Categories: golden globes 2008, backstage report

7:30 p.m.: Back in the ballroom, the Hollywood Foreign Press is still milling, the champagne is still pouring and the stars still aren't shining.

7:31 p.m.: I pick up a list of the winners by the exit door. Maybe I'll relive the excitement of the announcements and read the names out loud on the drive home.

7:32 p.m.: Or maybe I'll request that next time, under no circumstances, am I to be assigned to cover the 1980 Emmys.

* Posted by Joal Ryan on Sun, Jan 13, 2008, 7:59 PM

Categories: golden globes 2008, backstage report

6:34 p.m.: I've got an idea. I'm going to find the biggest star of the night. The one, the only...Jorge Camara!

6:35 p.m.: I make my way to the stage, where the Justice League of infotainment-show hosts are doing what they can to give the photographers some work.

6:36 p.m.: There are a handful of reporters already in line to talk with Camara.

6:37 p.m.: I get in line to talk with Camara.

6:38 p.m.: Whistling.

6:39 p.m.: Just so you know, I don't like to think of tonight as uneventful. I like to think of it as sad.

6:40 p.m.: I stand corrected again. What happened here tonight were not announcements. What happened here tonight, I overhear Camara telling another reporter, was "an aberration."

6:41 p.m.: Aberrations aren't as glamorous as you've read about.

6:42 p.m.: My turn. Camara, as gracious as can be, demurs when I ask if NBC ruined his party by initially insisting to exclusively televise tonight's event, thus drawing the picket threat from the WGA and thus keeping away the actors. "I understand NBC's position," Camara says. "We were all part of a very difficult situation."

6:43 p.m.: Camara, still as gracious as can be, demurs when I ask how the Hollywood Foreign Press took to NBC's nixed plan to turn tonight into an hourlong Access Hollywood-like show, complete with Access Hollywood anchors Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell. "What we wanted," he says, "was [to present] the press conference in the most discreet way possible."

6:46 p.m.: And what the press was waiting for has been uncorked: complimentary champagne.

6:47 p.m.: I don't drink, but I understand adult beverages are commonly guzzled on happy occasions. And on less happy occasions, when there are bad memories in need of blotting out.

6:48 p.m.: Cheers!

* Posted by Joal Ryan on Sun, Jan 13, 2008, 7:42 PM

Categories: golden globes 2008, backstage report

6:22 p.m.: I bet you're wondering what the buzz is like in the room. My answer is, what buzz? The free beer that's usually on hand for the Globes press corps is apparently on strike with the writers.

6:23 p.m.: The "reporters" are very happy Sweeney Todd just won Best Comedy/Musical.

6:27 p.m.: "And now for the final award of the evening..." This is how long it really takes to award the Golden Globes? Twenty-seven minutes? Is that all there is? I thought these were supposed to be announcements—plural?

6:31 p.m.: Jorge Camara's return to the stage got a bigger hand than word that Atonement won Best Drama. I guess showing up is what counts sometimes.

6:32 p.m.: The announcements are over.

6:33 p.m.: Um, now what do we do?

* Posted by Joal Ryan on Sun, Jan 13, 2008, 7:26 PM

Categories: golden globes 2008, backstage report

5:58 p.m.: Taking seats on the stage now, the Justice League of infotainment-show hosts. Its members, from left to right: The Insider's Lara Spencer (next to Jorge Camara), Showbiz Tonight's Brooke Anderson, Inside Edition's Jim Moret, E! News' own Giuliana Rancic, Extra's Dayna Devon and Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart.

5:59 p.m.: The PA guy announces Jorge Camara's name to a round of applause.

6 p.m.: Apparently, Camara's name isn't met with a big enough round of applause. The assembled "reporters" are asked to clap again. (Sorry for the quotes, but if you're clapping, you're not a reporter, you're a fan. Or a loyal member of the Hollywood Foreign Press.)

6:01 p.m.: Camara offers his opening remarks: "Good evening and welcome." Told you.

6:01 p.m.: No lie. I'm the only person who laughs out loud when Cate Blanchett's nomination for I'm Not There is read.

6:02 p.m.: Blanchett wins. Spencer says I'm Not There again. And finally, some other people sound like they just got the best joke of the night.

6:02 p.m.: Wow. Two awards in two minutes.

6:03 p.m.: Spencer might want to start extending her syllables or taking extra breaths. If she's not careful, the announcements are going to be over before we know it.

6:04 p.m.: On second thought...

6:05 p.m.: Entourage's Jeremy Piven wins an award and doesn't show up with his mother, an acceptance speech or snappy backstage repartee—boy, the strike really has shut down this town.

6:11 p.m.: The Globes' integrity is intact. The names of the winners are only in the envelopes and not on the teleprompter. Moret has to crack open the gold seal to see that Queen Latifah just won for the HBO movie Life Support.

6:19 p.m.: I give up. I can't possibly type or process as fast as the awards are being awarded. Who knew little old announcements could be so much more taxing than an actual event?

* Posted by Joal Ryan on Sun, Jan 13, 2008, 7:21 PM

Categories: golden globes 2008, backstage report

5:36 p.m.: An announcement may not be glamorous, but this one sure is noisy. The ballroom is jam-packed with reporters jabbering to their cameras and to their editors about (my guess) how there aren't any stars here.

5:37 p.m.: An announcement at the announcement! A voice over the PA system tells us the action (and I paraphrase) will begin in about 20 minutes.

5:38 p.m.: Oh, and apparently I stand corrected. This is not an announcement. It's the announcements!

5:39 p.m.: Well, now I feel underdressed...

5:45 p.m.: The dress code for tonight, by the way, is business attire. Which means, I think, my pants are tax deductible.

5:47 p.m.: It just occurred to me: I might be typing right now at a table where Warren Beatty once buttered a dinner roll.

5:48 p.m.: Just so you know I'm doing my job, I just turned around in my seat to see if anyone was interviewing anybody famous. As far as I can tell, no one is interviewing nobody.

5:49 p.m.: So, back to that whole dinner roll thing...I wonder, should Warren Beatty return to the Globes, if it'll occur to him that he's buttering a dinner roll where I once typed.

5:50 p.m.: Who am I kidding? He'll probably be talking to a star.

5:51 p.m.: Unlike I am.

* Posted by Joal Ryan on Sun, Jan 13, 2008, 6:18 PM

Categories: golden globes 2008, backstage report

4:30 p.m.: The sky is blue. The temps are in the 70s. Why, it's a lovely day for an awards-show show...sorry, an announcement.

4:31 p.m.: I must say, as a rule, it's quite exciting to cover an announcement. Certainly much better than covering, say, a proclamation.

4:32 p.m.: You know this Globes isn't Pia Zadora's Globes, where sitting right there in the Beverly Hilton's International Ballroom—the very site where Tom Hanks rubs elbows with Ron Howard, where Jack Nicholson rubs elbows with his beverage server—is a journo with Al Yankovic hair hunched over a laptop.

4:34 p.m.: Not to give anything away, or anything, but according to the telepromter, tonight's announcement will begin with a hearty "Good evening, and welcome..." from Hollywood Foreign Press president Jorge Camara.

4:35 p.m.: Not that this show, sorry, announcement was slow to come together or anything, but the crew guys are still swinging hammers and moving ladders.

4:37 p.m.: Out to Wilshire Boulevard to search for picketers...

4:38 p.m.: ...And all is clear.

4:39 p.m.: As I exit the hotel lobby, en route to Santa Monica Boulevard (to search for picketers, natch), it occurs to me that I don't know if I've ever seen the Beverly Hilton entrance not carpeted in red.

4:40 p.m.: Hey, picketers!

4:41 p.m.: At Santa Monica Boulevard and Merv Griffin Way (the late Mr. Griffin used to own the adjacent hotel), there are (maybe) a dozen people toting signs urging an end to the writers' strike. There are (maybe) two dozen reporters standing in line to talk to the people with the signs.

4:42 p.m.: I'm standing in line to talk to a person with a sign.

4:43 p.m.: By the way, the Writers Guild said it wouldn't strike the Globes announcement, and it's not. The people with the signs represent Hollywood's "below the line" workers—the carpenters, gaffers, makeup artists, etc., who all have lost work since the strike began in November.

4:43 p.m.: My turn. I get to talk to Jeandrea Larson. She's 24 and dressed like Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman or Britney Spears from early 2007. (For the record, Larson says her blond wig, black sunglasses, miniskirt and go-go boots are lifted from Pretty Woman.)

4:44 p.m.: Larson's not a writer, and neither is her mother, whom she's out here supporting. Her mom's a studio first-aid nurse who's about to lose her (and Larson's) health insurance. Larson hopes her sign and her getup will bring attention to their plight. So far, so good. "It's working," she says, as she wraps yet another interview.

4:45 p.m.: Enough with labor struggles, let's go find some stars!

4:47 p.m.: On the way back to the hotel, I overhear a local CBS radio reporter asking a local Fox TV reporter if she has seen any stars. She says no.

4:48 p.m.: Come to think of it, Jeandrea Larson may be the most glamorous person I talk to all night.

* Posted by Joal Ryan on Sun, Jan 13, 2008, 6:12 PM