January 22nd, 2002

"Black Hawk" First, Golden Globes!

A rather strong weekend at the box office for the long weekend, starting with Black Hawk Down. Its first weekend in wide release, audiences sure wanted to see this one. With its strong critical raves, this one should be a rather big success for Sony. I saw it, and I thought it was one of the best in 2001. In second, was the new family comedy from Disney, Snow Dogs. The performance of this one is rather impressive, taking in 23.7 million. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring dropped to third with 15.2 million. In fourth was A Beautiful Mind with 14 million, while rounding out the top five was Orange County which pulled in another 10.5 million.

Ocean's Eleven, added another 6.7 to its tally. My favorite film of last year (GO SEE IT DAMMIT!), The Royal Tenenbaums is still performing well, making 5.3. Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius took in 4.3 million, Gosford Park took in 4.1 million and rounding this long weekend out was Kate & Leopold, also with 4.1.

And of course, this past weekend we had the annual Golden Globe Awards. If you go back in time many years ago, these awards were like nothing (awards like "Best Newcomer," anyone?). Now, everyone thinks they're a precursor to the Oscar® ceremony in March despite the fact the Foreign Press is a rather small organization of journalists and has no connection to that wonderful AMPAS. Nearly every news media outlet covers it, a lot of people watch it and the big stars come in with big fashion. But during these past years, the show has gained credibility - even if people make jokes implying that the award means nothing.

Personally, I've always been a fan of the award show. I'm not sick, but it can be rather entertaining. It's a lot shorter than the Oscar®s themselves... no montages, a tribute ceremony to a certain someone and all awards for television and movies. I guess I like the Globes for that reason... it honors both catagories and all the big ones from both outlets come.

So anyone surprises at this year's show? Not really. I was really glad that Gene Hackman won for The Royal Tenenbaums (too bad he wasn't there), and everyone who won deserved to win. The only real surprise I thought was the wonderful and respect Robert Altman, who won for Gosford Park. So once again, another awards season starts where good movies are considered great ones.

-Zach B.