Golden Globes Recap: Gervais Goofs on Grown-Up Celebrities

"Golden Globes Awards," Sun., Jan. 16, 2011, NBC, 8 ET: Ricky Gervais hosted the 68th Annual Golden Globes awards from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles and, as usual, he delivered the zingers. Gervais began by welcoming viewers and guests to "a night of partying and heavy drinking or, as Charlie Sheen says, '˜breakfast,'" Gervais is definitely one of the bravest hosts to take the stage, making fun of "The Tourist" ("This year, everything was 3-dimensional, except the characters in "The Tourist.") with both Johnny Depp (who smiled) and Angelina Jolie sitting mere feet away.Only Tom Hanks had a mild reprimand for Gervais from the podium, late in the program.)

At one point, Gervais commented that he thought the special effects award might go to the team that air-brushed the poster for "Sex & the City II," adding, "Come on, girls. We know how old you are."

One of the biggest laughs came when Gervais praised "The Walking Dead," the new series about zombies, and segued into a Hugh Hefner joke saying that the 84-year-old Playboy's 24-year-old fiancée had said, "He lied to me. He told me he was 94." As further advice, Gervais, (with appropriate facial miming), said, "Just don't look at it when you touch it." The camera panned to Robert DeNiro who was laughing heartily.

Gervais also commented about the end of one his favorite series, "Lost," saying that he wasn't sure he totally understood the final episode, but that "I'm pretty sure the fat one ate them all."

A short time later in the program, Gervais introduced Bruce Willis as "Ashton Kutcher's father," and he got off a wicked joke at the expense of Cher (recently in the Christina Aguilera bomb "Burlesque") with a reference to it not being 1975.

When it wasn't Gervais cracking wise, recipients and presenters did so, with lines like this one in presenting Best Foreign Language Film: "A category that nobody in America cares about" and Jane Lynch, who plays Sue Sylvester on "Glee" (and won for the second time in 2 years as Best Supporting Actress in a TV Mini-Series or Comedy) said, "I'm nothing if not falsely humble,' and thanking the writer of her part as, "a deranged young man" from Chicago. The writer subsequently thanked public school teachers in America, saying that they didn't get enough credit. (Hear! Hear!)

When Robert DeNiro took the stage to accept his Cecille B. DeMille award for his entire body of work over the last 40 years, a 3-minute clip of his films, ranging from "The Godfather II" (1974) on, he, too, had some zingers. He noted that he'd like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Corps, but "It's a shame that not many of them are left here. They were deported right before the show along with Javier Bardem and most of the waiters." He thanked Dick Clark's production company for the 3-minute clip, a retrospective of his 4-decade career and added, "After the awards show, I'll be selling them in the lobby." Said DeNiro: "These films are like my children except that you can't remake them in 3D to bump up the gross," which merited a chuckle from the audience.

David Fincher, named Best Director for "The Social Network," thanked his entire cast and noted, "Without them, I would merely be a bitter man with a lot of opinions." He added, "It's been really nice."

Coming out of the awards show, it would appear that Natalie Portman has emerged as front-runner for Best Actress, with Christian Bale also a big favorite for Best Supporting Actor and "The Social Network" for Best Picture of the Year.

This show combines movie awards with television awards, so television shows like "Glee" (which came away with several of the Golden Globes in a variety of categories) took up a lot of time during the 3-hour awards ceremony.

Colin Firth, in accepting his award as Best Actor, saluted the trio of Geoffrey Rush and Tom Hooper (his co-star and Director) saying that the experience of making the movie had been "a growing two sides of man love." Colin Firth saluted Harvey Weinstein for giving him good work over a 20-year span of time. Firth has to be looked upon as a stronger contender for the Academy Award as Best Actor now that he has won the Golden Globe award.

Some other remarks by recipients that were amusing included the obviously pregnant Natalie Portman's remark about her husband-to-be, Benjamin, present with her as her date. She pointed out that in the film, he choreographed the dances and that, at one point, French actor Vincent Cassel, (playing the choreographer in the film), asks him, "Would you sleep with that girl?" and he says "No." "He's such a good actor. That's totally not true." She also thanked her Grandma Bernice in Cincinnati, saying she hoped that Grandma Bernice was having a drink and thanking her parents for bring her into the world and giving her a good life and Benjamin, father of her unborn child, for helping her to carry on bringing new life into the world.

Paul Giamatti's win for "Barney's Version", beating out Jake Gyllenhaal, Johnny Depp, Kevin Spacey, among others, was a surprise. When Michael Douglas came out to present the final award of the night for Best Picture, he looked wan, but healthier than when his 175-pound frame had shrunk to only 141 pounds. Said Douglas, "There's gotta' be an easier way to get a standing ovation. I'm really, very, very happy to be here tonight."