Gavin Newsom is running for President against Ron DeSantis.

I found that at "Gavin Newsom’s TV ad slamming DeSantis fills a void among Democrats" (WaPo).

I was going to end this post with just: "Catch up!" 

But that made me think of Trump.

"Finally, a novel about the travails of a successful White guy! What could pull the heartstrings of our afflicted nation tighter than a story of brief, emotional setback suffered by a handsome movie star?"

The first 2 sentences of "Ethan Hawke turns his acting experience — and past infidelities — into brilliant fiction" (WaPo). 

The reviewer, Ron Charles, also seems to be a white male, so his sarcasm may reflect his own anguish at elite America's languishing interest in how white men think and feel. 

... Hawke is... known as the man who cheated on Uma Thurman and offered loutish excuses about the sexual needs of great men like Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and him. 

Now, some 15 years after all that cosmic embarrassment, Hawke has published a novel called “A Bright Ray of Darkness.” It’s about a young movie star who got caught cheating on his stunningly gorgeous wife. This recycled gossip is tiresome, but what’s most irritating about “A Bright Ray of Darkness” is that it’s really good. If you can ignore the author’s motive for creating such a sensitive and endearing cad, you’ll find here a novel that explores the demands of acting and the delusions of manhood with tremendous verve and insight.

That title!  "A Bright Ray of Darkness" — seems like a teenager's idea of profundity, and yet this guy gets his novel published by Knopf and praised like mad in The Washington Post. Clicking to Amazon, I see he got a blurb from Patti Smith. She called it "riveting." Riveting! This towering achievement comes in spite of the burden of being a handsome, rich, white man in America today. 

Amazon does not allow us to look inside the book, so I have no opportunity to see what kind of writing is drawing this attention. I search the review for an example of the author's prose. Here: "My life as a performer is at the absolute core of my sense of self-worth. Inside the play it felt possible that I was not a person defined by his adultery, or his unloving parents, or his lies, his failure as a father." You tell me: Is this man held back or pushed ahead by his status as a handsome white male?

"A Bright Ray of Darkness" makes me think of that old song. We were listening to this yesterday: "Darkness, Darkness"...

 

You know me. If there's one topic I've been avoiding in crazy present-day America, it's the "My Pillow Guy." But jokes were made on hearing that first line: "Darkness, Darkness/Be my pillow...."

ADDED: Speaking of Ron Charles and highly praised white male novelists...

AND: In the comments, John Henry reminds me that Amazon lets you download the first 20 pages, so I did that and came up with this extract. I'll let you judge the possible brilliance for yourself. Is this Knopf-level fiction-writing?

"The 'Kill Bill' script called for Uma Thurman to be spit on by co-star Michael Madsen, but Quentin Tarantino was the one who did it."

"He didn’t trust anyone else to spit right. 'I’m the director, so I can kind of art direct this spit,' Tarantino told Deadline on Monday. 'I know where I want it to land. I’m right next to the camera. So, boom! I do it.'... And the choking? Tarantino claims it was Thurman’s idea to have the chain — which in the movie is thrown at the Bride by Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama) — actually wrap around her neck and choke her. 'Not forever, not for a long time,' he said of how he did it. 'But it’s not going to look right [without really doing it]. I can act all strangle-ey, but if you want my face to get red and the tears to come to my eye, then you kind of need to choke me.'"

Uma Thurman "didn’t feel comfortable operating the car" because "she had been led to believe by a teamster, she says, that the car... might not be working that well."

I've been trying to understand Maureen Dowd's NYT article about Uma Thurman, which appears to be about sexual abuse at the hands of Harvey Weinstein but halfway through becomes an article about a car crash that took place during the shooting of "Kill Bill."

This is a separate post on one specific thing that I left out of the linked post: Uma Thurman's last-minute disinclination to drive the car because "a teamster" led her to believe something was wrong.

What nuance did Dowd mean to slip into our head with that word "teamster"? Is there a connotation of violence, a hint of deliberately sabotaging. Here's the image I got:



Yeah, I know. That's gangsters, not teamsters. Even though a "gang" and a "team" might seem like the same thing, the word "teamster" referred, originally, to someone who works with a team of horses (or oxen), and it only later got extended to truck drivers. Only "gangster" refers to a group of criminals. The seeming equivalence of these words might affect your mind, but mostly when you hear "teamster," you think of the Teamsters Union. Unions might make you think of violence. If the union guy warns you something's not right with that car, it carries some extra meaning, some warning — don't get in that car.

Why didn't Maureen Dowd's article on Uma Thurman explain what happened to Thurman's legal claim over the car crash (which is portrayed as Quentin Tarantino's fault)?

Yesterday afternoon, I put up a post about the first half of Maureen Dowd's article about Uma Thurman, which is about Thurman's accusations against Harvey Weinstein, but I only flagged "the strange story about the car crash."

Dowd has an amusing way of writing, but sometimes it seems as though she's got a technique for obscuring questions and omitting information. This article is especially puzzling. First, why didn't Dowd stick with the Harvey Weinstein story? Dowd mentions at one point that she's talking to Thurman at 3 a.m. on the second day of the interview. What didn't make the cut? In yesterday's post, I highlighted quotes from Thurman that showed — even though the headline called Thurman "angry" — that Thurman had "complicated" feelings that included what sounded to me like guilt over allowing other women to fall into Weinstein's clutches. Where is the depth of analysis on this subject?  

Halfway through, the article switches to the topic of a car crash that occurred in the making of the movie "Kill Bill." Here, the villain is Quentin Tarantino (whose name does not appear in the article title or subtitle, which promise to give us the story of Thurman's outrage at Weinstein). The problem with Tarantino has nothing to do with sexual harassment or even anything personal. It's completely professional: Tarantino the director was a taskmaster who talked her into driving a car down a dirt road at 40 miles per hour when she wanted a stuntperson to do it:

“Quentin came in my trailer and didn’t like to hear no, like any director,” she says. “He was furious because I’d cost them a lot of time. But I was scared. He said: ‘I promise you the car is fine. It’s a straight piece of road.’” He persuaded her to do it, and instructed: “ ‘Hit 40 miles per hour or your hair won’t blow the right way and I’ll make you do it again.’ But that was a deathbox that I was in. The seat wasn’t screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road.” (Tarantino did not respond to requests for comment.)

There is embedded video at the link — film shot from the back of the car — showing Thurman attempting to control the car and driving it into a palm tree.

“The steering wheel was at my belly and my legs were jammed under me,” she says. “I felt this searing pain and thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m never going to walk again,’” she says. “When I came back from the hospital in a neck brace with my knees damaged and a large massive egg on my head and a concussion, I wanted to see the car and I was very upset. Quentin and I had an enormous fight, and I accused him of trying to kill me. And he was very angry at that, I guess understandably, because he didn’t feel he had tried to kill me.”

Clearly, Thurman had grounds for a lawsuit, and we're not told when Thurman got a lawyer and how the lawyer initially interacted with the production company Miramax. Dowd employs a jump cut, straight to this:

Two weeks after the crash, after trying to see the car and footage of the incident, she had her lawyer send a letter to Miramax, summarizing the event and reserving the right to sue.

So there's already a lawyer. It's 2 weeks later, and they'd like the footage, but everyone knows of the potential for an expensive lawsuit (and the need to keep Thurman on board finishing the movie and promoting it).

Miramax offered to show her the footage if she signed a document “releasing them of any consequences of my future pain and suffering,” she says. She didn’t.

Signing a document and paying a settlement? Obviously, the footage is evidence in the lawsuit, so if the lawsuit is not settled, the footage will come out in discovery, so what happened? Dowd says absolutely nothing and just makes it sound as though Thurman and Tarantino had a long personal struggle:

Thurman says her mind meld with Tarantino was rattled. “We were in a terrible fight for years,” she explains. “We had to then go through promoting the movies. It was all very thin ice. We had a fateful fight at Soho House in New York in 2004 and we were shouting at each other because he wouldn’t let me see the footage and he told me that was what they had all decided.”

Her mind meld with Tarantino was rattled??? There was a lawyer in the picture. When you're suing somebody or threatening to sue somebody it's not a matter of a rattling mind meld! Rattled mind meld sounds funny, and tort lawyers in car-crash cases sound dull. It's like Dowd is swerving us into a palm tree because continuing to drive at 40 miles an hour down the dirt road isn't interesting. But what the hell happened? A lawyer dropped in, but get that guy out of here! Bring back Tarantino! Here's an exciting sceen: Soho House, shouting, a fateful fight!

Lest you think about the boring lawyer, here's a very long sentence. See if you can read it. It may cause you not to think about the other question that could be nagging you — why does Thurman's old grievance about a moviemaking car accident and a mysterious settled/not-settled lawsuit belong in an article about what Thurman knows about the sexual harassment reckoning and Harvey Weinstein? Here, read:

Now, so many years after the accident, inspired by the reckoning on violence against women, reliving her own “dehumanization to the point of death” in Mexico, and furious that there have not been more legal repercussions against Weinstein, Thurman says she handed over the result of her own excavations to the police and ramped up the pressure to cajole the crash footage out of Tarantino.

Dowd's answer to my question is: The Reckoning reminded Thurman of this other dispute she has with Miramax. It can be portrayed as similar because it happened to her body, but one story is about a man who (she says) intentionally imposed sexual violence on her body, and the other is about a different man who (at most) meant no harm but was a link in a causal chain that ended with her crashing a car into a tree.

I would add that the stories are also similar in that evidence remained suppressed for years, but one involves Thurman herself declining to go public with accusations (and herself becoming causally connected to the sexual abuse of other women), and the other involves film footage that was relevant to a subject that Maureen Dowd is hiding from us: the at-least-threatened lawsuit over the crash.

“Quentin finally atoned by giving it to me after 15 years, right?” she says. “Not that it matters now, with my permanently damaged neck and my screwed-up knees.”

Atoned? I'm assuming Miramax suppressed it as the lawsuit progressed — "permanently damaged neck and my screwed-up knees" means, in lawyer talk, very high damages. Thurman had a lawyer, threatening a lawsuit, so it wasn't a personal relationship anymore.

And I wonder what's going on now. Is Thurman still trying to collect damages and using Dowd and the NYT? Is there a pending lawsuit? Why didn't her lawyer get the footage years ago in the normal (and very boring!) process of discovery?

This drama about Tarantino atoning himself — unrattling the mind meld — by turning over the footage is offered for our amusement, but to me it's ridiculous, because I'm seeing this phantom lawsuit and wondering whether that's the main thing going on now.

As she sits by the fire on a second night when we talk until 3 a.m., tears begin to fall down her cheeks. She brushes them away.

“When they turned on me after the accident,” she says, “I went from being a creative contributor and performer to being like a broken tool.”

So there's Dowd, lured into Thurman's "elegant apartment in River House on Manhattan’s East Side" by the promise of a story about Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse (and, perhaps, Thurman's complicity in the abuse of other women), and what Thurman wants is something else entirely — to go on about a tort case.

“Harvey assaulted me but that didn’t kill me,” she says. “What really got me about the crash was that it was a cheap shot. I had been through so many rings of fire by that point. I had really always felt a connection to the greater good in my work with Quentin and most of what I allowed to happen to me and what I participated in was kind of like a horrible mud wrestle with a very angry brother. But at least I had some say, you know?” She says she didn’t feel disempowered by any of it. Until the crash.

"I stand as both a person who was subjected to it and a person who was then also part of the cloud cover, so that’s a super weird split to have."

Said Uma Thurman, quoted in "This Is Why Uma Thurman Is Angry/The actress is finally ready to talk about Harvey Weinstein" by Maureen Dowd in the NYT.

"The complicated feeling I have about Harvey is how bad I feel about all the women that were attacked after I was,” she told me one recent night, looking anguished in her elegant apartment in River House on Manhattan’s East Side, as she vaped tobacco, sipped white wine and fed empty pizza boxes into the fireplace.

“I am one of the reasons that a young girl would walk into his room alone, the way I did. Quentin used Harvey as the executive producer of ‘Kill Bill,’ a movie that symbolizes female empowerment. And all these lambs walked into slaughter because they were convinced nobody rises to such a position who would do something illegal to you, but they do.”

Much more at the link. Don't miss the strange story about the car crash.

The loss of a face.

Oh, no! Uma!

ADDED: It is so foolish to think this kind of work is good for an aging face. The moviemakers always have new talent flowing into the business. There are always more genuinely fresh, pretty, young faces. Why would anyone want to look at the unfresh faking of such a face? You were the young woman once, and you edged out older women in your time. Now, either withdraw gracefully, or find your way into roles that fit your place on the timeline of life. If you're not a good enough actress to claim those roles, that's a good sign that you got more than your share of roles because of your beauty when you were young. You should be grateful — grateful and graceful.

Uma Thurman in court — how can an actress witness convey real emotion?

The Daily News reports:

In films like "Pulp Fiction," "Kill Bill" and "My Super Ex-Girlfriend," Thurman has played fierce heroines, the kind of gals who could squash a pathetic pest like Jack Jordan without ruining their makeup.

That kick-ass Uma was nowhere to be found Thursday in room 1300 in the Manhattan Criminal Court building.

Dressed in funereal black, her face bare and her hair messily pulled back, she practically cowered in a courtroom so new it almost looked like a Hollywood set.

Her hands trembled as she read Jordan's creepy letters in a monotone that wouldn't have gotten her a gig as an extra on a NYU student film.

I don't think an actress witness wants to sound like an actress.

IN THE COMMENTS: Bob aptly adds: "Or perhaps she was doing a performance of an actress traumatized by a stalker to the point that she forgets to put on makeup and speaks in a lifeless monotone."

"There's a certain geometry to life... life has a certain math equation to it..."

Actually, it doesn't, and that -- from Ethan Hawke -- is from the most pathetic justification for a failed celebrity marriage that I've ever read.

"It's unfair when one person's career is taking off and the other is really suffering. "What happens -- it's not that they're jealous of each other; it's that the person you share your life with isn't in the mood to support. You want to have a pity party for yourself, but they're off to the Golden Globes and you don't want to go because everyone is going to think you are jealous. "There's a certain geometry to life -- that life has a certain math equation to it and if you're never together, you can't build a home. "Joanne Woodward put her career on the back burner for that marriage (to Paul Newman) to last. And something's got to give."

Thoughts: 

1. As the first commenter over at the link says, why didn't he put his career on the back burner for Uma? 

2. He had Uma! He should have done everything for her. 

3. Uma could come over there and kick his ass: 

 

4. He didn't want to go to the Golden Globes because somehow everyone would infer that he was jealous, but he says so now, which makes it obvious that he was jealous. 

5. I thought Ethan Hawke was the smart one:

 

6. Really smart: 

 

 7. Whining is a dangerous game. Don't do it. Especially about Uma.

"It's so unusual to be standing when we're usually sitting."

So let's just start there, with the first dumb quote since I turned on the TV to watch and simul-blog the Golden Globes. The statement was made by William Shatner (a nominee!) to Star Jones, and is a witticism, presumably, because normally one would talk to Star Jones while seated on the set of "The View."

Kathy Griffin to some actor I don't recognize: "Do you guys have any weed?" His answer: "On us? At the moment?"

Joan Rivers to Ashley Judd: "Go ahead and go in and get your award. They're screaming for you to go in."

Okay, well, that will kick off this post. The big show is about to begin, and I'll be updating through the night below, with each new entry next to a number:

1. Best Supporting Actor: Thomas Hayden Smith, aw -- he really looks like he wants to win. But it's Clive Owen for "Closer." He thanks a lot of people. Nothing interesting said. Yawn! Now Best Supporting Actress: Virginia Madsen looks like she really wants to win. Natalie Portman looks pretty in a flimsy nightgown of a dress. Tim Robbins, announcing the nominees, pronounces the name of her movie, "Closer," as if it's the title of a person who shuts doors or completes business deals. Then he corrects his pronunciation. Then he announces the award, and it's Natalie! So far, it's a sweep for "Closer." Mike Nichols, the director of "Closer," is, thus far, the most lavishly praised person in the room. He's beaming and looking very grand.

2. Best Supporting Actress, TV version: Oh, it's gotta be Adriana. Charlize Theron has short black hair! And Angelica Huston wins!!! I can't believe Drea De Matteo (Adriana) didn't win. After all of her suffering! Oh, no! Angelica is a goddess though. I begrudge her nothing. She's dripping in jewels. "It's such a pleasure to be in this business." Best Supporting Actor, TV version: Michael Imperioli -- how can he win when Adriana didn't win? William Shatner: why the hell not? And it is!!! It's Shatner! Imperioli takes a gulp of water. Shatner is bright red, as if he might have a heart attack and die while finally getting his recognition. "Wanna thank the wife ... Let's see ... Leslie, Liz, and Melanie ... Shelley, Kelly, and Donna ..." Chris says: "This is the most boring speech." But there was a moment there, when he first gripped his hand around the award and looked at it and said "William Shatner" that was kind of cool and touching. [UPDATE: Tung Yin explains how Shatner saying "William Shatner" was actually a reference to something his character on "Boston Legal" does.]

3. A clip from "Kinsey" is introduced, describing Kinsey as a man who, among other things, "changed his own life forever." What's the accomplishment in that? Would could possibly avoid such a thing? Now, here's Jim Carrey, making an inside joke about the Weinsteins. Goldie Hawn brays with laughter. Now we're "celebrating" ... oh, I don't know what ... apparently just the whole idea of movies. And now Bill Clinton -- of all people -- is on the screen. "Aw, he looks sick," says Chris. He's talking about tsunami relief. Best Actress, TV series drama: Jennifer Garner is dimpling magnificently. The winner is Mariska Hargitay. She's wearing a liquid lilac dress and showing very distinctive nipplage. She says "49 years ago my mother accepted an award" and goes into a crying tribute to her dad, who, unlike her beautiful mother Jayne Mansfield, is still alive. He's being supported by two people. He's trembling and weeping. He's Mickey Hargitay, once famous as a bodybuilder. Best Actor, TV series drama: Ian McShane, from "Deadwood." He clutches the award and says "Mine!"

4. Samuel Jackson introduces the clip from "The Incredibles." I'm impressed by the animation of the silky black hair on the little girl. Meryl Streep comes out to introduce an award and leans into the mike and says "Congratulations, Natalie" in a way that means, you little, undeserving bitch. Now the award for made-for-TV movie. They all look like crap. "Life and Death of Peter Sellers" wins. Actually, it did have the best clip. Three boring producer guys make their way to the stage while we hear the record "What's New Pussycat?" Speech: booooorrrrrinnnnngggggggg. Best Actor, TV series comedy is the next award. Do I even watch any of these shows? Yeah! Larry David, "Curb Your Enthusiasm." I love that show! Can Lar possibly win? No, Jason Bateman wins for "Arrested Development." He reads names from an index card, which he refers to and waves about. He has huge feet (always a good sign).

5. "Oh, she's pretty," I say when I see an actress in a beige swathing of a dress. It's Halle Berry, introducing the clip for "Finding Neverland," which plays with schmaltzy music. Closeup on the sweet Johnny Depp, wearing nice nerdy glasses. Now Will Ferrell is here to announce the Best Actress, musical/comedy. Kate Winslet got the most applause! I think she'll win! Go Kate! But it's Annette Benning, who takes a delicate sip of champagne before rising to kiss Warren Beatty and waltz up to the stage. She appreciates the award, and she had "a hell of a good time" making her movie ("Being Julia"). Best TV Series, drama. A long clip for each nominee is shown. Wow! "Lost" is cheesy. So is "Nip/Tuck." Weird. Obviously, "The Sopranos" is the best. They show the clip of Tony criticizing A.J. about "a coupla beers." "Nip/Tuck" wins. About ten people have to come up to the stage. "They're taking a million years," I say, getting impatient. A producer gives a boring speech while a tall woman with huge breasts is seen just over his shoulder. She knows which body parts are on camera. She shimmies the golden globes gelatinously.

6. Naomi Watts introduces the clip for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and makes a flub just as she's talking about having your mind erased. After the clip, there's a closeup of Jim Carrey, touched by his own film. Now the Desperate Housewives come out. The camera frames them all extra close, excluding their chests, as if a call came in from FCC Chairman Michael Powell during the last commercial break. They give the award for Actor, TV miniseries/movie. It's Geoffrey Rush, for the Peter Sellers movie, so we get to hear "What's New Pussycat?" again. He makes a joke about speech lessons using the term "vowel movements." Al Pacino comes out to give the award for Best Actress, TV miniseries/movie. Glenn Close doesn't seem to take herself too seriously. Bythe Danner smirks at her own clip. Miranda Richardson makes me say: "Ha! She thinks she's great." Glenn Close wins and holds her hand over her mouth in disbelief as she hurries to the stage. "Meryl is it okay? Are we still friends?" The award is a huge, shining cherry on a fabulous cake … or something. She thanks the person who made her huge, heartbreaking wig. She seems nice!

7. Quentin Tarantino is talking to … is that Henry Kissinger? Chris: "I think it's Martin Scorsese." Me: "That would make more sense." More commercials. Now Glenn Close is back, introducing a clip of "Closer." Best foreign is next. "The Sea Inside" wins. Alejandro Amenobar.

8. That last segment was the most boring of the show so far. Now: Best Screenplay. It's going to be Charlie Kaufman for "Eternal Sunshine," isn't it? No, Alexander Payne for "Sideways." I haven't seen the movie, but I've loved him from "Election." Shot of Schwarzenegger and Shriver in the audience. Jeez, she looks awful. Time for the TV comedy actress award. It goes to Teri Hatcher, for "Desperate Housewives." I've never seen it, and I don't care. I will say she's wearing a glorious silvery, stripey dress. She pretends to be ditzy. She takes the feminist angle: I get to work with so many great over-40 women. She's pleased to get to stand here in front of all these movie stars. Another pretty dull, get-the-unimportant-awards-out-of-the-way segment.

9. Laurence Fishburne introduces the clip for "Hotel Rwanda." I want to see that. Out come Usher and Lisa Maria Presley. "She seems so uninterested," Chris says. She's very blasé. As well she should be. Who can think what it would be like to be her? She's wearing a black cape. The award is for score. Who cares? "The Aviator" wins. "I'd like to thank my fellow nominees for their fine work" – boooorrriiingggg. You can hear people gabbing and misbehaving in the audience. Lisa Marie looks pissed. I think I see her mouthing an obscenity at Usher. She's stuck introducing a second music-related award, the loathsome best song award, which should be called least atrocious song. The song from "Polar Express" evokes retching noises chez Althouse. Mick Jagger has a nomination. So that's why he's there. I've been watching his wizened face all night. I want him to win, because I want to see him on stage. Yes! Yes! Yes! Applause chez Althouse. He says something like "I'd like to thank Dave's shirt for getting me into this mess" and then "music has become like a push-up bra for us" and something about "plunging." Mick rules. Mick's suit is shiny and dark blue. When his writing partner starts thanking his kids, Mick whisks him aside and says "and all our kids – they're too many of them – we're not going to mention them all." [UPDATE: Here's the real quote, taken from the TiVo copy. He really says "I'd like to thank Dave Stewart for getting me into this mess." And "He was the one who introduced me to the whole idea of this movie soundtrack, which we've never done before. And I'd like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press for taking this rather obscure song and using it ... it's become like a push-up bra for us ... and plunging it ... plunging it back into the limelight."]

10. Prince!!!! Yay!!! Black suit, with pink shawl collar. He looks great! He introduces the clip for "Ray." Prince praises Jamie Foxx, and Jamie Foxx beams at Prince. The clip makes the film look like much more fun than I think of biopics as being. The next award is Best Director. We're up to Director?! Now, it's exciting. It goes to Clint Eastwood! We see a closeup of Scorsese clapping. Well, I wish Scorsese could get awards, but Eastwood rules. A standing O for Eastwood. Eastwood is modest. He gives thanks for the tsunami relief spot and then just thanks a lot of people and then says "bye." Out comes Diane Keaton in a fitted gray jacket, a white high-collared shirt, and a long tutu-y black skirt. She gives the Best Actor, musical/comedy award. "What happened to him?" is my reaction to Kevin Kline. Keaton: "Okay, okay, all right, all right, Jamie Foxx!!!!" Okay! Paul Giamatti is clapping. Closeup of Meryl Streep, emitting joy. Foxx leads the audience in that "Uh uh, oh oh" Ray Charles song. He wants to take what he's feeling and put it in the water so we can all drink it and we would all love each other. He thanks "a Caucasian man" for "taking a chance" on a black actor. Foxx is very charming! He plays the occasion to the hilt and makes it seem as if no one else all night has even been trying. Everyone is going wild for the bursting-out spirit of Foxx who is having his day. He ends by thanking his grandmother and choking back tears: "I used to think it was corny when people would say they feel someone was looking down on them. But I got a feeling."

11. What is this crap? Some special award for Robin Williams. I hate when these awards shows grind to a halt over a special award. He's kind and thoughtful with everyone. He loves his children. He goes to Iraq. He's a wonderful man. There's a big montage, and Robin mouths "whoa." He hugs Jim Carrey on the way to the stage. "My English is not so good," he begins. He rambles. He imitates Schwarzenegger. He offers his wife Marcia a "wife-time achievement award." He says his personal assistant brings him down to earth by calling him "Mork guy." He dedicates his award to Christopher Reeve and addresses him with the Hamlet send off may " flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." Commercial break!

12. Best Actor, drama, is next. It's Leonardo Dicaprio! Oh! Wow! He places his hand on his heart as he walks up. Closeup of Kate Winslet (his co-star from way back when). He thanks those who wrote the "intricate" script. After "growing up in this business," he says, the "pinnacle" has been to work with "the great Martin Scorsese." And he wants to use the occasion to urge people to keep contributing to tsunami disaster relief. He seems like a nice person, not reveling in the occasion. He took the complete opposite of the Jamie Foxx approach. He's gotten a lot of attention in his life and doesn't seem to need any more. Just see me as an actor, privileged to work with good people, blessed to exist in the light of the truly great Scorsese, and thanks.

13. Best TV Series, musical/comedy. "Desperate Housewives"! It must be good. It beat "Sex and the City." They called it a "satire" and couldn't sell it, so they called it a "soap opera" and it sold. The award-acceptor guy thanks his mom for supporting him and for giving him the idea for the show. "Is he calling his mother a slut?" Dustin Hoffman comes out to give the Actress, Drama award. High tension! Hillary Swank. I say, "She's gonna get it." Uma Thurman. I say, "I want her." And it's Hillary Swank. She's wearing a brown satin dress and a long brown ponytail. I'm glad for her. She didn't get the great roles after "Boys Don't Cry," and when she finally got another great role, she was great again. To Clint: "I don't want to ruin your go ahead and make my day image, but you have a great heart." She makes a joke of pretending to forget to thank her husband again, as she did when she won the Oscar.

14. Best Picture, Musical/Comedy. Goldie Hawn announces. It's "Sideways"! Next, it's Nicole Kidman, giving the award for Best Picture, Drama. It goes to "The Aviator." Reaction from me: "Oooooh!" Finally, Scorsese rises up out of his chair and ascends to the stage. Chris: "He's so short!" Scorsese stands on stage, listening to the producers' speeches. He's choking back tears. Aw! Nicole thanks us all for watching "and … good night!"

15. Chris summarizes: "It's interesting that Clint Eastwood got Director and "The Aviator" got picture. It's kind of a three way race for the Oscar now." The third movie is "Sideways," which won the Best Picture, Comedy award tonight.

UPDATE: Here's Virginia Heffernan's report on the pre-show doings, including this pearl:

[Joan Rivers] seemed angrier still when her interview with Mr. Nichols and Ms. Sawyer was interrupted by the actor Will Farrell. Mr. Farrell had some pretext for crashing the interview, and the couple seemed happy to see him. But Ms. Rivers appeared to take him for another reporter, or a hanger-on nobody. Sounding as if she believed her microphone was off, she snapped at him, "I have two big names here, so could you just wait?"

I'm enough of a Joan Rivers fan that I watched that wanting to believe she was doing a little humor routine, but it was awfully awkward, and Joan has a reputation for not recognizing people. Oh, but that's part of the fun. Joan's screw ups.

Here's the AP report on Mick Jagger at the Globes, reminding me of what had just barely dawned on me: Dave Stewart is the guy from the Eurhythmics. Someone asked Jagger how he maintained his "youthful appearance." Of course, he's a wizened old geezer, as noted above. He doesn't look young, he looks cool. Old and cool. Is that an idea that can register? Dammit!