Awards News

Yes, at times it was as bad as that, and I was willing to debase myself to make a point. As a prelude to the Academy Awards on March 5, for three weeks in January the Critics Choice Awards, People's Choice Awards, the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards provided moments of pure "How can anyone watch this?"

We knew it was coming. We always know that it's coming.

But millions of us turn on our television sets to watch anyway. We don't do it to find out who will win the Oscars -- the voting bodies and categories often don't provide enough meaningful clues. We tune in because in between the duds and thuds, there are palpable moments of poetry and pleasure that you'll remember forever -- or, at least until the next morning's coffee break.

We also squirm through the obvious discomfort of many of the participants who display the tension between the need to be recognized, the guilt over feeding an industry ritual of shameless self-congratulation, and the promotional mandate that forces people into starched shirts, billowy gowns and frozen smiles.

And yet there we are, gawking in disbelief as red carpet reporters at the Golden Globes force Hilary Swank, days after the public announcement of her split with Chad Lowe, to confront her open wound -- as tasteful as if they said straight to her face, "So, I guess you're a Lowe-rider no more."

Then there's the problem of repetition. How many times can you hear the words "labor of love" or references to "our small movie" before your mind begins to tune it all out? It gets to the point where one might wish, pray even, that something other than "Brokeback Mountain" wins the big prize, just to mix things up, even if you thought it was the best film of the year. Which begs the question: by the time the Oscars roll around, will audiences already feel as if they've seen it all before? Therein lies the rub.

Miller in the lion's den

Dennis Miller kicked things off with a thud as host of the Critics Choice Awards on Jan. 9, the first major kudocast that aired on the WB Network. The politically conservative humorist bombed right and left with the celeb-studded, left-leaning crowd with jokes that poked fun at everything from gay cowboys to undocumented aliens. Some of the films are so new, joked Miller, "that they haven't even been pirated by the Chinese yet!" OK, if Miller's performance was like Chinese water torture for the audience, then Miller was Daniel in the lion's den.

One thing the show had going for it were categories that the other shows lack: best young actor and actress, allowing for some truly fresh faces to get into the mix, including "The New World's" Q'Orianka Kilcher, and those two boys from "The Squid and the Whale." But when Freddie Highmore of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and Dakota Fanning of "The War of the Worlds" won, it was as if we tuned into last year's Critics Choice Awards. Oh well, these are the Broadcast Film Critics, they must know what they're doing.

And yet for our pains, we're later rewarded with some quiet but charming moments during the SAG awards on Jan. 29, brought to you by the folks at Turner Broadcasting. One such moment came from James Michael Connor, one of several actors interviewed in a SAG salute to commercial performers. Connor poked good-natured fun not only at directors who say things like, "I'd like that (performance) to be more yellow," but also himself.

"When someone says, 'I was TiVo-ing through these commercials and I stopped to watch yours,' that gets you," said Connor, pointing to his heart, "right here."

A purse from a sow's ear

We sit through 10 or 20 acceptance speeches per show, many uninspired -- some defiantly so -- because every so often, there's a jewel. 

In fact, in these shows, there were enough for a crown:

• Hugh Laurie of "House" and his 172 slips of paper with people's names on them (of which he would pick three "at random" to thank), warmly and effortlessly unfurling his joke like a dad rolling out his kid's sleeping bag.

•  Terry O'Quinn of "Lost." Whether O'Quinn spent three seconds or three weeks planning his words on behalf of his SAG Award-winning ensemble, they just sang: "This is the saddest collection of climbing, grasping, paranoid, backstabbing, screen-grabbing schmoozers and losers that you ever saw in your life. But we love each very much."

•  "Cinderella Man" sidekick Paul Giamatti's ode at the SAGs to "hanging out around the craft services table with other actors and crew, eating doughnuts."

•  And perhaps most of all, Steve Carell of "The Office," who deserved a second Golden Globe for his deadpan acceptance speech that he said his wife, comedian Nancy Walls, wrote for him. The speech was infused with lines thanking Walls, "who put her career on hold in support of mine and who sometimes wishes I would let her know when I'm going to be home late so she can schedule her life, which is no less important than mine."

Hilarious with a subtext of true love. That's worthy of being witnessed, no matter how unlikely the venue.

True, some horrible moments are perversely artistic. Sometimes the car wreck is the show, and gawking is its own reward. No doubt, Dakota Johnson made Miss Golden Globe history for her unceasing frown of utter discomfort.

But for the most part, award-show viewers did suffer for their art. Ryan Phillippe's cries for attention during the Globes were particularly painful. As they say when you reach the end zone, "Act like you belong."

In general, the Jan. 10 People's Choice Awards on CBS -- a mere night after the Broadcast Film Critics' shindig -- had a rather unmistakable aura of desperation about it. (By comparison, the Golden Globes are the cool kids in school, and the SAGs are at least comfortable in their own skin.) Never mind that the show's been going for 32 years; like a tone-deaf vaudevillian, it was practically emptying its pockets for material to keep us entertained.

More than one viewer had to feel some sense of relief when the camera showed Reese Witherspoon laughing at one of host Craig Ferguson's lines -- Ferguson himself seemed unsure at times if they were funny. But that didn't stop Ferguson, game for just about anything, from going the Gallagher route and first tossing crackers, then water, into the crowd.

The nadir was the "Nice and Easy Presents the Fans' Favorite Hair Award," delivered by Lara Spencer of "The Insider" -- a commercial within the actual People's Choice Awards broadcast that you didn't realize you should fast-forward through until it was too late. Shockingly, Faith Hill was not present to accept her award, leaving Spencer to bad-lib, "Congratulations on having it all, including a gorgeous head of hair." Everyone involved with this fiasco deserves a boycott, except, I suppose, Hill's hair, innocent in its tousled glory.

But like Carell's Michael Scott character on "The Office," even the misguided shows can have their moments. People's Choice Award presenter George Lopez brought a Chris Rock-like edge to the event by dissing Jessica Simpson, which might not be the same as dissing Jude Law -- in some ways, it might be bigger.

The next presenter, Kelsey Grammer, provided the button with his candid observation, "I had no idea George Lopez was that funny."

What was the topper? It came 93 minutes into the SAGs, when foot soldier of acting S. Epatha Merkerson, teardrop deep in a cathartic train of pleasure and pain, suddenly erupted with "a public thank you to my divorce lawyer!" And then Merkerson cackled from here to Lackawanna. It bore no relevance to the entertainment industry, yet from all the award shows of January, it was the moment that was most truly unforgettable.

When it comes right down to it, there can't be many people who turn on an awards show expecting it to be great. There's the bad, and of course, there's the downright puzzling. (Was Chris Cooper really crying over Shirley Temple Black's SAG Lifetime Achievement Award?) It's rare that the hours you spend watching these shows aren't hours you would rather have back.

But the ride isn't without its thrills.