Not just anotheraward show
By Ryan Eloe
Skiff Staff

With a name like the Golden Globe it would be easy to suspect that it is Hollywood’s most coveted prize. Yet the reality of how the prize is viewed fails to reach this conclusion.

On Sunday the 59th annual Golden Globe ceremony will award Hollywood elite with this honor from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association at 7 p.m. on NBC KXAS Channel 5.

The ceremony will award Hollywood elite with this honor that is given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.What separates the Golden Globes from all other awards is the award show itself. The Golden Globes ceremony allows for more spontaneity than any other show. The ceremony begins with a dinner, and even as the show airs on national television and in 125 countries around the world, guests eat, talk and mingle.

This year’s Hollywood Foreign Press Association is made up of 93 journalists that represent 55 countries and a combined readership of more than 250 million people, according to the HFPA Web site.

The award was first given out in 1944 when movie stars met for lunch at the 20th Century Fox Studios. The award winners did not receive a golden statuette, but rather a scroll declaring their achievement.

According to the Web site, the members of HFPA have an advantage of viewing movies unbiasedly because they are not immersed in the Hollywood culture.

The HFPA decided to give the awards out soon after the year ended so that the awards could be impartial.Their drive to announce nominations and present awards before Academy Award nominations has had a reverse effect in which the Golden Globes serve as a strong precursor for Oscar nominees and winners.

The 4,263 members of the Academy will need to turn their ballots into PricewaterhouseCoopers by Feb. 1. The nominees will be announced Feb.12. This time frame allows the Golden Globes to effect Academy Award nominations.

Rick Lyman of the New York Times said this year top contenders for awards are unclear.

“The current Oscar race is in a muddle because little consensus among critics, audiences and industry professionals about what the best efforts were in what is widely perceived as a lackluster year for mainstream moviemaking,” Lyman said.

At this point last year, many people were convinced that certain nominations were guaranteed, such as Julia Roberts’ performance in “Erin Brokovich.” But this year, similar guarantees have not come so easily, and the Golden Globes are a good precursor to this year’s Oscar race.

Beginning in 1955, The Golden Globes did not just limit their scope to movies, but also began to honor television as well.

Past memorable examples of spontaneity include 1999 when Jack Nicholson mooned the crowd or in 1998 when Ving Rhames gave the statuette to his idol Jack Lemmon.

This spontaneity goes back to the famous in 1958cq when Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. stormed the stage and took over the show.

Beyond fun and games, winning is still an honor, and the winners of this year’s awards are still up in the air. The only award that is guaranteed is the honorary Cecil B. DeMille award that will be presented to Harrison Ford.

TCU Daily Skiff © 2002