Golden Globes: 'Banshees,' 'Fabelmans,' 'Everything Everywhere' score big

"The Banshees of Inisherin” took home three awards at Tuesday’s Golden Globes ceremony, including best motion picture in the comedy or musical category, Colin Farrell for best comedic actor and Martin McDonagh for best screenplay. Tying for second were Steven Spielberg's "The Fabelmans," which won for best drama and best director, and the sci-fi comedy mashup “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which earned Globes for its two Asian stars, leading actress Michelle Yeoh and supporting actor Ke Huy Quan.

In a historic win of sorts, Angela Bassett became the first actor to win a major individual award — best supporting actress — for a Marvel movie, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Bassett acknowledged Marvel fans in her speech: “Thank you for embracing these characters and showing us so much love.”

Many of the night's awards provided a much-needed show of diversity for the embattled Golden Globes. A Los Angeles Times report in 2021 revealed that the Globes’ parent organization, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, had no Black members, leading stars and studios to express outrage. Tom Cruise gave back his three Globes and NBC, which had broadcast the award ceremony for decades, dropped the telecast for 2022. The HFPA promised to make “meaningful reform,” and billionaire Todd Boehly purchased the nonprofit group, promising to turn it into a for-profit company.

The evening’s host, comedian Jerrod Carmichael, tackled those issues head-on in his opening monologue. “I’m here because I’m Black,” he said bluntly, then described his moral qualms about taking the job. “It was like, one minute you’re making mint tea at home, the next you’re invited to be the Black face of an embattled white organization,” he said. “It really comes at you fast, you know?”

In the end, Carmichael played the industry insider. “This is an evening where we get to celebrate,” he said, “and I think the industry deserves evenings like these.”

The industry certainly turned out in full force, with nominees from Brad Pitt (“Babylon”) to Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) to Jamie Lee Curtis (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) sitting at tables inside the Beverly Hilton, in Beverly Hills, California. Still, there were at least two glaring absences: Cruise, whose hit “Top Gun: Maverick” was a double nominee, and Brendan Fraser, an acting nominee for “The Whale” who once accused an HFPA president of groping him and recently swore he would not attend the ceremony.

Fraser didn’t win, sparing the show an awkward moment. Instead, the award for best dramatic actor went to Austin Butler, of the Elvis Presley biopic “Elvis.” Butler thanked his co-star Tom Hanks, who played Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, then gave thanks to the King himself: “You were an icon and rebel, and I love you so much.”

SEE PHOTOSGolden Globes 2023 red carpet

Following an introduction by Tracy Morgan and Jamie Lee Curtis, Roosevelt-raised comedian Eddie Murphy accepted his Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement with a surprisingly short speech full of thank-yous to movie producers, his manager and his agent. Murphy cracked a joke only once, when he offered his “definitive blueprint” for success and longevity in show-biz: “Pay your taxes, mind your business and keep Will Smith’s wife's name out your ... [expletive] mouth!”

As always at the Globes, speeches ran long and were peppered with profanity that required bleeping.

Yet the Globes still found time for Sean Penn to introduce a recorded message from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who described his nation’s struggle against Russia with a cinematic metaphor. “There will be no Third World War,” he said in halting English. “It is not a trilogy. Ukraine will stop the Russian aggression on our land.”

In the TV category, multiple awards went to the ABC comedy "Abbott Elementary" and the HBO limited series "The White Lotus." HBO's "House of the Dragon" won best TV drama.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman