No Globes? No Oscars? It wouldn't be the end of the world

What do you suppose would happen if the Hollywood Foreign Press Association decided not to hand out any Golden Globes next Sunday night? That's likely to happen anyway because members of the Screen Actors Guild say they will not cross the Writers Guild of America's picket lines. And who is going to watch an awards show without any star power? No one. That's why the HFPA should just postpone the show.

The Association is supposedly going to announce its plans sometime this morning and the latest word is that it intends on giving NBC a "clip" show filled with highlights of past Golden Globe presentations and scenes from current movies. That sounds like a surefire disaster in the making.

Perhaps there is some kind of contractual lock on this thing...I don't know...but, to me, the logical solution would just be to postpone the show until after the writers strike is settled. Same with the Oscars. The Motion Picture Academy could keep its voting deadlines in place, perhaps even tally the results, but hold off announcing them until after the strike. Does anyone think the public would really care that much if these awards were put off for a while, even if "a while" is defined as two or three months? I wouldn't. Besides, by that time, more of the nominated movies would be out on DVD and I could relate to the entire process a lot better.

So let the NFL playoffs dominate next weekend's water cooler discussions and save the movie awards for a time when those who receive them can celebrate it.

I have heard some people say, however, that the best thing that could happen is if the Golden Globes went on as scheduled, but wasn't televised. That would permit the actors to attend. The Globes party once had a reputation as an "anything-goes drink fest," but tamed down somewhat when it went to network television. The HFPA provides at least one magnum of champagne for each table at the Globes and all the alcoholic drinks a person requests. Take away the television cameras and this could turn into one drunken party, which, I hear, a lot of Hollywood folks would prefer.

Speaking of actors, I'm looking forward to Martin Scorsese's about-to-be-filmed "Shutter Island," in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshal in 1954 searching for a murderess who escaped from a mental hospital. What excites me about (besides the fact that I get excited about any Scorsese project) is that it comes from Dennis Lehane, the writer who gave us "Mystic River," and the rest of the cast that includes Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, and Patricia Clarkson. Perhaps my interest also stems from the fact that last week I re-watched one of my favorite films, "The Station Agent," which also featured Ms. Clarkson and a pre-Brokeback Mountain Ms. Williams as a librarian.