Just what Meryl Streep needs. Another award.
When the 74th Golden Globe Awards beam into our lives at 8 p.m. Sunday, Streep will be picking up the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement statue.
She can wedge it onto a crowded mantel next to her eight other Golden Globes and three Oscars. She's also the most recognized performer in the history of the Globes with a whopping 29 nominations. And she could take home two Sunday night. She is also up for best actress for her off-key prowess in "Florence Foster Jenkins."
We love to hand out awards. Even non-Meryl types occasionally win. But viewers are not as breathlessly tuned in as they once were. Ratings were down across the board for the major awards shows in 2016. The Oscars, Emmys and Grammys all suffered declines, along with the Globes.
Most awards shows are too formulaic and burdened by inherent dull stretches. Plus, there are just too darn many of them.
Thankfully, the Golden Globes has two things going for it.
No. 1: It's a party. The booze flows at the crowded round tables, which helps create a more relaxed atmosphere. "I like fun," Jack Nicholson famously remarked in 1999, when explaining his affection for the annual Globes gathering.
"What I like about this particular award is that it doesn't come from our peer groups," said Nicholson. "The Hollywood Foreign Press is a pretty loose group of guys and gals."
No. 2: The Globes let winners talk. With so many awards shows, especially the Oscars, just as a winner is catching her or his breath, the play-them-off-stage music kicks in and the emotion is drained from the moment.
When Meryl accepts Sunday night, she can blather on as long as she likes. Jodie Foster set the standard in 2013 with a wildly windy oratory that veered onto several off-ramps. During her coming-out, not-really-coming-out speech, Foster wondered why every celebrity "is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show. You know, you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo."
If nothing else, it makes for good television. Or bad television. And sometimes, best of all, really bad-good television.
As a kind of Oscars Light, the Globes have also enjoyed some marvelously unscripted moments. In 1998, Christine Lahti was in the ladies' room when her best actress award for "Chicago Hope" was announced. A few people, including Robin Williams, vamped for several minutes as the audience waited, and waited, until Lahti finally appeared. (At least she didn't have toilet paper stuck to her shoe.)
Probably the best Globes moment ever occurred the same year as Lahti-in-the-potty, when Ving Rhames was voted best actor for portraying notorious fight promoter Don King in "Don King: Only in America." An emotional Rhames said, "Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art." He then insisted on presenting his award to fellow nominee Jack Lemmon. A stunned Lemmon eventually made it to the stage amid a thunderous ovation and segued into a priceless speech.
Jimmy Fallon, of NBC's "Tonight Show," takes over the hosting duties Sunday, following the recent run of Ricky Gervais and the tag-team of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
Gervais specialized in insulting the stars. Fey and Poehler were delightfully sharp and funny, and less vicious. (The Oscars show needs to hire them.)
The musically inclined Fallon has promised to kick off the night with a tuneful opening number. A Globes first.
Who's on the list
_ The contenders this year include reliable veterans such as Denzel Washington ("Fences"), Hugh Grant ("Florence Foster Jenkins"), and Julia Louis-Dreyfus ("Veep"), but there's also a diverse range of newcomers.
_ Mahershala Ali somehow made a drug dealer lovable in Barry Jenkins' "Moonlight." The heartfelt, coming-of-age film is up for four other awards, including best director and best screenplay.
_ "La La Land," Damien Chazelle's Hollywood-embracing musical, leads all films with seven nominations, including best actress (Emma Stone) and best actor (Ryan Gosling). Stone's talents would be impressive in any movie era, and she and Gosling deserve extra points for dancing and singing. Stone was nominated previously for "Birdman" and "Easy A," but has yet to win. Gosling has also yet to take home a Globe, though this is his fifth nomination, including double-nods in 2012 for "Crazy, Stupid, Love" and "The Ides of March."
_ On the TV side, "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story" leads with five nominations, including nods for its excellent cast: Courtney B. Vance, Sarah Paulson, Sterling K. Brown and John Travolta.
_ Globe voters, the 90 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, like new. As in very new. With the exception of "Game of Thrones," all of the contenders for best TV drama are rookie shows: "The Crown," "Stranger Things," "This Is Us" and "Westworld."
_ NBC's terrific, era-shifting "This Is Us" is the rare broadcast network show getting some love in the drama category, with co-stars Mandy Moore and Chrissy Metz both vying for a supporting actress prize.
_ "Mozart in the Jungle" is the defending champ in the best TV comedy series category, facing off against "Atlanta," "Silicon Valley," "Transparent," "Veep" and "black-ish."
_ Now in their third season, the stars of "black-ish" are also getting some Globes attention, with first-time nominations for Anthony Anderson (best actor, TV comedy) and Tracee Ellis Ross (best actress, TV comedy).
_ Mel Gibson has returned from the wilderness with "Hacksaw Ridge." He has been absent from the awards circuit for years following his offensive rants and domestic issues. His World War II drama is up for best picture, director (Gibson) and actor (Andrew Garfield). If nothing else, we assume Gibson will be the focus of a Fallon punch line.
_ You would be hard-pressed to find a more touching performance than Casey Affleck as the grieving Lee Chandler in "Manchester by the Sea." But equally stirring is the amazing verbal virtuosity Denzel Washington delivered as the bitter-beyond-belief husband and father in "Fences." They are in the running for best actor in a motion picture drama, along with Garfield, Joel Edgerton ("Loving") and Viggo Mortensen ("Captain Fantastic").
_ Speaking of "Fences," I assume Viola Davis is a lock for best supporting actress. She melts into a face flowing with tears and gunk as she finally speaks out against her husband in one of the film's most wrenching moments.
_ If the gowns, glitz and glamour (and snark-among-friends) of the red carpet are more your thing, there will be loads of coverage. The E channel on cable kicks things off at 4 p.m. with a "countdown" to the red carpet. (No arrivals yet, just a countdown). Actual coverage begins at 6 on E, along with live streaming on Twitter from 6 until 8. NBC opens its red carpet lens at 7.
