Golden Globes Awards - Daily Mail Review by Jan Moir

OH, DO PUT A GONG IN IT!

It used to be called doing a Gwynnie but now, after those Golden Globes waterworks it’ll be a Winslet. JAN MOIR wishes they’d all dry up…

As a sobbing Kate Winslet dissolved into a puddle of damp fervour at the Golden Globes on Sunday night, she fired the starting pistol for the lunch of 2009 film awards season. ‘I want to thank my beautiful agents!’ she howled, and for once she wasn’t talking about her own breasts.

Already you knew this was going to be a speech to treasure and a night to remember. And as the red carpet clogs up with celebrities who have been on nothing but he Master Cleanse and paprika water diet for months, viewers must prepare for the usual emotional journey down the watery flume of fame.

Get your umbrellas unfurled, for there come the annual geyser, of gush as the big stars of stage, screen and television prepare to make acceptance speeches hosed down in treacle and self-congratulation.

We know the script. We have been here before. Whether it is the Guild Awards, Critics Awards, the Globes, the Baftas or the Oscars, the winning stars all profess themselves to be humbled. They will be so very happy. They will be beyond grateful as they thank the producer, the make-up girls, the costume guy, the Academy, Mickey Mouse, Grandpa Smurf and Uncle Cobbleigh and all for their incredible support.

They will talk about how hard they have had to fight, although they never mention any specific battles. Fight what? Or who? And where? It has been a mystery to me.

They will always claim to be totally speechless- but unfortunately that is a bigger lie than Mickey Rourke’s new face.

And, finally, they will take every frayed opportunity to remind you of their struggle and the rags to riches to clichés story of their lives. ‘I’m just a girl from a trailer par who dare to have a dream,’ said Hilary Swank when she won an Oscar in 2005.

One year later, on the same stage, Reese Witherspoon worked herself into a mom and pop lather. ‘It didn’t matter if I was making my bed or making a movie. They never hesitated to say how proud they were of me, and that is so important to a child,’ she burbled.

Oh Reese, I’m sobbing already. And it’s not just because of your vast collection of Anya Hindmarch handbags and your adorably pointy chin.

Tell me this. If all our major film stars are supposed to be so good at acting, why do they overact so much when they win one of these awards? At the Golden Globes, the drool spouted by double winner Winslet was a textbook example of old school Hollywood gush and gabble. Ouch, Kate, that was really painful to watch- even if it all started out so well.

When her names was read out loud for her first award as Best Supporting Actress for The Reader, Winslet raised a fist to her forehead. Interesting. This was the kind of gesture normally used by mothers when they realised they’ve left the baby by the check-out in Sainsbury’s.

Kate had to be helped onstage by a bouncer where, in traditional style, she paid tribute to just about everyone. She then got all blubbery over her children.

‘Thank you for coming on this adventure with Mummy,’ she sobbed in an epic hammy and cheese moment- although the mites could hardly have had a say in the matter, could they?

With her second award- as Best Actress in Revolutionary Road- was announced, things got even more out of control. This time, Winslet has to be helped onstage by two men; her legs had turned to jelly and her feet scraped along the ground as if she had just been dragged senseless from the maw of a hurricane.

‘I love you. I am so sorry,’ she began, in a promising unhinged way. She sounded like she may have inhaled some helium in the interval. Excellent.

Then, in a delicious gaffe, she somehow managed to forget Angelina Jolie’s name. Jolie, who looks like a malevolent alien at the best of time, almost pulsed with displeasure. Have you ever seen a hissing mambo dressed in silver Versace? Well, darlings, now you have.

In some respects, Kate Winslet’s effusive gratitude is understandable. The Reading-born actress has been nominated for major awards on many occasions, but never won a single rosette. Until Sunday night, she was Hollywood’s very own Waity Katie; the blushing bridesmaid who never got the gongs.

However, with two Golden Globes now in the bag, her inner diva has been unleashed on the unsuspecting world. Kate’s screaming genie is out of her lamp. Forever.

‘My gosh! I can’t believe this role came my way and feel into my hands like this,’ she howled in her final acceptance speech. Kate, let me give you a clue: your husband, Sam Mendes, was the director.

What is it with actors and actresses? The way most of them carry on, you would think they had rescue a score of children from a burning orphanage instead of being biddable, presentable and able to do what their directors tell them without making a fuss.

Somehow, they turn the ability to recite their lines without bumping into the furniture into an activity of monumental consequence to the universe. Is there no end to their clueless and self-centred behaviour?

Look. There are people in the real world who really are deserving of public recognition. For some unfortunates, it takes an enormous courage just to get out of bed every day.

There are people who manage to stay cheerful under the most distressing of circumstances. There are those who fear of their lives in the midst of global conflicts, and many who don’t know where their next glass of fresh water is coming from.

And then there are actors, who seem to turn into sobbing misfits in sequins at the first glimpse of a gold statuette. Last year, the French actress Marion Cotillard gave a kidney-puckering performance when she won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose. ‘Gulp. Gosh. You have truly rocked my life. Thank you so mush,’ she began.

‘Thank you life, thank you love. It is true that there are some angels in this city!!!’

Hale Berry gave an even greater masterclass in over-thetop acceptance speechless when she won for Monster’s Ball in 2002; the fact that the hand of history was on her shoulders seemed to derange her, just like it did with Tony Blair.

Berry was the ‘first woman of colour’ to win an Oscar and clearly saw herself as the Rosa Parks of the sequin circuit. By winning, she believed that the ‘door tonight has been opened’ and that she had been chosen to ‘be the vessel’ for all the racial harmony that was to come.Yes, point taken Halle; now get off the stage.

In 2001, when she won her first Oscar, Julia Roberts said that she was ‘feeling the sisterhood’ and thanked ‘everyone I have ever met in my life’. To director Steven Soderbergh, she gushed that ‘he made me want to be the best actor that I suppose I never knew I could be or aspire to’. Which just proves how useless actors are without scripts.

In fairness, sometimes the men are just as bad. When Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar last year for There Will Be Blood, he gushed that the idea for the film sprung ‘like a golden sapling out of the mad, beautiful head’ of the director.But, ladies and gentleman, the benchmark for Oscar inanity still goes to Gwyneth Paltrow.

In 1999, when she won for Shakespeare In Love, Gwynnie was sobbing before she was even out of her seat. She thank everyone, including boyfriend Ben Affleck (who subsequently left her for another woman) and even her ‘Grandpa Buster’ who had, apparently, ‘created a beautiful family’.

Dear God. The film awards ceremonies are the biggest monster’s ball of all time. And gulp, the season has only just begun. Hankies at the ready. Or should that be sick-bags?

~Jan Moir~