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Toldja so: Ricky Gervais is your Golden Globe host
Published: 11/17/2011 2:28 PM
Last Modified: 11/17/2011 3:10 PM

Ricky Gervais = buzz.

Readers of the Tulsa World knew 10 months ago what the Hollywood Foreign Press Association made official on Thursday: Ricky Gervais will return as host of the Golden Globe Awards.
I refer readers to my column which appeared in the Jan. 21 edition of the newspaper. It really said it all then, and it says it all now.
Also, look below for a five-minute clip of the opening monologue that Gervais delivered at last January's Golden Globes. It's saucy.

Ricky Gervais will be back hosting the Golden Globes, maybe as soon as next year. The show can't afford to not have him back.
The British comic known for his withering put-downs told dirty jokes and said shocking things. He saved several of his meanest jabs for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the foreign journalists who nobody seems to know — but who put on a great shindig every January — and who hired Gervais as host.
Conventional wisdom might tell you that HFPA members won't be inviting him back to mock them. Gervais said weeks ago that he won't be back, because doing this gig twice is enough. I'm not buying it.
He was hired to say shocking things for the second year in a row. The ratings went up last year, and this year they stayed high. That equates to more money from advertisers, and it's all about the money.
It would be difficult to think of a more bottom-line place than Hollywood, and the only thing that can excite publicists and movie studio heads more than money is buzz. Buzz is that hard-to-describe and even harder-to-attain sense that something exciting is happening, and people want to be a part of that party, and that the party is going to make people a lot of money.
This year's Golden Globes even has buzz after the ceremony is over. Industry types as well as the common man are chatting away: Did Gervais go too far? Did he go too off-color with references to Scientology, homosexuality, rehab and other stars' past indiscretions? Or did those rich, snobby actors get what they deserved?
Will Gervais be invited back as host? That's right up there with, "Does the pope live in the Vatican?" Yes, Gervais will be back.
When it's announced at some future point that he'll return as host of the Golden Globes, some will have the sentiment that they'll take a pass on Gervais. But the overwhelming sentiment about his third go-round will be obvious: What's Ricky going to say this year?
That's buzz. The Globes people will want it, and Gervais will want it. He'll be back as host, skewering male stars left and right (Did you notice his targets for painful embarrassment were all men?). Maybe not next January, but he'll be back. That’s the way the world works. That’s the way that Hollywood works.

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I See Movies for Free

“I was born a poor, black child” … not me, actually, but Steve Martin’s character in the “The Jerk.” That absurd opening line is just one of the absurd number of film facts, quotes and minutiae contained in movie critic Michael Smith’s brain, at his disposal to toss out on a moment’s notice. It’s a key requirement as Tulsa World film critic to know these things. Michael learned a few other life facts along the way (seven years as a Crystal’s Pizza & Spaghetti manager) before attempting journalism and joining the Tulsa World in 1996, where he’s covered everything from a school shooting in Fort Gibson to a tornado in Stroud to witnessing an execution. A little community theater coverage was sprinkled in there, too. Movies engender many of his happiest memories, from standing in line for “Star Wars” and “Grease” at the Southroads Cinema to the James Bond and Pink Panther movies that always premiered at the enormous Continental Theater.

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Past Articles By Michael Smith

2/16/2013		Broken Arrow movie theater moves to discount showings
2/15/2013		Review: 'Amour'
2/15/2013		Review: 'A Good Day to Die Hard'
2/15/2013		Review: 'Beautiful Creatures'
2/14/2013		Review: 'Quartet'
2/14/2013		Shirley MacLaine to speak at Osage Casino
2/14/2013		Weekly rewind: February 14
2/14/2013		REVIEW: 'Beautiful Creatures'
2/12/2013		Belgian best picture hopeful 'Amour' opens in Tulsa on Friday
2/10/2013		'Die Hard' marathon at AMC Southroads on Wednesday ends with new film
2/9/2013		Review: 'Identity Thief' a stupid movie from stupid idea
2/8/2013		Oscar audit: Critics choices for best picture hold up over time

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