2013 Golden Globes, Bill Murray

If you are too busy watching the Australian cycling thing and can't understand what the hell is going on with Twitter (honestly, we don't know who you follow, but no one on our feed actually bothers naming the winners of these things), here are the latest updates for the 2013 Golden Globe Awards.

Best Motion Picture, Drama
WINNER: Argo
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
WINNER: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Best Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama
WINNER: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Motion Picture, Drama
WINNER:

Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
WINNER: Les Mis

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture- Comedy or Musical
WINNER: Hugh Jackman, Les Mis

Best TV Series, Comedy or Musical
WINNER: GIRLS

Best Director
WINNER: Ben Affleck, Argo

Cecil B. DeMille's Lifetime Achievement Award/Freestyle Portion of Evening
WINNER: Jodie Foster

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Comedy or Musical
WINNER: Lena Dunham, Girls

Best Animated Feature Film
WINNER: Brave

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama
WINNER: Claire Danes, Homeland

Best Foreign Film
WINNER: Amour

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Comedy or Musical
WINNER: Don Cheadle, House of Lies

Best Screenplay
WINNER: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
WINNER: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Best Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television
WINNER: Ed Harris, Game Change

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television
WINNER: Kevin Costner, Hatfields & McCoys
(RUNNER-UP: Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television
WINNER: Julianne Moore - Game Change

Best Television Series - Drama
WINNER: Homeland

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
WINNER: Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained

Best Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Mini-Series
WINNER: Maggie Smith - Downton Abbey

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama
WINNER: Damien Lewis - Homeland

Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
WINNER: Game Change

Best Original Song
WINNER: "Skyfall," Adele

Best Original Score - Motion Picture
WINNER: Life of Pi

Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
WINNER: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Lining Playbook (Also, best speech? Y/N?)

Alice in Wonderland

What's the story: Because what Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland really needed was another dimension, here comes Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland ... in 3-D! The macabre director takes the decades-old story of Alice's adventures and turns them into a theme park of oversaturated visuals and unnecessary effects. The result winds up being far less trippy and moody than we had anticipated. It would be nice to say that the talented cast saves this Alice from tumbling down the rabbit hole, but alas, they don't. As the orange-wigged Mad Hatter, Johnny Depp mails his performance in with double postage, and Mia Wasikowska's Alice is utterly boring. Only Anne Hathaway—slinking in and out of every scene like a modern day Norma Desmond as the White Queen—seems be having any fun at all. Alice in Wonderland has gotten some good notices, but we found the film odorous to the nth degree. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Who should see it: Carrot Top.

Brooklyn's Finest

What's the story: Think of Antoine Fuqua's Brooklyn's Finest as a greatest hits package. That's because if you watch the awesome trailer ("Run This Town," for the win!), you'll no doubt think of Training Day, New Jack City, Internal Affairs and Traffic, among many other cops and crooks movies. Yet since those titles are all pretty badass, the overabundance of clichés seems perfectly okay. Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke and Don Cheadle star as the cops, and Wesley Snipes (no, not that "Wesley Snipes") plays a drug kingpin not all that dissimilar to Nino Brown from the aforementioned New Jack City. The reviews have been solid and unspectacular—our Sara Vilkomerson found Brooklyn's Finest perfectly average—but if you're in the mood for some law and order, you could do a whole lot worse. Like Cop Out, for instance.

Who should see it: Ray Kelly.

2.5 Eyeballs out of 4

The opening scene of Brooklyn’s Finest features a conversation between a maybe crooked cop and a definitely crooked career criminal about the concept of right and wrong. Or rather, in their words, the degrees to which one can be both right-er and wrong-er. That scene closes with a literal bang (along with the first-but-not-close-to-last shocking moment of violence), and for the next two plus hours, we’re immersed in a rather grim world where indeed that line between good guy and bad is not just hard to see, but pretty much nonexistent.

In short order, we meet three cops. All work in the same dangerous Brooklyn precinct, and all are caught up in some sort of simmering state of crisis. Ethan Hawke is family man Sal, with more kids than he knows what to do with and a pregnant-with-twins wife (hi, Lili Taylor!). He wants to move out of his tiny house (an inordinate amount of time is spent talking about the effects of wood mold) but doesn’t have enough money. Then there’s Tango, played by Don Cheadle, who has been undercover for so long he is beginning to forget who he is and which side he is on. Richard Gere plays Eddie, a sad sack who is one week away from retirement, and wakes up every morning to take a shot of alcohol and put an empty revolver in his mouth to practice pulling the trigger. Good times! In case you hadn’t already guessed, this movie makes pretty clear from the start that there won’t be a lot of warm-and-fuzzy feelings. Instead, you will be nervously fidgeting and wondering just how hellaciously this sucker is going to end.

Antoine Fuqua is a master of this kind of anxiety—much like his acclaimed Training Day, there are moments so nerve-racking one is actually afraid to look directly at the screen (or, as one woman at the screening I attended said after the film ended, “I think I just had five heart attacks”). However, there are some distracting moments of heavy-handedness (do we ever really need to see Mr. Hawke go all Lady Macbeth and try to scrub his hands free of blood?). Mr. Hawke, so baby-faced circa Dead Poets Society, has been completely transformed by age and is completely believable as the tormented Sal. Don Cheadle and Wesley Snipes both turn in fine, nuanced performances, and look for Ellen Barkin to try and pretty much succeed in stealing all the scenes she shows up in. But Mr. Gere is miscast as Eddie, too naturally regal in bearing to be the screw-up he’s supposed to be, and for a broken man, he still moves with the same confidence as his younger self did in An Officer and a Gentleman. But along with these occasional moments of clunkiness are excellently executed scenes of real tension. And for those of us who might be deluded into thinking the entire borough looks like Park Slope, it’s a reminder about some of the less savory things going on in Brooklyn besides the overpopulation of Bugaboos.

 svilkomerson@observer.com

Tuesday: The College Humor Show
This new MTV series, based on the popular website, premiered on Sunday night at 9:30, but since it was up against Desperate Housewives, Big Love and the Grammy Awards, chances are you missed it.

Monday: Be Kind Rewind
If you can't wait until Sunday to see the Michel Gondry–directed episode of Flight of the Conchords, check out his most recent, enjoyably lo-fi film. Two video store clerks (the excellent Mos Def and grating Jack Black) remake movies like Ghostbusters and Rush Hour 2 using household products, cardboard and some forced perception. Be Kind Rewind's greatest strength is its brevity. This thing is light as meringue; you can burn through it in 45 minutes if you so desire. [More Max, 9 p.m.]

Tuesday: The College Humor Show
This new MTV series, based on the popular Web site, premiered on Sunday night at 9:30, but since it was up against Desperate Housewives, Big Love and the Grammy Awards, chances are you missed it. Have no fear, though! This is MTV we're talking about, the network that never met a show it didn't replay on an infinite loop. The "scripted reality" of The College Humor Show has more in common with Human Giant than The Hills, but while the jokes might hedge toward the wrong side of hipster, we still think there will be enough comedic gold to sift out over six episodes to make it all worthwhile. If The College Humor Show can approximate the vibe of the College Humor Web series Hardly Working, we're sold. [MTV, 2:30 a.m.]

Wednesday: Life on Mars
Wednesday's other time travel drama is a tough nut to crack. In fact, we've thought more than once about taking Life on Mars out of our DVR rotation permanently. And yet! The show keeps winning us over, almost despite itself, thanks to scripts that adroitly tow the line between parody and homage. It also doesn't hurt that Life on Mars has such a top drawer cast. Especially of note is Harvey Keitel; he's so effortlessly good, it makes you wonder why no one thought of casting him on a television show before. [ABC, 10 p.m.]

Thursday: Talk to Me
From the hit-filled soundtrack to the killer Afro that Taraji P. Henson sports for most of the film, Talk to Me is a treasure trove of '60s nostalgia. Don Cheadle gives his best performance to date as controversial Washington, D.C., disc jockey Petey Greene, and Chitewel Ejiofor yeomanly plays the radio programmer who gave him a chance. Together, the two men are fantastic, but we particularly love the aforementioned Ms. Henson. In Talk to Me, she displays the same motherly warmth she does in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but it comes wrapped in cleavage-baring tops and hot pants. [@Max, 7:15 p.m.]

Friday: Dollhouse
Joss Whedon's new series already qualifies as "much maligned" and it hasn't even premiered yet. After going through a number of reshoots and rewrites, Dollhouse finally sees the light of day this week, but with a "Fridays at 9" time slot, we wouldn't hold our breath for much success. The bland and beautiful Eliza Dushku stars as Echo, an "Active" who works for a shady organization that imprints new personalities onto its employees so they can fulfill any number of assignments—from fantasy to criminal. Think Alias but with even more costume changes. Catch it while you can. [Fox, 9 p.m.]

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Don Cheadle will replace Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2 playing Jim Rhodes, best friend to Tony Stark/Iron Man. Apparently Mr. Howard and Marvel Studios parted ways after a financial disagreement, which doesn't surprise us based on the fact that Marvel low-balled director Jon Favreau before finally agreeing to terms with the director. It looks like Mr. Howard got the blowback from that negotiation.

In the first go around, Mr. Howard was a complete misfire. With acting skill that reminded us of Cuba Gooding, Jr. post-Jerry Maguire fame, he looked overwhelmed and under-talented compared to his other co-stars. Perhaps Mr. Howard needed a larger role to help rev up his slow burn engine, but it didn't help that Mr. Downey Jr. had more chemistry with the HAL-9000 knock-off that controlled Tony Stark's house than he did with Mr. Howard, Tony Stark's supposed best friend. Mr. Cheadle, on the other hand, has become adept at sharing the screen with superstars in big budget spectacles thanks to his excellent work on the Ocean's movies. He seems very comfortable with appearing in a handful of scenes and cutting through the clutter to make a great impression.

In an odd twist of fate, it appears that Marvel would like Jim Rhodes to have a larger role in the upcoming sequel, as the character will eventually become War Machine in the Iron Man universe. Does that mean we could be in store for a Don Cheadle spin-off superhero movie? Sweet! If Tobey Maguire and Robert Downey Jr. can do it, we don't see why Mr. Cheadle can't.

Yesterday, Eric D. Snider of the Web site Cinematical, explained how Mr. Martin came to lay the foundation for the movie:

Well, that explains it. But critics still seem surprised. Here's a sampling of movie reviewers' bemused reactions to Mr. Martin's participation in the project:

- "The movie, written and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff from a story by him and executive producer Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin; apparently he's wilder and crazier than we thought), keeps us guessing," Ty Burr, The Boston Globe.

- "The story was cooked up by Steve Martin. Yes, that Steve Martin," Michael Phillips, The Chicago Tribune

- "Scripted and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff (co-writer of the 2004 eco-thriller 'The Day After Tomorrow') from an story co-written with actor Steve Martin (yes, that S.M.), the film hinges on a tedious plot point," Jim Verniere, The Boston Herald.

- "'Traitor,' which was written and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, from a story by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin), has been so liberally polished with the varnish of sincerity that it would be hard, for its first hour at least, not to take it seriously," Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.

- "The story, written by Jeffrey Nachmanoff (who also directed it) and Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin), is excellent," Mishael Devlin, The Bulletin (Philadelphia.

- "What makes this fact more remarkable is that the film's story was dreamed up by writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff ('The Day After Tomorrow') along with Steve Martin. Yes, that Steve Martin," Michael Smith, Tulsa World.

- "Based on an original story by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) and Nachmanoff, Traitor is designed to pump the adrenaline as well as the conscience," Carrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

"It's a show!" sighed Mr. Christiana, when queried about a recent New York magazine article that chronicled the rivalry between Project Runway judge and recent Marie Claire hire Nina Garcia, and Anne Slowey, Fashion News Director at Elle and the Miranda Priestly-esque star of the CW's forthcoming battle-of-the-fashion-assistants Stylista. "I don't take things so seriously when it comes to fashion. We're not curing cancer, we're making clothing."

The designer and FIT grad has been keeping quite the busy schedule since being auf'd for not creating the perfect prom dress. His many upcoming projects include a men's line "for guys that have, like, real bodies," a women's line "for women who have actual curves," and frequent guest slots on the next season of The Rachael Ray Show. Mr. Christiana also mentioned that he and fellow season four alum Jack Mackenroth (the contestant who left the show mid-season after getting a staph infection) are working together on a new series. "It's the odd couple gay-straight thing," said Mr. Christiana. "I can't really talk about it because I'm under contract," he added, although he did tell the Daily Transom it wouldn't be on Bravo's fall line up. Lifetime, perhaps? They lurve their edgy reality TV these days!

Seated next to a pretty brunette a few feet away was Jesse Williams, who plays an art-student-slash-nude-model-hunk in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Earlier, Mr. Williams told the Daily Transom what it's like when your first Hollywood movie is a total estrogen-fest.

"It was outstanding," he said. "Everybody was really sweet." Those bright blue eyes are even brighter in person! But did he catch up on all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls to prepare for his romantic moments with Alexis Bledel? "I watched the first movie several times, and I did watch some Gilmore Girls," Mr. Williams said, sans any telling eye-rolls that might bespeak of his embarrassment. Delighted, we pictured him taking in a Rory-Lorelai marathon at his apartment in Crown Heights.

British rapper Estelle preceded Mr. Williams on the red carpet prior to Traitor's screening. The recording artist is about to leave for a tour with Gym Glass Heroes and the Roots. That doesn't mean she doesn't have time to read blogs, though. In particular, a blog penned by one Kanye West, whose vocals were featured on Estelle's hit "American Boy."

"If you look at the tone of Kanye's blog," she said--waving away the accusations that Mr. West doesn't know a comment from an RSS feed and pays someone to post items for him--"you cannot doubt that it's Kanye. Just--it's Kanye. Please!"

Not long after her, Danity Kane's Aubrey O'Day tottered past in snake-skin boots, black leggings, and a white feathery vest that displayed a rather prominent décolletage. "I don't even use the phrase," Ms. O'Day replied, fluttering her eyelash extensions when we asked how she personally interprets the phrase "bitchassedness," which P. Diddy thrust into the vernacular on the last season of Making the Band. "It's silly!" giggled the singer, who is currently playing Amber Von Tussle in Hairspray on Broadway.

Given her fanciful wardrobe, Ms. O'Day appeared amenable to the idea that she was a kind of teen idol, although Traitor's leading man, Mr. Pearce, had no advice to offer the latest crop of young things--say, High School Musical's Zac Efron?--attempting to make a serious crossover similar to his own. (Mr. Pearce got his break starring in the Australian soap Neighbours. Just like Natalie Imbruglia and Kylie Minogue!) "I'd done a lot of theater growing up, so this TV show was just one of the many things that I've done. Obviously I had to become aware of the fact that it became the most popular show in England and across Europe. That was a bit of a struggle to deal with, in a way," he said.

Now, though, the English-born, Australian-raised actor seems to enjoy defying stereotypes at every turn: He's playing a truth-seeking FBI agent in Traitor, which opens August 27, yet stars in a "quite different" warm-fuzzy Adam Sandler film, Bedtime Stories, out this Christmas. And last night, nobody could stop talking about the horn-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses Mr. Pearce donned for the premiere, which he wore with the casually blasé flair possible only to those who have transcended their heartthrob status. Take that, Rivers Cuomo!

The 43-year-old actor received an Oscar nomination in 2005 for his role as Paul Rusesabagina, the hotelier who sheltered Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide, in Hotel Rwanda; it was that film that inspired Mr. Cheadle to establish his political organization Not on Our Watch and start lobbying the government to end genocide worldwide. But Mr. Cheadle insisted that others highlighted in Darfur Now are taking bolder steps, like Adam Sterling, an American waiter who dedicates his free time to informing the public about the situation in Darfur and urging his own local government to take action. “I think there’s a propensity for people to say, ‘I can’t do anything, I’m just a fill-in-the-blank,’” Mr. Cheadle said.

“I suggest that they ask themselves this question”—what they can do, Mr. Cheadle added. “What they find is, there’s some untapped resources. Are you active in your community? Are you good at writing letters? Are you good at using the Internet? … You can start from anywhere.”

Darfur Now opens at the Angelicka Film Center on Nov. 2.

At the recent opening night of Suzan-Lori Parks' Topdog/Underdog , directed by George C. Wolfe at the Public Theater, Jeffrey Wright and Don Cheadle, the two actors who had riveted us with Ms. Parks' story of brotherhood and tragic destiny, took their well-deserved bows and called Ms. Parks up onstage to join them. You should have seen her face!

She looked so thrilled and happy and beautiful and hopelessly embarrassed . What an astonishing thing it is to be a playwright! To even think of writing a play strikes me as a heroic act. I believe the theater belongs essentially to writers. After all, in the beginning was the word ....

With Suzan-Lori Parks–whom I place alongside Tony Kushner as our most gifted of playwrights– thuh word is always playfully, jazzily alive and, for me, terribly sad. The loopier–the more laughably funny–her memorable plays become, the more they cause us to grieve. Ms. Parks is an original. So are her stories.

Her plays of emotional turmoil and dark comedy are fables of identity and loss, of white icons and black despair, historic lies and fakery, theater and illusion, a tragic America lost in a theme-park destiny like a circus with sideshow freaks. "Watch me close," goads the mesmerizing three-card monte hustler in Topdog/Underdog , dealing the cards like a whisper to suckers. "Watch me close now. Who see thuh black card who see the black card I see thuh black card black cards thuh winner that's thuh winner pick the red card that's thuh loser pick thuh other red card that's thuh other loser .... Who see thuh black card who see thuh black card?"

Topdog/Underdog takes place in a rooming house where Booth (Don Cheadle), a black man in his early 30's, wants to be a master of three-card monte like his older brother, who gave up the scam when his partner was shot. Booth, a.k.a. Three-Card, lacks the basic marketable skills. "Pick thuh black card and you pick thuh loser," he says, clumsily practicing the ancient art of fooling fools.

Booth is a loser–the underdog–and he's a thief. "I stole and I stole generously," he announces, presenting his brother with a cool new suit in one of the funniest scenes in the play after a busy day shoplifting. Booth keeps a stack of porn magazines under the bed. "I'm hot," he explains indignantly. "I need constant sexual release .... As goes thuh man so goes thuh man's dick. That's what I say." He seems to have a fiancée named Grace, but Grace is another story.

His brother sleeps on a recliner in the seedy room, handing over his paycheck every week in some sweet, pathetic remembered gesture of happy families. He's called Lincoln, a.k.a. Link (played by Jeffrey Wright), the so-called topdog in this prophetic brotherhood. Their father named them Lincoln and Booth as a joke. Some sick joke, of course. As Lincoln sings in an idle moment of comically bad blues:

My dear mother left me, my fathers gone away.

My dear mother left me, and my fathers gone away.

I don't got no money, I don't got no place to stay.

My best girl, she threw me out into the street

My favorite horse, they ground him into meat

I'm feeling cold from my head down to my feet ….

Ms. Parks enjoys a dark irony or two–and so do we–but Mr. Wright's first entrance as Lincoln is riveting and scary, and it haunts us. He comes in quietly, and he's literally dressed as Abraham Lincoln in an antique frock coat, a stovepipe hat and beard. He's in whiteface. His movements are heavy and resigned. (Booth's are light, quicksilver.) This is a man who has already died, and the bizarre, staggering image of his entrance couldn't be more disturbing. Like some monstrous joke on mythic history, a black man appears in whiteface playing the nation's white icon. It turns out that the only honest work the reformed three-card monte magician can find is pretending to be Honest Abe in an arcade where customers pretending to be Booth can shoot him with blanks to reenact the assassination.

"Folks come in to kill phony Honest Abe with the phony pistol," he explains, sounding reasonable. "I can sit there and let my mind travel."

"Think of women," his brother says hopefully.

"Sometimes."

The freak-show Lincoln is a theme that has preoccupied Ms. Parks as if she can't get it out of fractured dreams, or isn't done with it yet. A Lincoln impersonator, known as the Foundling Father, appeared in The America Play , which took place in A Great Hole of History, a Hall of Mirrors or Minstrel Gallery. Pretend John Wilkes Booths avenged the South by assassinating the actor who's Lincoln while others dug feverishly for life and meaning and memory in the detritus of America's fabled history.

So in Topdog/Underdog , two rival, abandoned black brothers are scarcely living a half-life in the raggedy and bloody American wasteland. Even the Lincoln impersonator is to be replaced–made redundant–by a wax dummy. The dummy can do the job cheaper, more efficiently, than the man who made Honest Abe his career of humiliation.

I didn't find the tragic outcome of Topdog/Underdog too predictable, as some have. For the tragic inheritance of these two hustlers and deceivers is already determined from the outset, and the conclusion is more powerful for being absolutely, horribly inevitable. "Lean in close and watch me now …. "

There is so much here to admire, and so much to fear about humanity gone wrong. Mr. Wolfe and his two stars, Mr. Wright and Mr. Cheadle, have surely done their best work, and they've done the remarkable play proud. Who writes plays like Suzan-Lori Parks? She's such a gifted and generous talent it breaks your heart.