Live Coverage: The Golden Globes Blog

Forget the canceled catering, the neglected diamonds and the predicted economic blow of about $80 million. The true tragedy of this whittled-down Globes is this: That Tina Fey isn't all glammed up, hoisting a big-ass trophy and shaking her groove thang right now over at the Beverly Hills Hilton.

The fact that the Hollywood Foreign Press finally gave one of TV's most genius comedic minds her first major award (Best Actress in a TV Musical or Comedy) is certainly something to celebrate—especially since she created, writes and stars in the best comedy on television (30 Rock). So, let's send some congratulatory hugs and well wishes to Tina via this here Internet thingamajig by commenting below, shall we?

Also worth cyber-fiving: AMC's Mad Men, which scored a win for Best Drama and also Best Actor in a Drama for newcomer Jon Hamm (now you gotta watch it, right?); Extras, which is the only series I could forgive for taking the Best Comedy win away from the shoulda-been shoo-ins, Pushing Daisies and 30 Rock; and Jeremy Piven, who finally scored a Globes win after three winless nominations. (It wasn't the show's best season, but Ari Gold was long overdue.)

Oh, and we can't forget David Duchovny, whose triumph over Alec Baldwin, Ricky Gervais and Steve Carell was hands-down the biggest upset of the night, am I right? (Though, hmmm, just remembered I did call it in my predix, which I must have written while on the sauce.) Everyone knows Duchovny was totally out of his league when it comes to laugh-out-loud funny, but, well, he's just too damn sexy to mind.

And of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the HFPA also was something of a naughty little tease this year. Bryan Fuller's phenomenal, unique and inspiring Pushing Daisies seemed a shoo-in with its three big-category nominations (Best Comedy, Actor and Actress) and yet didn't receive a single win. Tsk-tsk-tsk. I expect that to be rectified next year, m'kay?

Also mind-blowingly tragic is Michael C. Hall's lack of a win for his near-perfect (and bone-chilling) turn as America's favorite serial killer this past season on Showtime's Dexter. His was the best dramatic performance of the year according to most critics out there, and yet he still hasn't won a Globe or Emmy. That ain't right.

Now, if anyone knows where Tina Fey is celebrating tonight, drop me a line so we can crash the party and hug her proper, okay? And while you're at it, please weigh in below with what you thought of the Globes TV's winners in the Poll and Comments section...

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.

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!

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?

—Filed by Joal Ryan

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?

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.

—Filed by Joal Ryan

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.

—Filed by Joal Ryan 

It's time! Despite the usual festivities being canceled, the 65th Annual Golden Globes will be given out this evening. And instead of twiddling my thumbs on some red carpet somewhere, I'm going to spend the time live on E!—along with Kristin Dos Santos and the Ry Guy himself—reporting on the announcements as they happen.

You can catch it here on E! in just a few, at 9 ET/6 PT. I'll also be hitting you back with reactions to the big news soon.

—Filed by Ben Lyons

Tonight will mark an evening of extraordinary firsts. After all, a brutal writers' strike has shrunk the Golden Globes glitz into a celebrity-free vacuum. That means for the first time A-listers will not have to face a gauntlet of size 2 TV fashionistas, all chattering, "What are you wearing?" while shivering like Chihuahuas in the January chill.

And that's not the only first we can expect during this rather unique Golden Globes event.

For the very first time in Golden Globes history...

...starlets will have to call each other if they feel like talking about Spanx.

...the betting pool on which celebrity will get wasted and go off about Darfur in front of millions of TV viewers? On hold.

...caterers won't get to make a fountain out of something. Like chocolate or cheese. Those people really love food fountains.

...the casts of hot-right-now TV shows cannot mingle on the same carpet as Brad Pitt and pretend they're all equally important.

...B-listers must feel a bit guilty—but not really guilty—about taking those free diamond earrings at the swag suite.

...the words elegant, classic and stunning will have nothing to do and nowhere to go.

...we won't get to hear about all the food the young A-list babes "ate" before arriving.

...the Jack Nicholson Award Presentation Strokewatch—also on hold.

...we don't get to sit around and watch a bunch of second-generation actors like Mariska Hargitay and Gwyneth Paltrow thank their parents for everything they ever had.

And for the first time, we all get to sit at home with a tub of popcorn and watch...a news conference.

The writers' strike and the canceled Golden Globes ceremony didn’t stop NBC Universal from rolling out the red carpet last night for it's annual pre-Globes party.

Okay, there was no real red carpet. It was actually a private affair at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago restaurant in Beverly Hills, which meant no big arrival line full of paparazzi, television crews and reporters.

But I still got some details for you. The official start time was 7 p.m., and roughly 600 people eventually filled the legendary eatery.

The Great Debaters director and star Denzel Washington arrived with his wife, Pauletta, around 8:15 p.m. He was spotted sipping a Diet Coke in one corner of the room and chatting with his American Gangster director, Ridley Scott.

Ron Howard hung out with his producing partner Brian Grazer. Atonement stars James McAvoy and Saoirse Ronan were also there, as was Debra Messing. Even Ms. Courtney Love made an appearance.

Washington took off after about 45 minutes.

There were plenty of servers walking through the party with plates full of appetizers like bite-size pieces of pizza, crab cakes and spanakopita.

Puck made the rounds and skedaddled by 10 p.m.

—Filed by Marc Malkin, with additional reporting by Laura Lane

UPDATED!  As the 65th Annual Golden Globes shape-shifts yet again, our own Ryan Seacrest and E! News will be covering the awards announcements live. And E! Online will also be streaming the press conference in its entirety, live! So check back here and on E!, Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association will be presenting the awards in an hourlong press conference, open to the entire press (not just NBC, as was previously announced), and we'll help you catch every minute of it.

Here's a rundown of E! and E! Online's other golden goodies:

On E!

• Live Coverage from E! News:  Watch as the winners are announced live on E!. Seacrest will bring you the news and live reaction from A-list winners, along with E!'s TV Diva Kristin Dos Santos and movie dude Ben Lyons. E! News Special: Golden Globes 2008 begins at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.

On E! Online

• Live Streaming:  Watch the HFPA's entire press conference, live, as it announces which stars, movies and shows won coveted Globes.
• Liveblogging:  We'll be posting live from the press conference, with backstage tidbits, gossip and news—as it happens.
• Fast Reaction:  Hear all the scoop from our movie and TV experts.
• Pics and Video:  Get a huge gallery of the night's big winners and video clips of news and reactions.
• Breaking Bash Haps:  We'll be hitting postwin parties and fests, with pics and blog posts on how the stars took the news.

All week, our E! Online columnists have been hurling their predictions for the Golden Globes. Up next:

Caroline Kepnes of Reel Girl says…

My Fave Pick:  Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone

Hands down the most exciting, frightening performance of the year is Ryan's turn as cocaine-loving, tight-pants-wearing, smack-talking Boston mother Helene McCready. You watch Ben Affleck's directorial debut and feel terrified at the thought of being in the same room with Helene. She's an animal, feral and nasty. Alas, Ryan is so tender with her character and the tough accent that Helene is always human, never a cliché. And that's a wicked freakin' awesome feat, so let's give her that Globe for Best Supporting Actress, Drama.

My picks for the rest of the biggies:

• Best Motion Picture, Drama: No Country for Old Men
• Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy: Hairspray
• Best Series, Drama: Big Love
• Best Series, Comedy or Musical: 30 Rock

All week, our E! Online columnists have been hurling their predictions for the Golden Globes. Up next:

Ted Casablanca of the Awful Truth says...

Best Director:  Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men

The director's race is laughable, because Paul Thomas Anderson was excluded for his stupendous job in There Will Be Blood. But like most masterpieces, trophies and accolades are unnecessary trifles for a great work that will remain memorable on its own merits.

Now, moviegoers' hearts were moved by James McAvoy and Keira Knightley's romance in Atonement, not necessarily Joe Wright's direction. Ditto with Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly—it's all about the gut-wrenching performances in that one. And although Tim Burton may be back in tip-top macabre form with Sweeney Todd, I found it mediocre, flat, uninspiring and just plain friggin' unmoving, like, everybody in it could just die, already, which they do anyway. Depp's anguish, though, is exquisite, per usual. Is it living in France that always makes that work so well for him?

The point is, however, Best Director will, I'm venturing, be shared between the brothers Coen, who pushed me to the edge of my seat for most of No Country for Old Men. Joel and Ethan have been spitting out everything from quirky comedies to somber melodramas for decades, and any win for them is a win for entertainment.

Is that too nice of me to say? Don't get used to it.