Surprises at the Golden Globes and new hope for ‘True Detective’
While once, only movie stars on the way down would appear on television, now TV creates stars who dominate the movies, while movie stars go to television to jump-start their careers.
By HANNAH BROWNUpdated: JANUARY 12, 2019 01:32‘BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY’ winners backstage at the 76th Annual Golden Globes at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019.(photo credit: ALLEN J. SCHABEN/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS)The Golden Globes give awards for both movies and television, and this year’s awards highlighted how essentially meaningless the divisions between the big and small screens have become.A Star is Born was predicted to win the Best Motion Picture Drama category, but it was the Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, that was the surprise winner. It stars Rami Malek, who became famous as the lead in the television series Mr. Robot, and Malek also won the Best Actor in a Drama Award for Bohemian.While once, only movie stars on the way down would appear on television, now TV creates stars who dominate the movies, while movie stars go to television to jump-start their careers. There was even a joke about the big screen/small screen rivalry in the opening by hosts Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh, who asked movie star Jim Carrey, nominated for Best Actor in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy for his role in Kidding, to move from the movie section of the audience to the TV section. He went, taking his dinner plate and pretending to be scandalized. What is even more ironic is that he lost the award to another movie star, Michael Douglas, who won for The Kominsky Methmod, which also won Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy.Other examples of this trend were the wins by Mahershala Ali, starring in the upcoming third season of True Detective and who had a key role on the television drama, House of Cards, who won Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for Green Book; and Olivia Colman, star of the television series Broadchurch and the upcoming season of The Crown, who won Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, for The Favourite.The Americans, which was stronger than ever in its final season, won its first Golden Globe for Best Television Series – Drama, but bizarrely, Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, the actors who made the series great, did not win. The awards went to Sandra Oh for Killing Eve and Richard Madden for Bodyguard.Virtually all the Golden Globe television winners are in shows broadcast here on either Hot, Yes or Netflix, but The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, for which actress Rachel Brosnahan won Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for the second year in a row, is still available only to those who have Amazon Prime, which must be paid for with a credit card from a US bank. Wherever I go, the first question people ask these days when they find out what I do is how they can see the popular Mrs. Maisel, about a New York Jewish housewife in the 1950s who becomes a stand-up comic. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Amazon will sell it to a network here at this point.As was mentioned above, Ali is the new lead in the third season of True Detective, which starts on Hot HBO and Yes Oh on January 14 at 4 a.m. and 10 p.m., as well as Hot VOD and NEXT TV, and STING TV on Yes. It will continue on Mondays at these times.The much-lauded first season starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as detectives swapping mega-existential aphorisms as they pursue a serial killer who leaves his victims in elaborate poses, à la the film Se7en. I saw enough serial-killer dramas in the nineties to last several lifetimes, and I was never a fan of it. The second season with Colin Farrell was even more dismal. The third season is being touted as a return to form by people who loved the first season, and the casting of Ali is promising.In addition to his role in the upcoming film Green Book, he also won an Oscar for Moonlight and was the standout actor in that film.Ali plays an Arkansas state cop investigating a child-murder case across three eras: when he is starting out, as a settled family man and as an elderly man looking back. He is both charismatic and a real actor, so maybe he can bring some genuine emotion to the series, which would make it compelling as well as interesting.
