10. In the opening monologue with co-host Tina Fey, Amy Poehler quipped of the Cecil B. Demille award, “I assume the award is for the tiniest man with the biggest glasses,” — a veiled barb directed at the evening’s honoree, Woody Allen, who was presented with the Demille award only a few years after fellow bespectacled director, Martin Scorsese.
9. As seen in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Jonah Hill’s prosthetic penis was given prime attention when Poehler ribbed: “If I wanted to see Jonah Hill masturbate at a pool party, I’d go to one of Jonah Hill’s pool parties.” The question we want to know of his concupiscent costume is: Is it circumcised?
8. Accepting a win for best song from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” U2 front man Bono celebrated the triumphant human spirit when he honored former South African president Nelson Mandela: “He was a man who refused to hate. Not because he didn’t have rage or anger… he thought love would do a better job.”
7. Andy Samberg, who did well impersonating Mark Zuckerberg on Saturday Night Live during the 2011 awards season when the “The Social Network” was the hot ticket in town, again proved his mettle with a double win for “Brooklyn Nine- Nine,” the rookie detective show on Fox that will have a chance at a bigger audience when it airs after the Superbowl in a few weeks. Though Leibovitz faults the show for portraying the Jewish Samberg as “an Italian stallion in a nebbish’s body,” his role as detective Jake Peralta still won him the top acting award for a TV musical or comedy, and the show took home the award for best TV comedy series.
6. Leonardo DiCaprio won best actor in a musical or comedy for his role as the Jewish Jordan Belfort in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” a character Jewish Journal editor Rob Eshman described as someone who “lies, steals and snorts avalanches of coke off naked tushees.” In his memoir, Belfort admits his shame at being perceived a “young Jewish circus attraction” and indeed, even when lapsed morals help catapult him into first class, his life remains a sinful sideshow.
5. Continuing on the theme of Jews behaving badly, David O’ Russell’s “American Hustle” walked away with acting awards for its two female leads, Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence, the objects of con man Irving Rosenfeld’s (Christian Bale) unprincipled affection.
4. “In the name of gender equality,” Tina Fey announced “Mr. Golden Globe,” also known as Randy, her “adult son from a previous relationship.” Joking that the father was somewhere in the room, a dressed-in-boy-drag Poehler walked over to Harvey Weinstein: “Is it him?”
3. Loyalty and luck proved a prominent theme. Several Globe winners praised longtime members of their “team” – the agents, managers, publicists and lawyers who handle every detail of their lives – including Amy Adams, who said her manager took her on 15 years ago — to the day — because “she had a feeling.”
2. “12 Years a Slave” won best motion picture drama, proving that the biblical narrative of Exodus — from slavery to freedom, degradation to dignity – is the unbeatable, incomparable tale of the arc of human possibility.
1. Diane Keaton accepted the Cecil B. Demille award on behalf of her longtime friend and director, Woody Allen (who notoriously hates awards shows — and Los Angeles) with an eloquent, if ironic, speech about his sense of women: “Woody Allen is an anomaly,” Keaton said, adding that what sets Allen's writing apart are “the voices of four decades of unforgettable female characters.” Keaton also noted that “179 of the world’s most captivating actresses” have appeared in Woody Allen films, because “they wanted to.” “Because Woody’s women can’t be compartmentalized,” Keaton said. “They struggle, they love, they fall apart, they dominate, they’re funny, they’re flawed. “They are,” she said, “the hallmark of Woody’s work.”
And in true Woody Allen fashion, the filmmaker downplayed his own artistic significance in a brief acceptance speech Keaton read on his behalf:
“One of the nice things about writing or any art is that if the thing is real, it lives. All the success over it, or the rejection? None of that really matters. Immortality via art is not big deal… Rather than live on in the hearts and minds of my fellow man, I’d rather live on in my apartment.”
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