. King’s Speech was a good movie, by the way – this is a movie blog after all.
Out of Order: Gervais at the Golden Globes
After being on hiatus for the holidays I’m happy to have a good story to write about to kick off 2011, even if we’re already a few weeks in. Comedian Ricky Gervais had people squirming in their seats at the Golden Globes Sunday. Did you know they were on? I don’t follow the awards season much, but after hearing of the contrversy over his performance I decided to take a look. Even before I watched it I was wondering why they hired him for the job? If you’ve seen his stand-up it’s pretty much over-the-top, offensive humour from start to finish. I like comedians who push the envelope, say something that produces that mix of hand covered mouthes and unrestrained laughter – a palpable sign of discordance in our politically correct society. However, I don’t think it should be used for 60 minutes straight, I prefer someone like George Carlin, who used that kind of humour sparingly but wisely. Both men would tell you that you can joke about anything, it’s the context, and in Ricky’s case it’s the direct, unabashed offensiveness that has people keeling in their seats, most of the time. Hardly the case, judging by the awkward laughs and stone faces during the broadcast and the subsequent fallout, not everyone enjoyed Ricky’s brand of humour. What did they expect, he hosted the year before, for god’s sake. I’ll be honest, the digs Gervais made read like a tabloid newspaper, Charlie Sheen is a booze-hound, Tom Cruise is a closet homosexual, Hugh Hefner is old, ha-bloody-ha. Given the fact that none of these people were present it seemed irrelevant to the show and just comes off a TMZ like, celebrity-obsessed, Hollywood-centric garbage. I was happy to see De Niro got into it with some better jibes – he can be seen laughing heard during Gervais’ set – but again people seemed a little on edge and more nervous than anything. Other presenters fired back, in a one-two punch Tom Hanks said to Tim Allen “We recall when Ricky Gervais was a slightly chubby but very kind comedian,” to which Allen replied: “Neither of which he is now.” Oh snap! Come on guys, you can do better than that, and Ricky can take it. Granted, this isn’t a celebrity roast, but nevertheless people should understand that it’s just a joke. I’m not one who enjoys watching celebrities go off the deep end, a strange kind of schadenfreude our celebrity-worshipping society indulges in, but if a distinguished actor like like De Niro can laugh at himself, we should be able to as well. Besides, imagine how our delicate sensbilities had been offended if Ricky hadn’t toned it down, here’s what he had orginally planned.