Paul Drinkwater/NBCAfter tonight, the only thing we're willing to bet on as awards season progresses is more accolades for The Artist.
That is inevitable.
But as predictable as the Emmys were in September (Mad Men and Modern Family, again?!), that's how oddball some of the choices made at the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards seemed. We'd give you more of an intro, but we have to coax our eyebrows out of their über-critical arches before the weekday grind starts again.
So, here are five moments that knocked us for a loop:
2. He's the Boss: And you thought Mad Men was one of the least-watched award winners around! If ever you needed a reminder that the Hollywood Foreign Press is not one of us, Kelsey Grammer, a two-time Golden Globe winner and five-time Emmy winner for pure comedy, won his first Best Actor in a Series, Drama, trophy for playing a real son-of-a-bitch on Boss. Having already renewed the gloomy political drama for a second season, this could be a real feather in Starz's cap, which is slowly joining the kinda-worth-subscribing-to club with series like the late, great Party Down and Spartacus: Vengeance. Or, Starz could net as many new viewers as Reelz Channel did when The Kennedys won all those Emmys. (Oh, and is Enlightened, the dark HBO comedy that Laura Dern won Best Actress in a Series, Comedy or Musical for, even good? We don't know anyone who watches that, either.)
3. Not-So-Tricky-Ricky: Ricky Gervais was funny, no doubt about it, but... Compared to the Molotov comedy cocktail he threw at the unsuspecting crowd at last year's ceremony, the talented-but-reined-in Brit proved that lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. Surely the onetime Globe winner had his marching orders (incite but don't incinerate), and subsequently all shock value went out the window. Fashion Police cohost Kelly Osbourne agreed, tweeting, "Shocked at how well behaved ricky gervais was tonight i know its bad but i really wanted him to be more like last year it was brilliant!"
4. Iron Lady, Brass Balls: Meryl Streep got as many bleeps as Ricky Gervais, who noted at one point that he didn't understand "a f--king thing" that presenters Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas said. At first we just thought our satellite was crapping out, but awards season's reigning Earth Mother said the S-word while accepting Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama, for The Iron Lady. Funny, we didn't see Melissa Leo pass some sort of profanity-bomb baton to Streep last year...
5. Brangelina Denied! The HFP didn't play Moneyball or give Honey any sugar. True, the Golden Globes doesn't differentiate between adapted and original screenplays, so Woody Allen's win for Midnight in Paris doesn't mean curtains for Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian's Moneyball at the WGA Awards and ahem, Academy Awards. But the HFP got Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie invested in tonight's proceedings—and didn't reward either one of them for their efforts! Though we (and Ricky Gervais) know how the HFP loves its A-listers, the buck apparently stopped this year at a Best Foreign Language Film nomination for Jolie's In the Land of Blood and Honey, which guaranteed a super-serious, somewhat dour showing on the red carpet. Hey, they had to make sure she came, right?! And we also thought it might finally be Pitt's year in the lead-actor category, but the Globe went to his real other half, George Clooney. Then again, producers got Jolie to present Best Director, Pitt to introduce Clooney's film and Clooney (toting a cane, no less) to introduce Pitt's, so it was a win-win for us, at least.