At the Golden Globes last night, The Social Network may have came out on top, scooping awards for best director, film, screenplay and score and further paving the way to Oscar glory despite Colin Firth and Natalie Portman snatching the top acting gongs, but most people were watching for the celebrity antics that have to mark this most drunken, eccentric and influential of award nights.
With Ricky Gervais hosting and apparently doing his best to make sure that no-one would accuse him of biting his tongue as they did last year there was plenty of mocking of practically everyone... after a rather tepid opening jibe at Charlie Sheen's not so recent hotel-smashing antics (surely the equivalent of telling a mother-in-law joke) he laid into The Tourist's bizarre three noms, suggested that certain well-known Scientologists were gay and thanked god for making him an atheist. Bruce Willis (Demi Moore's ex-husband) meanwhile got off lightly when he was introduced as Ashton Kutcher's (Demi Moore's current husband) dad, but then Gervais disappeared for over an hour leading to a lot of Twitter based speculation that the organisers had him bound and gagged backstage or that Xenu, leader of the Galactic Confederacy had done the unspeakable to him.
Meanwhile a long-haired and bearded Christian Bale received the first award of the night for his supporting role in The Fighter and rambled on for so long the director drowned him out with music, Andrew Garfield fluffed his lines, Eva Longoria almost fell over on stage, and as if being completely snubbed for her brilliant performance in True Grit wasn’t enough, 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld had to endure presenting the best animated feature award with Justin Bieber which Toy Story 3 won and director Lee Unkrich joked that the two young presenters were probably not even born when the first Toy Story was released.
A dashingly dressed Robert Downey Jr. gave the best presenter's speech of the night by tabling a theory that actresses are only their best after they have slept with him, proceding to address each nominee before announcing Annette Bening as the winner, while Al Pacino received a standing ovation when he won the Best Legendary Movie Star In A Mini-Series or TV Movie Award for You Don’t Know Jack and went on to give a speech as rambling as Robert De Niro's scripted thanks were for winning the honorary gong of the night.
Colin Firth gave the most graceful and eloquent speech of the night - a speech so good he must have become odds-on-favourite for the Oscar as he delivered it - winning best actor for The King's Speech but the biggest applause of the night was for Michael Douglas who arrived onstage to present the Best Film award quipping, "there's gotta be an easier way to get a standing ovation" referring to his recent battle with cancer.
These were just a few of our favourite moments, what were yours?
For the full list of winners take a look at out feature here
Source: Screenrush
