The Golden Globes, Heath Ledger, Mickey Rourke and Kate Winslet

Over the weekend I finally sat down and watched “The Dark Knight“. Colin (admin) had previously posted on this blog on 18th July (Click here to read)  how great Heath Ledger had been in the role of the Joker and having now watched the movie I can say that he was absolutely spot on! What a performance… and quite by chance, as I hadn’t realised the Golden Globes were on last night until my daughters turned on the TV, I was delighted to see that he posthumously got the recognition he deserved as best supporting actor.

Also amongst the honors were Kate Winslett who won best actress for “Revolutionary Road” and best supporting actress in “The Reader“. Mickey Rourke earned best actor for his role in “The Wrestler” while Bruce Springstein won best original song for his track in the same move.  

Most interesting to see was the fact that low budget movies seemed to triumph over their major studio rivals as romance “Slumdog Millionaire” won a leading four honors including “Best Drama”. “Slumdog” is the story of a young Indian man looking for love and money while competing on a television game show and it earned awards for director Danny Boyle, screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and composer A.R. Rahman for best musical score.

Also collecting four honors was “John Adams” which is HBO’s mini series about the second U.S. president and it was also good to see “30 Rock” collecting three honors for the talented Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin as the best TV comedy and best comedy actress and actor.

After last year’s writers strike it was good to see the Golden Globes back and although they are a bit self congratulatory and over the top at times, it’s nice to have a little bit of light relief for an evening. The part I enjoyed most was Steven Spielberg’s speech. I though his comments were very poigniant and his comments about the impluse to make movies for a broader audience during these tough economic times were interesting. He went on to say that “we can’t ever forget that we are also an audience of individuals, and without the kinds of movies nominated tonight, we would be in danger of losing the very thing that none of us can live without.”

That hit a mark for me. For the last decade we at Florida Leisure Vacation Homes have been trying to offer unique vacation experiences to our guests and while the temptation is to follow the crowd, Spielberg reminded us that it’s a dangerous path to chose. I’m glad he said what he said as it reminds us to stay focussed on what we are good at and to deliver special vacations for those staying in our vacation homes. 

The whole night also reminded me how great the movie business really is and that I really should spend more time watching some of the great entertainment they provide. And…maybe you should do that as well particularly next time you’re staying in one of our vacation homes as most of them are now equipped with big screen TV’s to give you the movie experience!

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