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?)

HURRICANE HUBRIS:

POWER UP IN THE PARK: Duracell sprang into action in Sandy’s aftermath by deploying its military-sounding “rapid responder trucks” to the appropriately named Battery Park City with charging stations and of course, free samples of the most popular size batteries for re-stocking. Advertising Age, the Financial Times and Gizmodo fawned over Duracell’s act of kindness. Our only question: where was Trojan? They might have backed up their famous free vibrator giveaway “pleasure carts” right behind Duracell’s wagons. Flashlights aren’t things powered by batteries.   FLACKERY INDEX: 3

BOND TRIAL: Figuring Bond fans would do just about anything short of run their mothers off the road with an Aston Martin DB5 to score a pair of free Skyfall tickets (approximate value = $22), Coke Zero posted a “candid” YouTube video of several surprisingly good-looking “unsuspecting passengers” at a train station being ordered by a soda vending machine’s LED screen to race to platform 6 “to unlock the 007 in you.” Clearly, these were not cynical, grumbling New Yorkers at Grand Central, because in a millisecond, the passengers dashed like lab rats through a maze of staged obstacles to get to platform 6, where they happily sang the James Bond theme song to earn those freebies. Somehow, we don’t imagine 007 making an ass of himself for a couple of movie tickets, but superspies have done worse (ahem, Petreaus). Lest there be any doubt that these kinds of crass tricks still work on a cynical populace, that video racked up nearly eight million views.  FLACKERY INDEX: 3

BIG MONEY FOR BIGFOOT: Offering cash awards that you have no expectation of actually following through on is a time-honored tradition. Playboy and Hustler, for instance, are forever trying to outbid the other to get the likes of Sarah Palin, Miley Cyrus, Kate Gosselin and Rihanna to strip, with no success, sob, unless you consider generating endless column inches of hype to be success (we do). Continuing this fine custom of pseudo-generosity, Spike TV and insurer-to-the-stars Lloyd’s of London recently announced it is giving away a cable network-bankrupting $10 million for proof of Bigfoot’s existence. While you may believe this is a generous endowment of educational television, the impulse is actually more honorable than that: greed, pure and simple. Spike would dearly love its forthcoming series, aptly titled, uh, “10 Billion Dollar Bigfoot Bounty” to draw some attention away from Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot, now going into its third season without finding the elusive Squatch. (They’ve come too far to give up now!) However, nothing is too low when you dangle that dough, which explains why The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, MSN and others, not to mention the Bigfoot Forums message board, eagerly covered the “offer.” Just in case any cynics doubted the prize was genuine, a Spike exec told the Huffington Post: “If this series idea had come in without that Lloyd’s of London mark attached to it, I don’t think we would have taken it seriously.”  FLACKERY INDEX: 3

PHALLIC FORECAST: Public relations is like Ted Nugent’s mouth—it never rests. CNN was faced with a predicament last week: its quadrennial chance to announce who the ruler of the Free World, a surefire and much needed ratings boost, was complicated somewhat by the worst natural disaster in East Coast history. Millions of households—Nielsen households!—were still without power, and so therefore could not preserve their perishable food, or gaze into one another’s faces or appreciate the wisdom of Wolf Blitzer. But then someone had an idea to use the Empire State Building as a big phallic beacon of democracy. With CNN footing the bill, the skyskraper lights would reflect the vote count, so New Yorkers, huddling in the freezing darkness, could simply cast a glance out their windows and learn the the tally of Electoral College votes. The gambit worked so well that it landed on the cover of this week’s issue of The New Yorker. Congrats, CNN, you’re this week’s winner! FLACKERY INDEX: 4   

Drew Kerr, a longtime practitioner of the dark arts of public relations, is the founder and president of Four Corners Communications. You can follow him on Twitter at @drewkerr.

Adele (Getty Images)

Adele is following in the imposing footsteps of Shirley Bassey, Carly Simon, and Duran Duran--and the less impressive ones of Sheryl Crow and Chris Cornell--with her new theme song to the upcoming James Bond thriller Skyfall. Her song, according to Roger Friedman, is to be called "Let the Sky Fall" and feature the lyric “Let the sky fall/Let it crumble/We will stand tall/And face it all/together."

This is Adele's first new material since her mega-smash 21 album, which came out in January 2011 but which the singer is still promoting, with a current cover of Rolling Stone. It's also to be the first James Bond title song to be performed by a big-voiced chanteuse since 1995's Tina Turner "GoldenEye" (sorry, Madonna and Alicia Keys).

Jennifer Garner in 'Butter'

The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson

Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

September 14

This long-deferred movie actually couldn’t have been better timed. An apparent allegory for the creation of Scientology, The Master comes along just as public interest in the (alleged!) money-grubbing cult is at an all-time high, post-Tom/Katie divorce. In this telling, Philip Seymour Hoffman is the L. Ron Hubbard-like figure who snares untold numbers of believers into his thrall. Plot details, per Paul Thomas Anderson’s standard, are hazy, but the trailer reveals simply that Mr. Anderson has kept up his keen attention to aesthetic compostion--and that Amy Adams, playing a devoted cult wife, may be this film’s MVP. Can we arrange for Katie Holmes to present her the Oscar?

Killing Them Softly

Andrew Dominik

Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Sam Rockwell

September 21

Andrew Dominik’s follow-up to the much-loved, little-seen Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford jumps forward in time--it’s a modern-day store of mobland America, based on a pulp crime novel. The movie was a hit at Cannes, and may be yet another feather in the cap of good-looking weirdo character actor Brad Pitt, who plays a hitman’s assistant, or “point man.” The whole thing promises to be a real boys’ club, with costars like Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, and Ray Liotta, who knows a thing or two (actually, just one thing) about mob movies.

Butter

Jim Field Smith

Yara Shahidi, Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell

October 5

Little is really known about this long-delayed satirical film. How long-delayed was it, you ask? The early buzz was that Jennifer Garner’s character, a housewife and competitive butter-sculptor, was based on Presidential front-runner Michele Bachmann. Director Jim Field Smith hails from the U.K. but takes on heartland rituals in this look at the dairy-art circuit, whose protagonist is an adopted orphan daring to take on the longtime champions (Ms. Garner and Mr. Burrell). Somehow, Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde, and Alicia Silverstone fit into this puzzle--no word on what Ms. Silverstone, noted vegan, did around the enormous blocks of milk product.

Argo

Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin

October 12

Ben Affleck, flamed-out Hollywood star, has had a successful second career as the director of Boston heist pictures, but his third directorial effort, Argo, finally takes him outside of the old neigborhood. Mr. Affleck stars as a CIA officer who comes up with a cunning plan to rescue escapees during the Iran hostage crisis--he fakes the production of a sci-fi movie (Iran makes a lovely moonscape, after all) and attempts to airlift out the Americans, pretending they’re crew members. Sounds fairly tidy, but we’re sure complications will ensue--and we haven’t even read the Wired article on which the whole thing’s based!

Cloud Atlas

Tom Twkyer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry

October 26

Everyone believed that the mammoth David Mitchell novel, encompassing millennia of human experience, was unfilmable. And maybe everyone was right! All we know right now is that the Wachowskis (of the Matrix films) and Tom Twkyer (of Run Lola Run) have turned all of their creative over-enthusiasm towards putting together the most rollicking movie ever to contain both a Martin Amis-style comedy of manners and a post-apocalyptic agrarian community on Hawaii. Somehow, major stars like Tom Hanks and Halle Berry fit into the equation. As you read this description, you’re already significantly behind; you’d better start reading Cloud Atlas this minute if you hope to have it finished and marginally comprehended by October!

Keira Knightley in 'Anna Karenina'

Skyfall

Sam Mendes

Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes

November 9

The next, and long-delayed, installment in the James Bond story comes with a schmancy pedigree--director Sam Mendes has experienced diminishing returns since the 1990s, but he still, you know, has an Oscar. So too does Javier Bardem, who promises to be the most menacing villain since Dr. No. Un-bedecked by golden trophies are new Bond girls Naomie Harris and Bérénice Marlohe, but that’s hardly the point, is it? About the plot, little is known, but for the promise of spy-queen M’s past coming back to haunt her. All the better: it’s about time Judi Dench got to stretch her acting muscles in the Bond movies.

Anna Karenina

Joe Wright

Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson

November 9

Joe Wright just can’t resist the charms of Keira Knightley--and he’s hardly alone! Mr. Wright made it cool to think Ms. Knightley was a good actress by directing her in well-received roles in Pride & Prejudice and Atonement--without his attentions, she’s languished a bit. But Ms. Knightley is back doing what she does best (aristocratic hauteur, wearing elaborate garments, telling off gentlemen), and this time, she’s got a complement of men to choose from. Though all of us English majors know how it ends, let’s form factions rooting for Jude Law’s Karenin or Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Vronsky--or, at least, let’s decide after the fact who had the most convincing Russian accent.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 2

Bill Condon

Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner

November 16

The series that launched a million magazine covers has finally ended (though the saga of its stars’ offscreen love will surely inflate the bottom line at many a media company for years to come). It’s the final installment of the Twilight series--or “Saga,” as the producers would Germanically have it--and if you waited a week to see any of the fine independent films released last week, get in line early for popcorn. Every tween and teen and regressing thirtysomething within a five-mile radius cannot wait to see just how the Bella-Edward vampire-mortal union ends--even though the book came out years ago! No matter. Fandom, like vampirism, is eternal.

Life of Pi

Ang Lee

Irrfan Khan, Gérard Depardieu

November 21, 2012

Another unfilmable novel adapted to the screen? It must be fall! Ang Lee attempts something of a comeback with his adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel, wherein a boy and a tiger are trapped on a raft floating in uncharted waters. Mr. Lee has a lot to prove, having released a couple of films consecutively that couldn’t quite match Brokeback Mountain in terms of popular acclaim. Perhaps the transfer to a wholly new environment, with the challenge both of a dense, allusive text and of a, you know, tiger, will move him to new heights! If not, it’ll at least be the season’s most compelling misfire.

Les Misérables

Tom Hooper

Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway

December 14

Anne Hathaway has subjected you to her songs through lo these many Oscar ceremonies--and now she finally has the opportunity to belt it out on film! The world’s most energetic entertainer shifts down a gear to play doomed prostitute Fantine in the adaptation of the world-rattling Broadway show; her costars include Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe playing, respectively, the unfairly convicted Valjean and the doggedly devoted Javert. Other cast members in director Tom Hooper’s first post-Oscar flick include Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the garrulous-to-a-fault Thénardiers, but it’s Ms. Hathaway who’s likely dreaming a dream... of Oscar!