Battle, Hamnet Dominate GGs

Teyana Taylor, Timothee Chalamet, Jessie Buckley
and Ryan Coogler at the GGs.
Credit: Rich Polk/GG2026

One Battle After Another and Hamnet were the big winners at the Golden Globes Awards hosted by Nikki Glaser and broadcast on CBS. For her second consecutive year as host, Glaser scored major laughs, particularly against the host network, calling out the recent shift towards the right. "CBS News is now See BS," she quipped. Battle won named Best Picture (Comedy), Director, Screenplay and Supporting Actress (Teyana Taylor). Hamnet triumphed as Best Picture (Drama) and Actress (Drama) for Jesse Buckley. After similar wins at the Critics' Choice Awards last week, Battle is now positioned as the frontrunner for the upcoming Oscars. Sinners, KPop Demon Hunters, and The Secret Agent won two awards each.

In the TV categories Netflix' Adolescence was the big winner, repeating triumphs at the Emmys and Critics Choice Awards with wins for Best Limited/Anthology Series or TV Movie and acting awards to Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper, and Erin Doherty.

Judd Apatow was the best presenter, humorously ripping the GGs for his loss in 2015. His film Trainwreck lost the Best Comedy Award to Ridley Scott's The Martian which wasn't exactly a laugh riot. Wanda Sykes was a close runner-up for Best Presenter by roasting each of the nominees for Best Comedy Special and then declaring she would accept the award for the absent winner Ricky Gervais and thank the trans community on his behalf. Gervais recently made offensive gags about trans women and refused to apologize or take them back.

A list of winners follows:

B'way Review: Bug

Carrie Coon and Namir Smallwood in Bug.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Since its London premiere in 1996, Tracey Letts’ riveting psycho-thriller Bug has become more relevant and therefore even scarier. Currently revived in a forceful production from Steppenwolf Theater Company and director David Cromer, presented on Broadway by Manhattan Theater Club, Bug explores the paranoid fantasies of a conspiracy theorist and how his fear of phantom big-government forces destroy his life and that of everyone around him. In the years since its London opening and Obie-winning Off-Broadway run in 2004, our national fever dreams have intensified, fed by the ravings of our unhinged president and the unrestrained avalanche of disinformation spewing out of the Internet. Twenty years ago, this was a crackling good horror story. Now it’s all too real. 

Set in a grubby Oklahoma motel room (memorably shoddy set design by Takeshi Kata), the plot focuses on two pathetic loners, beset by tragedy, filling up their empty souls and rationalizing their misery with insane convictions of Big-Brother mind control. Agnes (a magnificently tortured Carrie Coon, Letts’ spouse) is scraping by as a cocktail waitress, contending with an abusive ex-husband just out of stir who wants back in her life. She meets Peter (a haunted and numb Namir Smallwood), a seemingly sympathetic drifter who gradually reveals a dangerous belief system. A persistent toothache and an insect sighting are early warning signs that all is not right with Peter. As Peter draws Agnes into his maze of misconceptions, she abandons all reason and joins him in a demented nightmarescape (Kata’s increasingly spooky set, Heather Gilbert’s unsettling lighting and Josh Schmidt’s eerie sound design complete the Twilight Zone-like environment.)

B'way Update: Titanique Cast; Gay Fantasticks

Jim Parsons, Debrah Cox, Frankie Grande
and Constantine Rousouli
will headline Titanique on Broadway.

Titanique, the long-running Off-Broadway parody musical, has announced new passengers for its Broadway voyage. Joining co-creator Marla Mindelle as Celine Dion will be four-time Emmy Award winner and Tony nominee Jim Parsons (“Big Bang Theory,” Mother Play, Our Town) as Ruth Dewitt Bukater; multi-platinum Grammy-nominated singer and actress Deborah Cox (The Wiz, The Bodyguard Musical) as Unsinkable Molly Brown; original cast member Frankie Grande (Rock of Ages, Mamma Mia) returns as Victor Garber; and Olivier Award-winning Titanique co-creator Constantine Rousouli (Wicked, Cruel Intentions: The Musical) as Jack Dawson, a role he originated off-Broadway. Additional casting will be announced in the coming weeks. 

Previews begin March 26 at the St. James Theater with an opening set for April 26. The limited run engagement will play through July 12.

More Batman Humor That Went Over My Head as a Kid

Loren Ewing, Doodles Weaver (Sigourney
Weaver's uncle) and Art Carney
In the "Shoot a Crook Arrow" episode
of Batman

Shoot a Crooked Arrow/Walk the Straight and Narrow: The second, much campier season of Batman premiered with Art Carney as The Archer, a low-rent, wanna-be Robin Hood. Carney was inspired casting for this role since he was best known for playing the blue-collar, lovable sewer worker Ed Norton on The Jackie Gleason Show. Norton was the opposite of the debonair Errol Flynn image of the noble bandit. In fact, I remember Carney as Norton making a joke about a weirdly dressed fellow cruise ship passenger on the Gleason Show. "He looks like this week's Special Guest Villain," Norton quipped. I remember thinking Carney was a Special Guest Villain just a few weeks earlier. 

As the Dynamic Duo descend the side of police headquarters to pursue the escaping Archer, they encounter this episode's window cameo, Dick Clark, then host of the ABC music series, American Bandstand. (Although what Dick Clark is doing in police headquarters is never made clear.) There's also a reference to The Music Man with Bruce Wayne informing Dick Grayson, "we've got trouble, right here in Gotham City." Veteran character actor Sam Jaffe appears as Zoltan Zorba, the first poor Gotham City resident to receive a $100 bill from the Wayne Foundation (which turns out to be a counterfeit bill courtesy of The Archer). Jaffe was best known for playing Dr. Zorba on Ben Casey. There's also a corny lecture from a police officer who chides a complaining female motorist that Batman gets away with speeding through Gotham City without so much as a ticket. The cop informs the griper Batman is pursuing criminals but under normal circumstances he's the safest driver in GC. The other drivers applaud. Robert Cornthwaite appears as Allan A. Dale (get it?), the fussy, clench-jawed administrator of the Wayne Foundation grants and secret accomplice of the Archer. This character is coded-gay with a handkerchief tucked up his sleeve and creepy admiration of Batman's cowl.

Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief

(Borrowed from my husband after he finished with it.) A fascinating account of Jefferson Davis' tenure as President and Commander of the Confederate forces during the Civil War. Unlike Lincoln, Davis had a military background and tended to take total charge of strategy, going through five Secretaries of War. Lincoln relied on advise from his cabinet and generals (detailed by Doris Kearns Goodwin in Team of Rivals.) Davis was a micromanager, reluctant to delegate authority. He also allowed petty rivalries between his generals to influence him and  allowed personal friends to stay in positions even after they proved unsuitable. McPherson makes the case that another President would not have changed the results and that Davis was the best possible man for the job despite his flaws. The author also makes the point that Davis' intransigence on keeping Southern independence and opposition to the abolition of slavery prolonged the war.   

One Battle Wins Again with NSFC

Ethan Hawke was named Best Actor
for Blue Moon from the National
Society of Film Critics.

One Battle After Another continues winning battles among film awards, taking four prizes from the National Society of Film Critics including Best Picture, Best Director (Paul Thomas Anderson), Supporting Actor (Benicio Del Toro) and Supporting Actress (Teyana Taylor). Ethan Hawke was named Best Actor for his performance as the ill-fated lyricist Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon and Kathleen Chalfant won Best Actress as an elderly woman struggling with memory issues in Familiar Touch. One Battle has already won Best Picture from the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. This quadruple crown increases its Oscar chances, but does not guarantee a win on Hollywood's biggest night. Of the three previous films that achieved all four top prizes--Schindler's List, L.A. Confidential and The Social Network--only first won the Best Picture Oscar.

The Society, which is made up of more than 60 of the country’s most prominent movie critics, held its 59th annual awards voting meeting on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. Critics voted at in-person gatherings in Los Angeles and New York, and also participated virtually from across the country.

A complete list of the winners follows:

Kennedy Center Horrors

2025 Kennedy Center Honorees and Trump
supporters.

This year's low-rated, horrible Kennedy Center Honors were like an auto accident on the freeway--I couldn't stop myself from looking at the wreckage. Trump has turned what was once a national honor into his own ego-driven, self-gratification ceremony. Probably because he felt slighted by the Center during his first term and refused to attend. It has since been revealed that once he got into his second term and appointed himself Chairman of the Board, he changed the rules of the board so only those he appointed were allowed to vote and thereby stacked the deck to get his name added. Then he announced he would be hosting. The honorees were figures he liked and who had hit their peaks decades ago. The resultant fiasco ceremony was a true embarrassment. 

For the broadcast, Trump made live opening and closing remarks. His opening speech was over 20 minutes and included the usual rants on tariffs, and lies about the 2020 election which he still can't admit he lost. CBS cut the political stuff and left Trump's bloviating about his supposedly saving the Kennedy Center and how this year's honorees are the greatest entertainers to ever walk the face of the earth. Really, Donald? Gloria Gaynor and Sly Stallone are on a par with William Shakespeare, Greta Garbo, and Charlie Chaplin? 

The remainder of Trump's mummified remarks were taped at the White House so Trump and Melania could be seen seen sitting next to the winner being spotlighted. BTW, there was a commercial for the $44 million dollar Amazon documentary on Melania that no one will go see in theaters.